Wolf ends asset test for food stamps

HARRISBURG — Gov. Tom Wolf is ending a rule that prevented people with some minimal personal assets from collecting food stamps.

The Department of Human Services announced Tuesday it was ending the asset test by notifying the federal Food and Nutrition Service.

The test, which covered cash, stocks, personal property and other items, was begun under Wolf’s predecessor, Gov. Tom Corbett.

The administration estimates the change will save about $3.5 million a year, reducing administrative costs and errors. Officials say errors in measuring assets disproportionately affected disabled and older recipients.

Food stamps, known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, help about 1.8 million Pennsylvanians.

State workers seek contract extension

HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania’s largest state-employee union is asking its 45,000 members to approve a one-year extension of their contract.

Gov. Tom Wolf and David Fillman, executive director of Council 13 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said Tuesday that negotiators for both sides had endorsed the extension.

The union’s more than 200-member policy committee approved the proposal Friday. Rank-and-file balloting results from the more than 200 locals are expected by May 1.

Neither Wolf nor Fillman would say whether it would change employees’ pay and benefits, but Fillman described the agreement as “very brief.”

He said the goal is to provide “a breather” for the new governor as he focuses on winning legislative support for a multibillion-dollar plan that calls for an increase in the state income and sales taxes to close a $2 billion budget gap, provide additional funding for education and reduce school property taxes.

The deadline for approval of a state budget is June 30.

Home rental prices up 3.7% nationwide

WASHINGTON — Home rental prices are soaring in San Francisco, while pockets of the Midwest and South are also posting big annual increases.

Prices nationally climbed a seasonally-adjusted 3.7 percent in March from 12 months earlier, real estate data firm Zillow said today.

The influx of tech money fueled San Francisco rents up 14.8 percent, while nearby San Jose jumped 12.3 percent. Rents average more than $3,000 a month in these areas. That’s roughly $600 more than rent in the Los Angeles area, $800 more than metro New York City, and $1,000 more than the Washington, D.C. area.

Prices are also climbing in cities without the same hype from startups and venture capital. Rents rose more than 8.5 percent over the past year in Denver, Louisville, Kansas City and Nashville, among other metro areas.

By The Associated Press