On Wednesday, Gov. Tate Reeves announced that he will pull Mississippi out of a federal pandemic relief program that provides rental and utility bill assistance to low income families and will return the remaining funds to the federal government.
Reeves said he has instructed the Mississippi Home Corporation, which administers the program, to stop taking applications on Aug. 15. No other state has chosen to leave the program.
Mississippi was provided with $340 million for rental/utility assistance and has spent roughly $200 million of those funds, helping more than 36,000 Mississippians with rent and utilities for up to 15 months.
Reeves’ rationale for pulling the state out of the program is disturbing because it relies not on data, but on an unproven theory — that providing this assistance is a disincentive to work, a theory that is applied for almost any program that aids the poor. Each year, the state returns tens of millions of federal dollars earmarked for helping alleviate poverty in the state. It is no wonder, then, that Mississippi’s poverty rate continues to be the highest in the nation. The resources that could help thousands of Mississippians escape poverty simply aren’t being spent toward that end.
Reeves said Mississippi’s economy is booming and that helping people with rent/utility bills means they don’t feel the need to work. He offered nothing but his suspicions to support that claim.
Here is what we do know, according to the data collected by the Mississippi Home Corporation. Of the 36,000-plus citizens who have received these funds, 24,000 are employed. According to U.S. Census data, 60.5 percent of adults in the state reported in 2021 they were behind on rent/mortgage payments and feared eviction or foreclosure.
As of July, the percentage of those who said they feared facing foreclosure or eviction had fallen by 16 percent, which indicates the efficacy of the program.
Even so, 44.5 percent of Mississippians fear losing their home as of last month.
Given those figures, it is difficult to understand Reeves’ decision outside the scope of pandering to those who believe any federal assistance for the poor is a handout to free-loaders. That harsh view is one shared by many Mississippians. For Reeves, who according to polling is among the nation’s least popular governors (43 percent approval rating), the decision to pull out of this program is likely a political calculation designed to shore up his support among voters going into next year’s election.
Reeves’ rhetoric certainly suggests that’s the case.
“These socialist experiment programs being pushed from Washington are cruel, like a bookie offering free cash but never mentioning the downside,” Reeves said.
No, Governor, what’s cruel is arbitrarily pulling out of a program that is keeping a roof over the head of thousands of working poor Mississippians purely to court favor with voters.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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