Contributors
tive reforms, which could be undertaken immediately. The Reforms The strategy called for reform of beth the welfare system and the state's Medi-Cal system, which wa~ available to all...
...The process was assisted by tightening regulations on work-related expenses, and by state responsibility for training special eligibility workers, who are kept separate from professional social workers...
...These measures fell into three general categories: eligibility restrictions, the work requirement, and the measures relating to child support and family responsibility...
...is economic news editor of the Wall S t r e e t Journal . . . Patrick Cosgrave, whose writings appear frequently on beth sides of the Atlantic, is the political commentator for the London S p e c t a t o r . . . J.P...
...For that reason they exempted from the reduction the first $30 of earnings, plus one-third of everything above $30...
...I)uggan is a student at the University of Dallas . . . James Grant is on the staff of the Baltimore Morning Sun . . . Ernest van den Haag is an active lecturer and a professor of sociology at the New School in New York, whose most recent book was P o l i t i c a l V i o l e n c e & C i v i l Disobediance . . . Justus M. van der Kroef is chairman of the political science department at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut . . . Peter Rusthoven is studying at Harvard Law School . . . C. Bascom Slemp is the chief Washington correspondent of The A l t e r n a t i v e . . . Richard Wheeler is a journalist and free-lance writer, whose book, The Children o f Darkness, was published this summer . . . Karl A. Witffogel, one of America's foremost scholars of Chinese history, is presently director of the University of Washington Chinese History Project in New York...
...10 The Alternative December 1973...
...The Reforms The strategy called for reform of beth the welfare system and the state's Medi-Cal system, which wa~ available to all welfare recipients...
...Nevertheless, the numbers alone leave no doubt the reforms have been a spectacular success...
...In practice, welfare workers began applying the disregards to determine eligibility-thereby violating the spirit of the amendments, which sought to encourage people to work their way off the rolls, not to open new opportunities to get on...
...In the past, counties had little economic incentive to pursue collections: they contributed only 16 percent of AFDC monies, while the cost of collection ranged from 10-15 percent...
...If no job is available, they are referred for training to a program such as the Work Incentive Program (WIN...
...Before 1967, for every dollar he earned, a welfare recipient was subject to a reduction of his welfare payments by a like amount...
...The problem occurs in AFDC, where most of the welfare caseload is located and where the bulk of the increases came in the sixties...
...In one study of the fourth quarter of fiscal year 1969-70, 17.6 percent of the absent parents contributed an average of $74.95 for support...
...For several years, the rolls had been growing at a rate of more than 40,000 per month, and by mid-1972 they were expected to reach three million, at a cost of $3 billion...
...In determining eligibility, those who are unemployable because of age, physical handicap, and need in the home, remain under the jurisdiction of the county welfare departments and receive full aid through the established programs...
...The new system is already showing significant improvements: in one year, collections doubled over the preceding year, and Sacramento County showed the full dimensions of opportunity when, thanks to state reimbursements, its Domestic Relations Department began running at a profit...
...However noble the purpose of the amendments, they offered an immediate opportunity for many previously-ineligible employed people to go on welfare...
...The new work requirement established the principle that those who could work must at least be looking for work if they want to receive welfare...
...Part of the eligibility problem was aggravated by the 1967 federal work incentive amendments...
...The average payment should have been $129 for an average 2.3 children (This latter figure of $129 employs the standards of the Los Angeles County Welfare Department...
...In Sacramento, the problem was potentially worse, as liberal Democrats controlled beth houses of the state legislature...
...The 1967 amendments had a worthy objective: to meet the problem of incentives wrought by this 100 percent tax...
...The most controversial (and interesting) measures were those designed to reduce the number of recipients and grant amounts...
...The overall objective was to increase grants to the truly needy, while reducing grants to all others...
...Prior to the reforms, eligibility bore little relation to employment...
...Those who are declared employable are placed under the jurisdiction of the Department of Human Resources Development (HRD), which helps them find work...
...There is no space here to examine the entire range of administrative and legislative reforms that were proposed and implemented...
...In the past, social workers had been extremely reluctant to refer cases of nonsupport to law enforcement officials...
...The downward trend has continued steadily into the middle of 1973...
...Today the counties determine eligibility under contract with the state, under regulations that have been revised and clarified...
...Results and Conclusions It is still too early to give definite conclusions about the effects of the 1971 reforms...
...The magnitude of the effort is suggested by the size of the Governor's reform message, which consisted of 175 pages, seventy major provisions, and scores of subprovisions...
...The administrative reforms went into effect on March 1, 1971, and the legislation followed on October 1. By October 1972, there were 253,000 fewer recipients on the welfare rolls than there had been eighteen months earlier, and t h r e e - q u a r t e r s o f a m i l l i o n fewer than had been projected without the reforms...
...To accomplish the administrative reforms, the Governor needed the cooperation of HEW to grant waivers of federal regulations in a number of areas...
...Today the state provides a considerable economic incentive for the counties to pursue collections, by offering a cash incentive bringing the county's interest up to 37.25 percent...
...In addition, the changes exempted a whole series of work-related expenses ("disregards"), including child care, transportation, and so on...
...Many of the changes are still not fully implemented...
...Potential political obstacles in both Sacramento and Washington were substantial...
...hours a month to a community work project, while continuing to look for permanent employment with HRD social workers, who are specially trained for that purpose...
...In July 1973, the rolls were declining at a rate of 10-15,000 per month and were down to 1.94 million...
...Compared to the projected cost without reform, by mid-1973 the annual savings had reached $1 billion...
...Under California law, the absent parent must contribute to the support of the child, but he almost never does...
...The 1971 reforms have radically changed the incentives...
...Once on the rolls, a recipient became entitled not only to the cash grant, but also to Medi-Cal, free lunches, and food stamps...
...For comparison: before the reforms there were 2.3 million welfare recipients in California--one out of every nine in the state...
...It was little wonder that the task force turned up resourceful people who were doing a lot better on welfare than they could off it...
...Even for the results we have, it is difficult to know which reforms produced which results...
...The work requirement further restricted eligibility...
...Under the old system, the state had no effective way of ensuring uniform rules of eligibility, because the counties had sole responsibility for making eligibility determinations...
...his book, V i o l e n c e and t h e Verbal C l a s s , will be published this winter . . . Lindley H. Clark Jr...
...The third general measure designed to tighten eligibility seeks to strengthen family responsibility through contributions for child support...
...Reorienting them to consider child support a law enforcement function has been a major problem...
...Much of the problem was solved by separating the determination of eligibility from the judgment about the amount of the grant...
...If no training is available, the recipient must participate in Community Work Experience Projects (CWEP) and give a maximum of eighty David Brudnoy is a visiting professor of history at the University of Rhode Island, a commentator with WNAC-TV (CBS) and WBGH-TV (PBS) in Boston, a free-lance writer and lecturer, and an associate of The A l t e r n a t i v e . . . A. Lawrence Chickering, once general counsel of the California State Office of Economic Opportunity is now executive director of the Institute for Contemporary Studies...
...In addition, the total cost of welfare had been reduced from $2.5 billion to $1.96 billion...
Vol. 7 • December 1973 • No. 3
