Arizona Jobless-Benefit Cutoff Turns Lemon Tree Into Safety Net
Arizona Jobless-Benefit
Joshua Lott/Getty Images
Resumes were reviewed during the Arizona Workforce Connection Career Expo at the Arizona State Fair Grounds.
Resumes were reviewed during the Arizona Workforce Connection Career Expo at the Arizona State Fair Grounds. Photographer: Joshua Lott/Getty Images
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer
Ron Sachs/Pool via Bloomberg
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer. Photographer: Ron Sachs/Pool via Bloomberg
Two days after Arizona lawmakers refused to authorize federally paid jobless aid for the long- time unemployed, Joan Miller turned to one of the only safety nets she had: her friend’s lemon tree.
Miller, among about 15,000 people whose benefits ended last week, woke early, donned gardening gloves and climbed a ladder to harvest 45 lemons, which she sold for $15 to buy food. Next, she plans to go through boxes of her dead mother’s china and collectibles looking for something to sell.
“I’m appalled to find myself in this situation,” said Miller, 58, who’s lived with a friend in Phoenix since losing her $55,000-a-year fundraising job in August 2009. She estimates she’s applied to 20 jobs a week since then. “I don’t know what I am going to do.”
Thousands of Arizonans face the same challenge after lawmakers allowed the jobless aid to lapse last week. Over the last three years, Governor Jan Brewer and the Republican- controlled Legislature have also slashed social-services spending to confront annual budget deficits that peaked at about $3 billion last year.
The decision on June 13 not to authorize the jobless aid, even though it would have cost the state nothing, followed reductions in funds for child care, homeless shelters, food banks and other programs. The state gained national attention for eliminating some organ-transplant coverage, and it plans to shrink Medicaid rolls by more than 100,000 this year.
The cuts have outpaced the rest of the nation, said Liz Schott, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington-based research group that follows policies affecting low- and moderate-income families.
Lifetime Limits
As social-service programs in many states swelled during the recession, Arizona imposed lifetime limits and other restrictions that cut the population receiving help in half, Schott said.
“They’ve got nothing for people, really,” she said. “It is not a good state to be poor in.”
In May, about 18,000 families were enrolled in the state’s Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program, down from about 35,000 a year ago, according to the Economic Security Department. More will be cut off as new rules take effect next month.
Arizona’s pace of safety-net cuts surpassed other states because its economy was one of “the hardest hit” by the collapse of the real estate market, said Byron Schlomach, chief economist for the Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute, a private advocate of limited government.
‘Took a Stand’
“Our Legislature did what it had to do,” he said. They “took a stand” against government spending and economic interference by rejecting the federally backed aid.
Arizona’s unemployment rate was higher than the national average for more than three years, peaking at 10.4 percent in November 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In May, it equaled the U.S. at 9.1 percent. The state’s home-mortgage foreclosure rate was the second-highest in the nation in April, according to RealtyTrac Inc.
Arizona is the only state that didn’t act to accept the extended U.S. benefits after the issue came to the forefront, said Michael Evangelist, a policy analyst for the National Employment Law Project, a New York-based supporter of low-income workers. The benefits lapsed without government action in only two other states, Wisconsin and Alaska.
Cost to Economy
Brewer had pushed for the state to accept the aid, saying rejection would hurt the economy. On June 10, she called lawmakers into session to make a one-word change to state law that would have authorized 20 more weeks of assistance, to 99 weeks.
Though Brewer pointed out that other “conservative strongholds” had made similar moves, lawmakers ended the session on the second day without considering a bill.
By year-end, about 45,000 people could be affected at a loss to the economy of almost $90 million in federal aid, according to the Economic Security Department.
Senator Ron Gould, a Republican from Lake Havasu City, said people are more driven to find work when benefits are cut off.
“You have to get back to where everybody is responsible for themselves, instead of everyone depending on government to take care of them,” he said in a telephone interview.
Miller, the unemployed fundraiser, qualified for $200 a month in food stamps and Medicaid after her jobless benefits of $216 a week ended. To get them, she stood in line outside a North Phoenix office for two hours as temperatures exceeded 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius).
Across town, after sending an angry e-mail to lawmakers, Michael Renz began posting computer equipment and furniture for sale on Craigslist. Renz, 49, lost his job as a graphic designer last year and his jobless benefits were also cut off.
He and his wife gave up their $200,000 Phoenix home in a bank-approved sale last month for less than they owed to avoid foreclosure. He has applied to work at McDonald’s and for janitorial jobs.
“We are not lazy,” he said in a telephone interview. “We really just can’t find work.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Amanda J. Crawford in Phoenix at acrawford24@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Tannenbaum at mtannen@bloomberg.net.
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