Editorials
I1 I Contents II Volume CXIII, Number 1 Correspondence 2 Editorials 3 'Practical politics': Nancy Amidei 5 Free-market espionage: David R. Carlin, Jr. 6 I I The malpractice muddle: Dena...
...the former are meant to catch out those with all too much skill and ambition...
...POSTM^STER: Send address changes to Commonweal, 232 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y...
...Is the exercise of choice itself -- whether to work or not -- a formative factor in developing self-esteem...
...All Canadian and foreign subscriptions must be paid in U.S...
...Second, that workfare can foster a whole set of illusions about those in need and the programs they require...
...He just fades away into the reserves, ready to be called up at the next battle alert...
...A case could be made, based on studies by the Bro~okings Institute of women in the Work Incentive Program (WIN) in the 1970s, that it is not work per se that contributes to a positive work ethic...
...King's real and not-ineffectual power...
...But who really needs this help...
...Else the old soldier should be finally laid to rest...
...17 January 1986:3A second development is cultural...
...At a time when government provision of benefits is under pressure on all fronts, it may be a strategic concession by advocates of the poor that employment-for-benefits is a necessary condition if funds are to go from the public coffers for those in need...
...Of course, the low unemployment rate in the state is a unique and not readily duplicated factor contributing to the success of the program...
...The call sounded again in 1981 with President Reagan's proposals to overhaul the welfare system to discourage dependence upon relief...
...More narrowly, workfare has usually been nothing but another hurdle to discourage the needy from applying for the assistance for which they qualify, or another meaningless but degrading burden to encourage those on welfare to drop out...
...The latter are meant to bolster those lacking skills and ambition...
...Non-working mothers in the study showed a strong work ethic which they, in turn, had passed on to their children...
...The Ninety-ninth Congress has less time for idealism or evidence of need...
...Workfare purports to develop a positive attitude toward work and values associated with employment -- self-confidence, discipline, ability to plan ahead, etc...
...More than twenty states have now adopted some form of workfare -- work in exchange for benefits -- usually linked to the monies paid through AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children), the largest single cash item in the welfare budgets of both federal and state governments...
...Will these workfare participants be in direct competition for jobs with displaced workers receiving unemployment compensation...
...In brief, it's no panacea...
...Of course, rio one can argue for the toleration of fraud...
...Would any work experience produce the desired results...
...Both voluntary and compulsory workfare, moreover, may foster illusions about the poor and their needs...
...its constitutionality is being challenged in court...
...Americans have always been hostile to public assistance provided without any apparent reciprocal effort by the recipients...
...why the emphasis must be on opportunity and not punitiveness...
...but it is worth pointing out that measures aimed at rooting it out are apt to be very different, and carried out in a different spirit, than measures aimed at promoting the work ethic...
...Furthermore, women who participated in the WIN program without being placed in an expected job at the end perceived the project as a failure...
...First, it sets before our consciousness the rule of that quiet, enduring law which is more substantive than even national statutes...
...Telephone: (212) MU 3-2042...
...Single copy, $1.50...
...California, for example, has launched its GAIN program which offers persons who receive AFDC an opportunity to pursue education, job training, or jobs within private industry (and government as a last resort...
...By roughly two-to-one majorities in both the House (271154) and the Senate (61-31), Congress voted to alter the balance of power between the branches of government, and shift responsibility for budget decisions to an automatic mechanism administered by budget analysts (who are not accountable to the voters), rather than by themselves or the president (who are...
...One development is strictly verbal -- and confusing...
...Of the employable, nearly one-third are already holding jobs for an average of twenty hours a week or less...
...as "bad legislation...
...Nonviolence.extends democracy to its parameters: it values every human voice and silences none...
...The public demands assurance that the rules of the game by which most people must live are not, in some way, being violated by tax-supported programs...
...What jobs will unskilled, semi-skilled, or newly skilled laborers find given the high unemployment rate...
...Yet the fact is -- and it is cause for celebration -- that Martin Luther King, Jr...
...Massachusetts has developed what is considered a model program, Employment and Training Choices (ET...
...4. Is workfare really the answer to the problem of poverty -or, more specifically, of the underclass...
...Certainly they've exhibited the ability to find and hold employment, and in many cases, their resort to fraud reflects the reality that wages for many jobs are too low and welfare benefits too meager to suffice...
...On his day, we comprehend that it remains to us to fulfill that a vision...
...and it was described by one of its principal sponsors (Senator Warren Rudman, R-N.H...
...What has happened...
...Yet the fact remains that many traditional worries about workfare retain their validity...
...These motives are very much alive among some supporters or workfare currently, and it is hard to imagine that programs may not be influenced by them...
...Second, we have set before us (paradoxically, in an era that emulates the Rough ,Riders), an ideal of nonviolence, the source and instrument of Dr...
