One in five Los Angeles County residents -- nearly 2.2 million people -- are receiving public assistance payments or benefits, a level county officials say will rise significantly over the coming months as the fallout from the recession continues.
The percentage of people on county aid already equals the figure at the height of the 2001-03 recession and far exceeds the one in seven who needed help during the economic downturn in the early 1990s and the one in nine assisted in the collapse of the early 1980s.
The rise in welfare recipients in the county is the first sustained uptick since welfare reform under the Clinton administration imposed strict time limits on benefits in 1996.
County officials warn that tens of thousands of additional frustrated job seekers -- unemployment in the county currently stands at 9.5% -- are expected to seek aid to weather the persistent recession once their other benefits run out.
The total includes those receiving food stamps and general relief as well as other county-administered aid programs, such as in-home healthcare. The cost -- shouldered by the county, state and federal governments -- was $334 million a month by the end of last year, according to the latest report by the county's Department of Public Social Services.
The rising demand has left public assistance offices ill-equipped to deal with the growing multitude of indigent people. In some locations, lines routinely snake hundreds of feet outside entrances.
"We have the highest human service burden of any county in the country in sheer numbers," Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said.
"Two million people is the size of some countries; that's how big our problem is," he said.
To have reached the point of receiving county aid, recipients usually have little left.
Qualifying for help most often means they already have run out of unemployment insurance and drained their bank accounts and other assets.
In other cases, low-wage workers or those whose hours have been cut can earn so little that they qualify for Medicaid or food stamps.
The steepest increases in need have been in the Pomona Valley, the Lancaster area, the San Fernando Valley and East Los Angeles.
By June 2010, officials estimate, the number of people participating in the county's general relief program, now at 74,143, will reach 91,000. That would erase 11 years of reductions in the caseload. The program provides $221 monthly to individuals who qualify for no other programs. Roughly 60% of those served are believed to be homeless.
