TAFDC Clothing Allowance Cut

 

One public benefit cut under provisions of the FY 12 state budget is the TAFDC annual per child clothing allowance. It has been reduced from $150 to $40. The clothing allowance was established at $50 a year in 1981. It allows families to prepare to send kids “back to school” and to pay for costly items like winter coats. It was increased to $150 in 1986. Costs have doubled since then. Advocates note $40 is woefully inadequate to buy a winter coat alone, little less a year’s worth of clothing. They note that restoring the clothing allowance to $150 would cost about $8.5 million and that FY 11 revenues exceeded projections by $723 million.

A coalition of advocacy groups is mounting a campaign to reverse this cut. For more information, contact Massachusetts Law Reform Institute (Deborah Harris, dharris@mlri.org, 617/357-0700 x313); Family Economic Initiative (Elizabeth Toulan, etoulan@gbls.org, 508/397-7733); Coalition for Social Justice (Debbie Fastino, dfastino@aol.com, 508/982-3108); Coalition Against Poverty (Missy Gilbarg, missygilbarg@gmail.com, 508-982-8746); National Association of Social Workers/MA Chapter (Rebekah Gewirtz, Gewirtz@naswma.org , 617-227-9635 x12) ; Mass. Coalition for the Homeless (Kelly Turley, kelly@mahomeless.org, 781-595-7570 x17); Rosie’s Place (Sana Fadel, sfadel@RosiesPlace.org, 617-442-9322).

 

 

7/11