We urge you to speak up against state Senate Bill 6. You may remember us telling you about this bad bill last year. Now, lawmakers are preparing to vote on this bill in the House. The vote could be as early as Tuesday, October 9.
What does SB6 do?
In short, Senate Bill 6 imposes a 10-year ban on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) assistance for any Pennsylvanian with an addiction that led to certain drug-related felony convictions or guilty pleas. TANF is designed to help needy families achieve self-sufficiency.
Why is SB6 dangerous and counterproductive?
The only people who are potentially eligible for TANF are pregnant women and families with minor children. Ninety percent of the adults who receive TANF support are women.
SB 6 also imposes a $100 fee on families that need a replacement EBT card more than once in a lifetime. EBT cards are how people get their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, also known as food stamps) and TANF benefits.
$100 is a huge penalty for a mother working at a low-wage job and struggling to feed her children. To put it in context, food stamps are only an average of $1.40 per person per meal, and the maximum TANF grant for a mother and child in most parts of Pennsylvania with no other income is only $316/month.
Pennsylvania installed this kind of ban this before and it backfired.
Before passing Act 44 of 2003, Pennsylvania enforced TANF bans for certain drug-related offenses. The vast majority of those banned for life were women with children. Criminal justice and drug policy experts, together with women’s drug treatment professionals and domestic violence programs, saw from first-hand experience that this lifetime ban on public assistance sabotaged women’s recovery prospects and made the drug problem worse, not better.
With the failure of the TANF ban evident, more than 100 organizations supported the bipartisan reform legislation that reversed it.
Fifteen years later, there is no reason to believe that bringing back bans on public assistance for certain drug-related crimes would not be as disastrous as it was before. Likely, the impact would be even worse, given Pennsylvania is in the throes of a full-fledged opioid addiction epidemic.
Pennsylvania refusing to learn from the past & defying its own expert recommendations.
As we just explained, Pennsylvania has been down this road before and it was a disaster. Even more puzzling, this bill defies expert recommendations published in a recent report ordered by the Legislature.
In 2016, the House Majority Policy Committee of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives spoke with dozens of medical experts at public hearings about the opioid crisis, and published a report with recommendations. Experts urged lawmakers to protect multiple pathways to recovery, in part by ensuring they are affordable. This bill undermines that goal by severing safety-net funds to mothers in recovery.
We spoke out against SB6 and you should, too.
Today, we sent a letter of opposition to every member of the Pennsylvania House outlining why they should vote NO on Senate Bill 6. You can read our letter here.
Women in recovery in Pennsylvania need you to speak up, too.
Find your state legislator. Contact your House Representative and urge them to oppose this bill.
The Women’s Law Project is a public interest law center in Pennsylvania devoted to advancing the rights of women and girls.
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