...While similar to GAIN in scope, the New York program differs in that it is compulsory, and the day-care subsidies are less generous...
...Voluntary, and using a high level of state funds along with federal monies, "ET" has placed 17,000 welfare parents in full-time or part-time jobs since it began in the fall of 1983...
...The necessity for such tact is indicative of the enduring strains of racial fear and separation that run, so deep and massively, in the American psyche and story...
...Or will workfare participants only find part-time, dead-end employment for low wages and few job benefits...
...6 I I The malpractice muddle: Dena Seiden 8 The abstract enemy: Jean Bethke Elshtain 14 Screen: Tom O'Brien 15 The sounds of silence: James Bernauer 17 Verse: Nancy G. Westerfield, Mary Ann Coleman, E.B...
...10016...
...California, New York, Massachusetts -- where welfare is concerned, these are relatively liberal states...
...As components of the American vision, they beckon to be fulfilled...
...and why participants must receive the tools and the wages to live adequately and get ahead...
...First, that the real purpose of workfare is not to better the condition of welfare recipients but simply to deter those in need from receiving public aid...
...and its rationale is the dignity of each and the common good of all...
...To be taken seriously, the line continues, means accepting the realities of budget constraints...
...A fourth development is political...
...All across the political spectrum, there was a renewed consensus about the positive value of the work ethic...
...foreign, $59...
...But they indicate why programs should be flexible and closely monitored...
...clearly set that challenge before us...
...Canada, $53...
...What are those worries...
...dollars by International Money Order or by check on a U.S...
...G-R-H created strange bed-fellows among both supporters and detractors...
...Since the sixties, that emphasis has come under criticism from both left and right...
...mothers (single and married) with children over the age of one already working outside the home, this argument no longer seems so persuasive...
...Martin Luther King Day is not a saint's day...
...I I II A KING FOR THE DAY For the first time this January 20 Americans observe a national holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr...
...Conservatives eager to see an end to the federal role in social policy and/or a balanced budget on almost any terms, found themselves allied with liberals who see G-R-H forcing tax increases and/or military spending decreases...
...Radical critics of public assistance raised the first warnings about "welfare dependency," which they believed dampened the potential of the poor for political mobilization and reform...
...Consider the first problem -- the deterrent, punitive function of workfare...
...Voluntary programs -- offering options of job placement, education, or job training -- pose few of these problems in principle...
...Day shatters forever our public holiday color line...
...After a negative work experience, these women looked upon welfare much more positively than before...
...The program is voluntary...
...Yet Martin Luther King, a man of flesh and blood, stands a just man, one stirred to greatness by repeated efforts to rectify his failures, personal and social...
...why decent child care is a key to the whole process...
...3. Can workfare really succeed except in an environment of Commonweal: 4high employment...
...In sum, for them the program backfired...
...Precedent has been set in New York by work requirements in other programs such as Home Relief, a program for single people, which requires employment of all recipients whom it judges to be "employable" -- approximately one-third of all recipients...
...Among those who trashed it were some who simultaneously took the dubious position that doing something bad is better than doing nothing...
...So much for the change in climate...
...There is in this attitude a great deal of common sense mixed with self-righteousness and suspicion of the poor...
...bank...
...Neoconservative critics complained of something similar -- but with an eye toward what they claimed were welfare's negative effects on its recipients' ability and desire to get ahead in the marketplace...
...Historically, workfare has often been used to provide cheap labor for undesirable tasks at seasonally opportune moments, or to keep the poor off welfare rolls whenever there was need to swell the labor pool at the bottom of the wage scale...
...Yet traditionally workfare has been in bad odor with liberals...
...There is a real danger of ending up with the worst of both the welfare and the working worlds -- mothers separated from children, anxious about undependable day care, and yet still not independent of public money, which may ultimately function as a subsidy for low-wage labor...
...Liberals once objected to workfare on the grounds that it threatened to take mothers -the major group of welfare recipients -- away from their young children...
...Wire taps and electronic snooping might preclude even the canonized from such honors...
...Anything else runs the risk of being thought soft-headed, a.k.a, not in touch with practical politics...
...It is, to be sure, mandatory workfare that threatens to function largely in a deterrent, punitive way...
...Canada, $30...
...The new law has been roundly denounced by political analysts of all stripes...
...If workfare is to be fair, its limitations and risks should be fully acknowledged...
...But year-end congressional action on the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act (G-R-H), which mandates massive annual budget cuts to eliminate the deficit, makes it ripe for reassessment when poor people's interests are at stake...
...It is evidence of a growth in our appreciation of the dignity of every human being and the primacy of conscience in evaluating and enhancing the very rule of law...
...Wages are said to be comparable to starting salaries for similar jobs in the private sector...
...Lest the holiday be a cause for backlash or narrowed to a particular interest and/or group, committees preparing for its initial celebration have demonstrated both caution and delicacy...
