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Women's Union Proposes Legislation to Give Vermont Public Assistance Recipients Advance Notice of Benefits Reductions

The Women's Union, a Vermont organization that works on issues that affect low-income women and women on public assistance, has proposed legislation to change the way Vermont public assistance recipients receive notice of proposed changes in benefits. The proposed legislation would require that timely individual notification of proposed cuts in benefits be given to recipients before enactment. This would change the current practice of notifying the general public about proposed cuts though public notices and only notifying recipients individually when enacted cuts are about to be applied to the individual.

The proposed legislation would require Vermont to notify public assistance recipients individually of proposed cuts in benefits at least thirty days before notification to the general public through public notices. Individual notices would begin with a heading that states, "IMPORTANT NOTICE ABOUT FUTURE CUTS," and would end with the statement, "YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO EXPRESS YOUR OPINION ABOUT CUTS WHICH WILL AFFECT YOU AND/OR YOUR FAMILY." The legislation would also require the notice to describe the amount and effects of the proposed cuts and to give information about how to respond, including a mailing address for comments, a toll-free telephone number for inquiries and comments, and the date and time of the public hearing.

The idea for this legislation came to Carol Langlais, a member of the Women's Union, after she learned that the way for a person to find out about proposed and pending legislation--including changes to public assistance--was to read a notice published in one of the local newspapers. Langlais noticed a fundamental problem because, many public assistance recipients do not have an opportunity to read the public notices and, thus, never receive advance notice of reductions in benefits. Public assistance recipients cannot afford to divert money from necessaries to buy a newspaper and cannot count on getting a copy of the free newspaper which is only distributed at certain locations. If they do get a copy of the newspaper, some may not understand that notices using complicated language about Department of Social Welfare proposed changes mean possible reductions in their public assistance benefits.


Langlais, who wears a button that reads, "welfare is not a dirty word," hopes that this legislation will return a sense of empowerment to public benefits recipients. She attributes the disempowerment, in part, to the stigma many public assistance recipients feel as a result of years of being "on television constantly, having politicians tell you that you are not worthy." One effect of this stigma and disempowerment is that welfare recipients take cuts in their benefits without protest. "They just cope--or they don't--with benefits cuts, but they don't put up a fight," Langlais says.


In Langlais' opinion, the only way to combat the perceived stigma is to bring issues related to public assistance out into the open. This proposed legislation, and the Women's Union generally, seek to do just that. Other Women's Union projects include researching the right to a guaranteed annual income and wage, finding ways to help those required to do mandatory work under "workfare" plans, planning and participating in a New England-wide People's Economic Summit, and trying to build bridges to "middle-class" allies.


This piece was prepared by Jessica Magaldi, a Center volunteer attorney from Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy.

-- from the April 2nd 1996 issue of Welfare News