Philadelphia Inquirer, March 5, 2000
by David Boldt
It is now exactly a year since a fear-frozen populace watched the final
seconds tick off before the
deadline that would finally change welfare as we'd known it.
Last March, when all Pennsylvanians who had been on welfare for two years
faced a possible
cut-off of benefits, Mayor Edward G. Rendell predicted a "train wreck,"
conjuring a vision of
mangled steel and strewn bodies. And he was not alone in predicting calamity.
When welfare reform went through Congress in 1996, it was called "mean,"
"low-down" and
"beyond repair" by Democratic opponents. The Urban Institute predicted
that a million children
would be thrown into poverty. Marian Wright Edelman, head of the Children's
Defense Fund, said
that if President Clinton signed the measure, it would "leave a moral stain
on his presidency."
Hugh Price, president of the Urban League, said it amounted to a "declaration
of war on poor
people."
So what's happened? On the positive side, one can say that none of the
direst predictions has come to
pass. There has been no surge in homelessness, crime or foster-child placements.
The number of
people (and children) living in poverty has declined. No "race to the bottom"
has occurred (in which
states tried to outdo one another in cutting welfare benefits). Most states,
including Pennsylvania,
have actually increased benefits. The number of persons and families on
welfare has been cut
roughly in half, and most of those who left welfare found work.
These achievements have surprised even welfare-reform advocates. "I don't
think anyone expected
so many to quit welfare and get jobs as fast as they did," said Sherri
Heller, who heads
Pennsylvania's welfare-to-work efforts.
On the other side of the ledger, a significant number of former welfare
recipients are less well-off
now than they were. Both opponents and proponents of welfare reform agree
that too many former
recipients are not getting the food stamps and medical benefits to which
they are entitled.
Efforts to reduce the number of children born out of wedlock - one of the
major declared goals of the
welfare-reform law - have had, at most, a tiny effect.
Studies of former welfare recipients show that many live hand-to-mouth
existences full of anxiety
about basic things such as putting food on the table and paying the rent.
On the other hand, a
small-scale telephone survey of ex-recipients by the Pennsylvania Department
of Public Welfare
indicates that ex-recipients were more worried about such matters back
when they were on welfare.
Ernest Jones, head of the Philadelphia Workforce Development Corp., the
city's major
welfare-to-work program, suggests that the most telling aspect of the current
situation may be that
"nobody - and I mean nobody - wants to go back to the old system."
Instead, the concern on all sides has focused on how to prepare for crises
that may lie ahead, chief
among them what will happen when the next economic downturn hits. It's
a complicated question. No
one knows how much the current boom is responsible for the good results
of welfare reform so far.
America has, after all, had major economic expansions in the past during
which welfare rolls
increased. Previous efforts to get welfare recipients to work, moreover,
had no significant effect. As
one Capitol Hill staff member put it, "We are in uncharted territory."
Nonetheless, there is rising confidence among many officials about the
ability of welfare reform to
ride out the next economic storm. To begin with, there's a lot of money
available. Because federal
welfare funding has continued at a constant level despite the reduction
in the number of recipients,
the amount available for each family on welfare has risen from about $3,500
a year before welfare
reform to more than $8,000 now.
Heller says that because of the "surprise success" in getting welfare recipients
into jobs,
Pennsylvania has been able to shift funds from the basic task of helping
people find work and put
more into training programs to help people keep their jobs and advance.
The wages of former
welfare recipients who have been continuously employed since leaving welfare
- about 37 percent
of the total - have shown a steady increase of 5 to 6 percent every three
months.
In addition, Heller says, "the legislature has been much more amenable
to providing assistance for
low-income people who are working than it was for people on welfare." This
is reflected in the fact
that her department expects to have $442 million next year to help low-income
Pennsylvanians,
including former welfare recipients, get child care services; before welfare
changes, the aid was
$210 million. State expenditures for transportation and training already
have more than doubled.
Heller says another auxiliary benefit of the welfare changes has been to
greatly reduce "the anger
and resentment" of the working poor, who often felt they were passed over
in favor of welfare
recipients.
One of the main reasons there was no "train wreck" a year ago is that the
state moved very slowly in
cutting benefits. To date, only 332 of the 115,000 people on welfare in
Pennsylvania a year ago have
lost their benefits, and most of them for 30- or 60-day periods.
This gradualism may, in turn, have encouraged some welfare recipients who
could have found jobs
to stay on welfare. At present, Philadelphia's welfare-to-work apparatus
has more jobs available
than it has job-seekers.
Philadelphia's nationally acclaimed Philadelphia@Work program, which was
set up to deal with the
hardest of the hard to serve, is operating at less than half its 700-person
capacity.
The number of people on welfare in the state, however, has continued to
decline by about the same
percentage as for the nation as a whole. Welfare recipients in Philadelphia
declined from 56,400 a
year ago to 48,300 in January, the most recent period for which statistics
are available.
There's disagreement about how many more people can be moved from welfare
to work and how
fast. Jones feels that the city's welfare rolls now comprise mostly people
with "multiple problems"
including drug addiction and illiteracy. He is not sure that increasing
the number of sanctioned
recipients will necessarily speed the flow of people into jobs.
On the other hand, the experience of other states indicates that further
progress is possible. Three
states have cut their welfare caseloads by more than 80 percent; one of
them, Wisconsin, cut its list
by 93 percent.
Ultimately, of course, caseload reduction is not the real test of welfare
reform. Its proponents made
predictions that were as rosy as the forecasts of opponents were dismal.
Welfare reform, it was
suggested, would transform troubled inner-city slums into safe, clean neighborhoods
inhabited by
residents who once again felt part of mainstream American society.
At present, that outcome seems as far-fetched as those of the doomsayers.
The big lesson to be drawn right now may be that we are not powerless to
confront major social
issues. If we can make progress in changing welfare, perhaps we can do
the same for education and
health care, without having the sky fall.
David Boldt's column appears on Tuesdays and Fridays. His e-mail address
is
dboldt@compuserve.com