...it seeks genuine inclusion and accommodation...
...Many welfare recipients, in addition, had always declared their preference for a decent job and agreed, rightly or wrongly, with other citizens about the debilitating effects of the dole...
...Yearly subscriptions, U.S., $28...
...The emphasis on workfare may do little (except, perhaps, strengthen the public acceptability of welfare) for the latter group, who basically need income, not new skills or work habits, while they get themselves back on their feet...
...New Deal liberalism concentrated heavily on questions of material deprivation...
...The hard core, long-term welfare recipients who constitute only a fraction of the whole...
...None of these questions provides sufficient reason not to try workfare...
...King's life was one of repeated civil disobedience...
...Advocates of workfare have also argued that it exposes individuals who collect public benefits while earning more on the side than is legally allowed...
...Movies: Tom O'Brien Staff: Karen F. Silva, Harriette Balsky, Patricia Mazzola Advertising Manager: Ruth E. Taylor Publisher: Edward S. SkiUin I Commonweal, [ISSN 0010-3330] A Review of Public Affairs, Religion, Literature, and the Arts, is published biweekly, except monthly Christmas-New Year's and July and August, by Commonweal Foundation, 232 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y...
...I I II Mood in Washington I I I 'PRACTICAL POLITICS' TO LEGISLATE, EVEN IF BADLY Anyone who wants to lobby Congress these days gets one consistent piece of advice: "Be practical...
...Now we do...
...In his lifetime, Martin Luther King, Jr...
...foreign, $33...
...January 20, as July 4, honors a remarkable extension of human conscience and freedom...
...2. What really builds the work ethic...
...Which leads to the next question...
...These notions are always timely and unrealized...
...Today, however, with nearly half of all U.S...
...As long as society had a consensus that mothers should be at home, it seemed an infringement (of children's welfare if not of the mothers') to demand that mothers receiving benefits take jobs...
...Where workfare was once a term reserved for measures that compelled welfare recipients to take jobs, and sometimes very undesirable jobs, in return for benefits, today the term is being used loosely for a wide range of programs...
...Peter Steinfels Assistant Editors: David Toolan, Karen Sue Smith, Patrick Jordan Production Editor: Anne Robertson Poetry: Rosemary Deen Columnists: John Garvey, J. Bryan Hehir, Abigail McCarthy, David R. Carlin, Jr...
...de Vito II Books 25 Illl II I I The Politics of Sex and Religion: Robert G. Hoyt 20 Jozef Mak: Holly Metz 21 The Lost Soul of American Polities: Dick Howard 22 Quantum Reality: David Toolan 26 II Staff, II Editor...
...Some are mandatory but others, as in California and Massachusetts, voluntary...
...But these programs, too, should be carefully assessed so as to learn from their successes, failures, and regional idiosyncrasies...
...When necessary, child care, health care, and transportation money will be provided in this new and expensive program...
...In short, even a positive work ethic has not led these individuals to financial independence without (fraudulent) subsidy...
...The facts are that many of the poor already work, that many others (such as the elderly) are out of the job market, and that the group most associated with the underelass -- young, "unemployable" males -- are least likely to gain in any way from workfare...
...New York's New Employment Opportunities Program begins this year with newcomers to the welfare rolls and those currently receiving AFDC whose youngest child is at least six years old...
...Special two-year rate: U.S., $49...
...Yet never before have we paused to reflect, on a recurring annual basis, on one of America's non-white heroes...
...King Day presents us with an opportunity for considerable reflection...
...its aim is to pursue truth by exhorting to self-sacrifice...
...It is an ironic argument, of course, since these individuals seem, if anything, to be guilty of too much of the work ethic...
...The availability of adequate and affordable day care remains, however, a pivotal issue in evaluating workfare, especially when mandatory...
...by extending on-the-job experiences to a group of individuals with limited employment histories...
...Or the more fluid majority who find themselves on welfare because they are caught in a temporary crisis...
...At 17 January 1986:5...
...The legislative process that led to this commemoration was delayed, sidetracked, and finally signed reluctantly...
...10016...
...GAIN has not yet passed the test of whether it will prove effective...
...Some, whether voluntary or not, include features like training, on-the-job assistance, and child care as well as work requirements...
...It is worth asking a few further questions...
...A third development is ideological...
...That advice is given freely...
...He demonstrated a startling obedience to conscience, a value deep in the American grain...
...1. Who really needs workfare...
...II 'commonweal ii -P, . ' l l l l l l l 9 . i . . . ' ; - - l i - e 9 IP'41L~ 9 9 a -'nunnmmu -',' , .. "?.- U | l l i l l - ' - " I I LET WORKFARE BE WORKFAIR W l ORKFARE IS an old soldier who never dies...
...Some of our national holidays, it is true, honor not just individuals but vast segments of our society...
Vol. 113 • January 1986 • No. 1
