But Virginia's social services commissioner, Clarence Carter, said officials never assumed that getting people off welfare would immediately get them out of poverty. It was always understood that at the beginning, people would be at the lower end. The idea is to get them to begin that journey. He said that social services officials are working on a plan to provide services to people who are working but struggling to stay off welfare. If they cannot support their families, state law says they can go back on welfare after two years and receive benefits for two years before starting the process again.
Federal law limits most adults to five years of benefits in a lifetime.
Virginia's welfare overhaul was phased in beginning in 1995. Within 90 days of going on the rolls, welfare recipients must find a job or begin doing community service work, or they lose benefits. Their benefits initially continue when they begin earning a paycheck but end after two years. Harms reviewed the cases of the first 40 families on welfare to reach Virginia's new two-year limit on benefits. In 35 of the 40 families, the head of the household was working, but most were in entry-level positions and not making enough money to lift them out of poverty, Harms said.