ALBANY- Assemblyman Brian Maher (R, Walden), a co-sponsor of a bill that would study the state’s social service fiscal cliff, is lauding the bill’s passage. The effort, which was supported by both Democrats and Republicans, would create a task force to study the many fiscal cliffs faced by those receiving public assistance.
According to Maher, who serves as the Ranking Member of the Assembly’s Social Services Committee, the goal of the task force is to identify barriers that discourage job-seeking, career improvement and other efforts to improve a household’s economic well-being. Various program eligibilities are impacted by income levels leaving some recipients discouraged from accepting better employment or raises, getting married or taking other positive actions if it means they will no longer receive help from state programs, leaving these families worse off. The point of the task force is to identify these cliffs and make proposals to eliminate them.
“The point of public assistance is to help individuals and families during tough times, but we see that many of the policies embedded in the programs are discouraging career and financial growth, defeating the purpose of the help in the first place. All of us want to see public assistance act as a hand up, but as it is now, the fiscal cliffs are a hand holding people back from a better future,” said Maher.