The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "welfare recipients" ...
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Their Crime, Your Dime
Some of Washington state's costliest public assistance programs harbored a secret over the years. It went unnoticed as taxpayer-funded programs provided food stamps and cash welfare benefits ballooned following the economic crash. Many worthy recipients came forward to get help. So, too, did criminals who found they could cheat Washington's lax fraud prevention programs to the sum of millions of dollars.
Tags: welfare; taxpayers; criminals; lax; economic crash
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"Their Crime, Your Dime"
Following several tips on possible "government waste," and schemes that target Seattle taxpayers, KING-TV produced this series of three stories titled "Their Crime, Your Dime." The team exposed how merchants operated a "broad scheme" that allowed citizens to convert their food stamps into cash. Another story revealed how "welfare recipients" were spending millions of "taxpayer cash in the state's casinos."
Tags: food stamps; taxpayer; welfare; State Department of Social and Health Services; ATM; casino; public records; black market
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Welfare reform: Many go off rolls, but still stay poor
An Observer analysis of welfare data from nine Charlotte-area counties revealed the welfare reforms of 1997 to be less successful than some politicians claimed. Although caseloads have been trimmed in half over the last decade, taxpayers still haven't saved any money. Monthly checks are redirected into child-care subsidies and other programs that help former recipients. After leaving welfare, many recipients see little improvement in their lives. People who exhaust their welfare benefits are having a tougher time finding jobs than their predecessors, and those who do find jobs often live below the poverty line.
Tags: Computer-assisted reporting; CAR; welfare; food stamps
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Taken for a Ride
This story is about how non-profits sold clunker cars to welfare recipients while used-car dealers reaped millions. The non-profit Wheels-to-Work program managers set up exclusive deals with friends who sold used cars to the program. The state spent $10,700 per person, but bought cars that cost $2,300 on average, and twice as much as programs in other states. State officials didn't start to monitor the program until two years after it started, and overlooked suspected fraud and mismanagement.
Tags: car; nonprofit; welfare; welfare recipients; used-car dealers; West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources; Wheels-to-Work Program; Community Action of South Eastern West Virginia; CASE; Belcher's Auto Sales; Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program; National Association of Social Workers; AFL-CIO; Human Resources Development Foundation; Good News Mountaineer Garage; DHHR; Legislative Oversight commission on Workforce Investment
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Crime in the suites
The San Francisco Bay Guardian takes a look at welfare, welfare reform and corporate welfare.
Tags: welfare; San Francisco; welfare recipients; corporate welfare; welfare reform; taxes; deals; welfare wages; contracts
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Long Journey To Work
Governing reports on the disparity between mass transportation routes and employment. Long or impossible commutes keep people on welfare and from inner-cities out of the employment-rich suburban job market. Governing looks at cities with alternative plans to improving mass transit, including van lines and programs to help welfare recipients purchase cars.
Tags: transit; welfare; spatial mismatch
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Business Incentives or Corporate Welfare?
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigated Wisconsin's incentives programs in this three-part series. "Wisconsin jumped on the incentives bandwagon in the mid-1980s in a big way, with programs and expenditures proliferating to meet or anticipate almost any demand expanding businesses might make. While state officials offered soothing assurances about accountability for the programs no one... had attempted to analyze the effectiveness of the programs..." The newspaper found: spending reached $1 billion during the past 12 years, "many of the state's largest... firms were the biggest recipients of state largess" and "job creation promises were overblown and poorly monitored."
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Swiping Benefits
The Progressive "reveals numerous significant downsides to the U.S. government's much-ignored new electronic benefit transfer (EBT), by which recipients access cash benefits and food stamps." The investigation uncovers problems for recipients, such as invasion of privacy and lack of consumer protection against lost or stolen cards, but big benefits for corporate contractors such as Citibank and Lockheed-Martin.
Tags: welfare reform fraud elderly disabled homebound training access paperless government
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From Welfare to Work
The Detroit News and Free Press four-day series reports that "Two years before Congress passed legislation in 1996 calling for welfare reform, the state of Michigan launched Work First, a program that demands welfare recipients look for a job if they want to continue receiving benefits. Beginning (Sunday,) we look at the human stories behind the issue - at how these reforms have challenged some Michigan residents...."
Tags: Welfare-to-work; foster care; ADC; poverty; homelessness; policy; barriers; transportation; child care
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Welfare Dilemma in Eastern Kentucky (Series)
The Lousiville, KY Courier-Journal's three part series telling how: "former welfare recipients in Appalachia don't find work, or they get jobs that don't pay a living wage. Weak child-support enforcement in Kentucky is making it harder for mothers and their children to escape welfare. Welfare recipients in Eastern Kentucky may have a harder time finding work in coming years because its job growth is expected to trail other regions. Prosecuting fathers who don't pay child support is necessary in some cases, but other options are important too."
Tags: Welfare reform; poverty; deadbeat dads; social services