How Welfare Can Work

...But just as often, Aid to Families with Dependent Children is a terrible failure—a way of life rather than a form of short-term assistance...

...Despite their shortcomings, the San Diego and Baltimore demonstrations ought to encourage similar mandatory programs elsewhere...

...Welfare rights groups and the American Civil Liberties Union have offered familiar arguments in opposition to EEP...

...Equally striking, however, is the lack of structure and support in many welfare households Trainees suddenly drop out, or appear irregularly or late...

...When asked, "How do you feel most days about coming to work here...

...The simple process of getting up and going to work brings new discipline and structure to the welfare household...

...Early this year, State Senator John Garamendi, a Democrat from rural Stockton, introduced EPP to try to halt the rise in dependency EPP focuses on adult welfare recipients who are not caring for children under age six...

...The measure is bitterly opposed, however, by a coalition of liberal democrats, the American Civil Liberties Union, and welfare rights groups...

...Even welfare recipients acknowledge that mandatory work and training can provide a helpful boost...

...Michael Bernick is a founder and executive director of San Francisco Renaissance, an inner-city job-training and job-creation program...

...Attendance at the job-search workshops was high, and nearly 25 percent of the participants found jobs...

...Work requirements are coming...

...We are constantly struck by the talent we discover...

...A number of recent projects suggest the contrary—that work requirements can break the pattern of dependency and help welfare recipients develop both their skills and their self-respect In 1982, for example, the county of San Diego tested the value of job-search and work requirements by randomly assigning nearly 7,000 AFDC recipients to one of three groups...

...At San Francisco Renaissance, where I work, we run job training programs and five separate businesses that train and employ welfare recipients...

...nearly 70 percent answered they looked forward to the work day...

...Most of the participants regarded the work as a fair requirement for welfare benefits, and 60 percent said that their experiences would help them get a better job...

...But in California, where welfare rights organizations recently denounced the San Diego model as "slavery," liberal legislators have sought to replace the Garamendi legislation with a voluntary program...

...The long-term impact of the San Diego program in reducing welfare dependency remains to be measured...

...These women account for the bulk of AFDC expenditures...

...Half of the women who are receiving AFDC will be on the welfare rolls for eight years or more...

...Placing new expectations on welfare recipients helps these people, their families, and the communities in which they live...

...Children raised in welfare homes show considerably higher unemployment than comparable low-income youth...

...For those in the second group who didn't find employment, most of the assignments were entry-level clerical or maintenance positions with local government and nonprofit agencies: operating copying machines, preparing files, and helping to paint a public school, for example...

...Worse, this dependency tends to perpetuate itself...

...The Catholic bishop of Sacramento, for example, testified at a hearing on the proposal that it constituted involuntary servitude, and that welfare recipients should participate in training or work experience only voluntarily As the Coalition of California Rights Organization put it, "We support a bill which uses 'sugar' to obtain participation in lieu of the 'stick ' Are welfare reform efforts such as EEP really the work of right-wing sadists who have it in for both government and the poor...

...The great majority of supervisors described the work as necessary, and said the participants demonstrated skills comparable to those of other employees...

...a second group got similar help, but if they did not find jobs, they were given mandatory work assignments A third group was a control group, and received no special services...

...It would require these people to participate in three-day workshops on how to find employment, followed by a four-week supervised job search...

...One former welfare recipient, for example, set up the shipping and receiving department of our cable assembly business...

...In many cases, the current welfare system fulfills its original purpose of helping women who are single parents get through hard times...

...As in San Diego, an overwhelming majority of participants and supervisors there regard the work requirement as fair and the work as productive...

...More than 80 percent of the welfare participants in the demonstration had never used these services...

...Baltimore County has offered incentive payments to participants who show motivation and a positive attitude, and more than 70 percent of the participants have qualified for the bonuses One limitation of both the San Diego and Baltimore projects is that they rarely provided more than rudimentary job skills...

...The efforts of these groups so far have only perpetuated dependency, which is hardly doing poor people a favor...

...Thus far, however, the program has succeeded in helping women who entered as single parents and had long histories of dependency These welfare recipients had both higher employment rates and earnings than those in the control group who received no special help Encouraging preliminary results also come from a demonstration project conducted during the past few years by Baltimore County...

...But they are a starting point...

...The benefits of a mandatory program go beyond the work experience...

...The trouble with such a program is that the majority of welfare recipients—especially long-term ones—will not take advantage of it In Baltimore County, for example, excellent job training programs were available for years before the recent demonstration project...

...In California, the AFDC rolls grew by more than 66 percent between 1970 and 1985, while the state population grew by only 27 percent...

...A recent poll by the Los Angeles Times found that 59 percent of welfare recipients "have a favorable impression of workfare" Mandatory programs alone will not end welfare dependency...

...Welfare rights organizations and their supporters on the left should face this reality and work to design programs like EPP which can genuinely help people get back on their feet...

...For some, it is just too easy to fall back on public assistance...

...The increase in welfare rolls has continued even during the recent upswing in the state economy...

...One group received help in finding jobs...

...Liberals have tended to dismiss welfare dependency as a conservative bugaboo...

...In an ideal program, participants would be able to choose among areas such as word processing, office machine repair, or basic literacy classes as an alternative to immediate work experience—with the same strict attendance requirements that apply at job sites...

...35 states have taken steps in this direction over the past four years...

...But the numbers are becoming unavoidable...

...Talk to adults who work with chronically unemployed youths—police, teachers, job training directors—and the same story unfolds: unemployment breeds in households where no parent works steadily—where no parent has ever worked steadily—and where there is little structure or sense of time...

...HOW WELFARE CAN WORK by Michael Bernick An important battle is taking place in California over reform of the state's welfare system A proposal before the state legislature called the Employment Preparation Program (EPP) would require welfare recipients to try to find jobs, and if unsuccessful, to enroll in serious job training EPP avoids both the misplaced paternalism of the past two decades and the punitive tendencies of the right...

...Those unable to find jobs would either begin job training or work in public or private nonprofit agencies Individuals who refused to participate would receive reduced welfare payments, or none at all, for three months...