IT IS TIME to look, once again, behind the rhetoric that Rhode Island is a “welfare magnet.”

“Welfare,” of course, is the label attached to government-funded programs to denigrate them and to marginalize the people who receive the program’s benefits. This labeling lets some policy makers cut a program with a clear conscience and without thoughtful analysis of the impact. The cash-assistance program for children and their caretakers has been the program traditionally called “welfare.” In Rhode Island it is called the Family Independence Program (“FIP”).

Now Journal columnist Edward Achorn and others have attached the “social-welfare” label to RIte Care, the state’s health-insurance program for working families. (“Rhode Islanders vote with their feet,” Jan. 9, 2007; “Where’s a truth teller for Rhode Island,” Aug. 15, 2006).

Let’s set the record straight about RIte Care and FIP. The only hard data about newly arrived families and public benefits is that collected by the state Department of Human Services for FIP applicants. The data show that nearly twice as many families leave FIP and Rhode Island each month as come into the program. The percentage of families new to Rhode Island and to FIP has declined over the past decade from 17 percent to 9 percent, and overall the FIP caseload has dropped from 20,000 to 10,000 families. FIP benefits are lower than in all other New England states but one, Connecticut, providing just $554 a month to a parent and two children, an amount that hasn’t been raised in close to 20 years. In Connecticut, such a family receives $543.

Enrollment in RIte Care/RIte Share, the state’s health-insurance program for working families, has also been dropping, with 3,000 fewer participants in December 2006 than in the previous December.

Fully 82 percent of RIte Care participants, two-thirds of whom are young children, live in working families with income less than 150 percent of the federal poverty level — $25,000 for a family of three. Rhode Island’s income limits for children’s health coverage are the lowest in New England — all other states in the region cover children up to three times the poverty level. The majority of parents would qualify for coverage in all but one other New England state, New Hampshire. The rise in uninsured children — because of erosion of employer-sponsored health insurance as well as barriers to accessing RIte Care — should be of grave concern to policy makers and the public.

The income of people moving to Rhode Island also suggests that we are not “luring the poor” to our state. Those coming to Rhode Island from Massachusetts (the state “exporting” the largest number of people to the Ocean State) have higher median incomes than Rhode Islanders moving to Massachusetts. From 2000 to 2004 the number of Rhode Islanders reporting incomes of $200,000 and above rose by 20 percent while from 1997 to 2003 those reporting income below $30,000 fell by 7 percent.

The data indicate that Rhode Island is not attracting poor people because of its public benefit programs. But common sense should be enough to debunk this myth as well. In recent weeks, much has been made about the exodus of young, educated people from New England because of high housing costs and lack of job opportunities. These are also factors that would dissuade poor people from finding our state attractive.

Our challenge as a community is to create a vibrant economy in which all Rhode Islanders can participate. Let’s stop the blame game and focus on the serious work of creating good jobs and a skilled workforce. Let’s attack the problem of health care for all residents, building on RIte Care’s success, and stop attacking the people who although working full-time still struggle to make ends meet.

Angel Tavares is a Providence lawyer and political activist ( ataveras@ctpllp.com).