Advocates push for boost in welfare payments

…In Massachusetts today, around 30,000 low-income households are receiving cash assistance through Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children, or TAFDC. Nearly 20,000 additional households, primarily adults who are elderly or have disabilities, receive money from a program called Emergency Aid to the Elderly, Disabled, and Children. A family of three on TAFDC receives $593 a month, with the potential for another $40 housing subsidy. A single person on emergency aid for the elderly gets $303. Neither program adjusts grants with inflation. TAFDC was last increased in 2000, and EAEDC in 1988…With the current grants, said Deborah Harris, a staff attorney at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute who is spearheading the campaign, “Families really struggle to pay for basic necessities.”…“No matter how carefully you budget, $593 is just not enough to support a family of three in Massachusetts,” said Naomi Meyer, a senior attorney of Greater Boston Legal Services. “We want to make sure that our safety net is playing the role it’s supposed to of actually supporting our families and our kids.” Read more in Commonwealth Magazine.