Search for Compassion

A promising new approach to welfare reform, including ways to break the welfare cycle that has institutionalized poverty for some families, is being introduced in the California Legislature today by Assemblyman Art Agnos (D-San Francisco) with the support of Gov. George Deukmejian.

In one sense the legislation represents a revival of “workfare,” but there is none of the punitive and mean aspects of earlier proposals that were designed to force welfare recipients into a public-works operation based on the erroneous assumption that they were idle out of sloth.

Children would receive appropriate protection in the new plan, an issue ignored in some earlier proposals. No mother with children under the age of 6 would be required to enter the program, and child-care funding would be provided for children up to age 12 affected by the program. The legislation would make mandatory an agreement between welfare recipients and county social-services offices through which the recipient would exercise one of a variety of options, including education and job training. The objective would be to break the state of dependency that can entrap persons on welfare, facilitating the return to the workplace of all able-bodied persons with children over 6 years.

The average stay on welfare in California is 29 months. But 22% of the half-million heads of households on welfare have been receiving benefits for five or more years, 10% for 10 or more years. Sponsors estimate that 170,000 of the heads of household now on welfare would benefit from provisions of the plan.

The legislation was worked out in negotiations that were led by Agnos and David Swoap, health and welfare secretary, representing the governor. Their proposal has now attracted the bipartisan support that it deserves, making likely legislative approval. California is leading the nation in the search for an equitable, compassionate response to the disadvantaged.