Opinion ID: 1927049
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: commonwealth court's decision

Text: Commonwealth Court's rationale for its determination that welfare recipients who are already employed as well as those who are applying for work or training are eligible for the one-time grant is based mainly on that court's view that denying eligibility to welfare recipients who are already working frustrates the purpose of the regulation itself and of the Public Welfare Code of decreasing recipients' need for assistance: [The] Act of June 13, 1967, P.L. 31, as amended, 62 P.S. § 401 states that the purpose of the Code is to promote the welfare of the needy and distressed in the Commonwealth and that the Code's provisions are to be administered in such a manner  as to encourage self-respect, self-dependency and the desire to be a good citizen and useful to society. As we noted in Chase, [depriving] an applicant of the means of maintaining employment or continuing training . . . is inconsistent with grants that enable a welfare recipient to apply for or accept employment or training . . . [and] is inconsistent with Section 401 of the Code. 92 Pa.Comwlth.Ct. 181, 187, 498 A.2d 1380, 1383 (1985) (Emphasis added). The court also notes that it had held in earlier cases that the one-time grants of Section 175.23(c)(2)(iv) could not be limited only to those persons who were applying for or accepting training or employment and that this case is indistinguishable in principle from those earlier decisions in Rodgers v. DPW, 45 Pa.Comwlth. Ct. 574, 405 A.2d 1068 (1979), Chase v. DPW, 46 Pa.Comwlth. Ct. 308, 406 A.2d 261 (1979), Woody v. DPW, 66 Pa. Comwlth. Ct. 629, 445 A.2d 864 (1982), and Bittner v. DPW, 50 Pa.Comwlth. Ct. 396, 413 A.2d 20 (1980). Finally, the court observed that merely because the federal issues in the case were resolved in favor of DPW does not mean that the state issues must be so resolved.