Some welfare recipients in Hamilton County are getting a break after their time limit runs out.

        The county's Department of Human Services has issued 218 extensions to people who would have otherwise lost their benefits under welfare reform. Ninety-eight families have lost benefits.

        Mindy Good, a DHS spokeswoman, said the state will allow Hamilton County to grant a total of 1,691 exemptions. The county has come up with a 10-step set of criteria to judge if families get an exemption.

        “They have to qualify for one of the 10 criteria,” Ms. Good said. “We look at the case versus the criteria, and a group recommends those who they think should be extended.

        “It then gets kicked up for a higher level of review with management.”

        The vast majority of people granted extensions were “incapacitated” for employment or had four or more children under age 14.

        Signed into law by President Clinton in 1996, welfare reform reversed a half-century of social policy that guaranteed cash assistance to the nation's poorest peo ple, including children. Instead of an entitlement program, welfare now has limits.

        In Ohio, recipients have three years to get off welfare before the checks stop coming.

        The federal government sends a finite amount of money to the states each year in the form of block grants. Kentucky and Ohio receive $181 million and $728 million a year, respectively, from the federal government.

        The states hand that money, along with some of their own, to counties. The counties pass it out as cash assistance or to pay for programs to get people off the public dole.

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