It’s come to my attention that Florida HB 5307, which predominately shifts adult protective investigations over to law enforcement, also happens to incidentally reduce the age at which an IL kid stops receiving benefits to 21, because those two things have so much to do with each other.
Why would anyone think this is a good idea? Let’s do the math:
Reducing the age to 21 saves $8.2M.
According to the analysis, there are 1,100 kids in that group.
That’s $7,454 per kid ($0.007454M per kid), which isn’t that much to begin with and leaves them basically living in poverty as it is, even with a minimum wage job.
The current budget deficit is $3,620M.
=0.22651933701657458563%
The fact that ex-foster kids are being disowned in an effort to recoup less than one quarter of a percent of the deficit is shameful. It’s also shortsighted since this will only push the kids over to other government rolls without the specialized case management that the IL Program comes with.
To be continued…