"I was scared to death," he said of the decision to exchange a steady public assistance check for the vagaries of private employment.

They financed drug purchases with shoplifting, prostitution, public assistance checks and food stamps intended to buy milk for the children.

"But I never heard one of them say they didn't want to work for their public assistance check."

Sometimes the public assistance checks did not come, the young mother remembered, and sometimes her children did not eat.

He could not find a job and returned here to continue picking up his assistance checks.

With no address for receiving his public assistance checks, he is left homeless, indigent and alone.

And the state has made it tougher for those deemed unemployable to get a monthly assistance check.

Ms. Maldonado's public assistance check is being reduced to $145 every two weeks because she has not attended a job training program, the clerk says.

The public assistance checks - $310.50 every two weeks - stopped coming.

They paid for emergency dental care and kept receipts for everything linked to the $2,358 assistance check, which came without explanation.