Money for the Poors

Haha just kidding there's no money for the poors.

Cash benefits in Arizona are smaller now than when Congress created the assistance program 20 years ago. In 2009, Arizona reduced the maximum benefit by 20 percent, to $278 a month for a family of three with no other income. That cut, coupled with inflation, has reduced the buying power of the maximum benefit by about half.

The federal law required states to set time limits on the receipt of cash assistance and specified that the payments could not exceed five years, which is still the limit in about two-thirds of the states.

In 2010, Arizona cut cash-assistance eligibility to three years, from five. In 2011, it reduced the limit to two years. Then last year it dropped to one, with that limit to begin on July 1.