Welfare and Medicaid coverage of the poor and near-poor in low-income areas.

Abstract

HOW MANY poor persons eligible for welfare have either not applied for or have not received it? How many persons eligible for the Medicaid program have not received these benefits? We usually do not know, since data on the actual number of persons who are eligible but not receiving service under a social program are generally not readily available. Only for limited geographic areas, are data more readily at hand for comparing, area by area, how well the poor-as defined by a national standard of poverty-are covered by various social programs. From data on program coverage in these small areas, then, we not only can determine the proportion of the poor with coverage in pockets of poverty, but also the proportion that is without coverage. Moreover, observations based on national, regional, State, or city data frequently cannot be applied to local areas. Measurements of program coverage in larger areas generally just average down the concentration of the population affected. As an example, the percent of persons on welfare in Pennsylvania in June 1969 was 4.5, compared with 25.8 percent in the area of the southeast Philadelphia neighborhood health center surveyed. More specifically, 40.7 percent of the families in one census tract in this city neighborhood were on welfare.