As thousands of families in our state are forced to stretch their budgets further and further, several of my colleagues in the Legislature are trying to make it harder for Kansans to get the help they need to make ends meet.
I am the ranking minority member on the House Committee on Welfare Reform. This committee is new this year, and based on the discussions we have had so far, the message is clear: It was formed to make it more difficult for folks to access crucial family support programs that help supplement their grocery budgets and pay for child care, rather than work towards improving the already strained Kansas welfare system.
I know firsthand how important these programs are. I grew up in a tumultuous single-parent household where my working-class father struggled with providing enough food for every meal, paying our utilities, managing both of our Type 1 diabetes without any health insurance, and dealing with substance abuse issues.
When I was 16, he lost his job. I became the sole provider for our family while trying to stay in school so I could graduate and move on to better things.
Four years later, I became pregnant with my eldest child. My perspective changed drastically when I realized I was eligible for several programs to access what I needed to keep myself and my family healthy. I became eligible for health insurance, which allowed me to get prenatal care and manage my own diabetes. It was the first time I regularly had access to nutritious food. I felt like I could breathe a sigh of relief.
This became a turning point in my life, the beginning of climbing my way out of the cycle of generational poverty.
My husband and I did everything we were supposed to. We both worked full-time, and I went to school part-time at Johnson County Community College so I could officially begin my career as a social worker. We were thankful to qualify for child care assistance that gave us the peace of mind of knowing our child was taken care of safely while we were working for our family’s future.
But despite all of our hard work and tireless efforts, our low incomes weren’t enough for us to scrape by. We had assistance from family from time to time, but we needed help that would empower us to become more financially stable. These programs opened a door that supplemented our incomes just enough to work our way there.
After I had my son, the door that had opened to affordable insulin and an adequate-enough grocery budget slammed shut. We lost our federal food benefits and my health care, so we had to make some difficult decisions. We still had access to a small amount of nutritional help, but expensive formula and rising prices quickly ate through any extra padding it added to our grocery budget.
Twenty years later, I’m proud to say that these family support programs gave my family the opportunity to achieve financial stability. I believe other people can do it, too, but it takes a whole system of support to break the cycle of poverty that many become trapped in. And few people will be able to break that cycle if the Kansas Legislature continues to pass restriction after restriction for accessing support.
My story is not unique. There are many Kansans like me who have had to live paycheck to paycheck because they grew up impoverished and couldn’t afford food and couldn’t work more than they were — or at all, as in the case of someone experiencing an unrecognized disability.
And this is what I want my fellow lawmakers and other Kansans to know: If we are going to reform anything about the so-called “welfare” system, we must make it more robust and easier to access. We must increase benefits so they are more in line with economic realities of today — not where we were in the late 1990s.
Right now, because of the legislative and administrative hurdles that Kansas has put in place within the last decade, not enough people who could use these programs can actually access them. And even when they can, these programs are barely supplemental. The average food assistance benefit in 2023 is only $6.10 per person, per day. I would challenge my fellow lawmakers to try to feed their families on that budget.
Kansas’ maximum cash assistance benefit — the state average is $264.66 per month — has not increased since 1996, effectively a 40% decrease in value. And while the child care assistance program is available for families with incomes up to 250% of the federal poverty line (or 85% of the state median income), the legislative and administrative barriers Kansas has put into place have made participation disappointingly low. In 2021, although 300,000 Kansas kids were living at or below 250% of the federal poverty line, only 9,045 were receiving child care assistance — down from 17,684 in 2012.
I ran for office because I wanted to be a voice for people who have a story like mine. I am proud to speak up for every Kansan who has had to choose which bills get paid that month, doesn’t have enough food for every meal, has had to make the difficult choice between working and taking care of their family, and must ignore their health issues because they can’t afford to go see a doctor or fill a prescription.
