The Annual ES2 / Hunger Action Network lobby day is this Tuesday, March 17th.

Hundreds of anti-poverty advocates and low-income New Yorkers will gather on Tuesday March 17th at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 262 State St in Albany (half a block from the Capitol, with a parking lot) at 9:30 AM to call for economic justice in the State Budget.

Their will be a noon time rally at the West Side of the State Capitol, featuring a call for the Bigger Better Bottle Bill and the Millionaires Tax.

To register, call 434-7371 xt 1#.

The event is being coordinated by the Hunger Action Network of New York State and the Empire State Economic Security Campaign.

The groups are making a big push to raise the welfare grant. Our organizing efforts over the last few years resulted in Governor Paterson proposing at 10% increase in the basic welfare grant each year for three years. This would be the first increase in 18 years. But with the state unexpectedly getting a half a billion dollars in extra welfare funding, we believe that some of these funds should be used to do a 30% hike right now. And to put more money into creating jobs for welfare participants and other unemployed individuals.

There are of course many budget cuts we want to defeat, such as the cut in SSI benefits and for homeless programs. We want more funds for green living wage jobs such as weatherizing homes.

We want to be able to increase access to education and job training for low-income New Yorkers.

We want to make health care a right in NYS by supporting single payer. We support the Governors proposals to use Medicaid dollars to help patients, especially by expanding access to primary care, rather than as a slush fund to bail out hospitals.

We want to make the rich pay their fair share of taxes.

We will have a briefing on the key legislative issues at 10 AM at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 262 State St. We will have a rally at noon at the West Side of the State Capitol, followed by meetings with legislators from 1 to 4 PM.

Please make our voices heard next Tuesday March 17th in Albany.

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Hunger advocates say a bigger welfare grant increase needed

Legislative Gazette, March 9, 2009

Anti-poverty groups called for an even bigger increase in the basic welfare grant, saying New Yorkers are hurting more than ever in the current economic crisis and the governor’s proposed increase doesn’t cut it.

Gov. David A. Paterson has included in his Executive Budget proposal a 30 percent increase over the next three years; 10 percent annually.

Mark Dunlea, executive director of the Faith and Hunger Network commended the governor for taking the first step but says with federal stimulus dollars on their way to New York, and recent funds from increased
food stamp enrollment, lawmakers should increase the grant even further.

The governor’s proposed 10 percent annual increase for the next three years means by 2012, the basic monthly grant for a family of three would be $387 a month, up from the current grant of $291 An estimated 200,000 households are expected to benefit from the increase, and since the first step would take place in
January 2010, the cost to the state would be $8 million in the fiscal year 2009-2010.

Once the three-phase increase is fully implemented, the annual cost to the state is projected to be $109 million.

Paterson also announced last week as a result of increased enrollment in the federally funded food stamp program — more than 15 percent in one year — New York has received $162.4 million in new federal funding through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Contingency Fund. If the state can identify additional matching funds and federal funding remains available, New York could receive $400 million by Sept. 30, money which must be used in the fiscal year it is awarded.

Dunlea said because of inflation and the rising cost of basic living items throughout the past 18 years, coupled with no welfare increase, the grant should be increased immediately, rather than over the course of three years. “On a moral level, we should be increasing the welfare grant greater than $1 a day, which is what basically the governor is proposing,” he said. “The bottom line is that New York, right now, is awash in unexpected federal welfare dollars,” Dunlea said.

“We have missed the opportunity … to use those welfare dollars to directly help poor people. We’d like to correct that mistake and we think the best way is to give a larger grant increase than what the governor has proposed.”


The Rev. Jim Weisner of Westminster Presbyterian Church and Damaris W. McGuire, executive director for New York Public Policy Network, also stressed the time for a larger increase in now, saying they have seen enormous increases in demand for services they provide to the needy and fewer resources to meet those demands. Weisner compared those in need to trapeze artists, saying life for many people right now is a “high wire act” and welfare serves as their safety net.

“After 18 years of no increase to support in New York state, that net has been set so close to the ground that it does not even break a fall,” said Weisner. “And the people who fall are subject to all kinds of indignities.”

The groups also called for increased investments in job creation for welfare participants, saying New York has been consistently ranked among the worst in helping people move from welfare to work.