Provides that a social services official may not recover assistance properly paid as permitted where a recipient or former recipient of such assistance was required to participate in a work experience program without first crediting against such recovery the number of hours that such person actually participated in a work experience program multiplied by the higher of the applicable state or federal minimum wage.
NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
BILL NUMBER: A2050
SPONSOR: Quart (MS) TITLE OF BILL: An act to amend the social services law, in relation
to work experience
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL: The purpose of this bill is to allow
a participant in the Work Experience Program (WEP or workfare) to have
his or her time in the program credited against any public assistance a
local social services district is entitled to recover
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:
Section 1 would amend the Social Services Law (SOS) § 336-c to require
local districts to credit the value of an individual's time in the Work
Experience Program (WEP) against any benefits legally recovered by the
district.
Section 2 would require that the Office of Temporary and Disability
Assistance promulgate any rules and regulations and conduct any requi-
site training necessary for the implementation of the act.
Section 3 provides an immediate effective date.
JUSTIFICATION: Persons who receive public assistance in New York
State are required to repay the local social services district for the
assistance they receive. Properly paid public assistance is a debt owed
by the individual who received such assistance and is subject to recov-
ery under a number of provisions of the Social Services Law. The recov-
ery of such assistance is expressly authorized against windfalls such as
inheritances (SOS 104), lawsuit proceeds (SOS 104-b), lottery winnings
(SOS 131-r) and retroactive SSI awards (SSL 153). Additionally, local
districts are entitled to recover properly paid public assistance by
requiring applicants for public assistance who own their own homes to
provide the district with a mortgage equal to the sum of public assist-
ance paid, as a condition of eligibility for assistance (SOS 106). When
an individual works off his or her grant by participation in workfare,
it is only fair that the value of that work be credited against any
recovery that the local district is entitled to make. This bill would
require local social services districts to credit the value of workfare
by calculating the number of hours worked multiplied by the higher of
the state or federal minimum wage applicable at the time, when determin-
ing the amount of properly paid public assistance that the local social
services district is entitled to recover.
This legislation would codify the holding of the United States District
Court for the Western District of New York in Elwell v. Weiss, 2007 WI
2994308, which addressed a challenge to a county's seizure of a former
recipient's retroactive SST benefits, holding that the Fair Labor Stand-
ards Act requires that workfare participants receive a credit equal to
the minimum wage value of their labor when a local district calculates
the value of a public assistance recovery. This proposed legislation is
consistent with the provisions of the social services law that recognize
workfare as work and require that workfare workers be provided with
worker's compensation and that the hours assigned cannot exceed the
total value of public assistance and food stamps received divided by the
higher of the state or federal minimum wage.
Prior to 1997, it was the long-standing policy of the state to require
local social services districts to credit workfare against any recovery
of properly paid assistance. When welfare was "reformed" in 1997, chap-
ter 436 of the laws of 1997, section 148, repealed a provision similar
to this proposal. This bill would restore the prior policy, which recog-
nized the value of such work.
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY: 2013-2014: Referred to Social Services
2012: Referred to Social Services
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS: To be determined
EFFECTIVE DATE: Immediately
