Workfare Measure Advances to Vote on Assembly Floor

A compromise workfare bill, aimed chiefly at getting mothers off welfare rolls and into jobs, was approved Wednesday by the Assembly Ways and Means Committee after the current aid system was called an “utter failure.”

A 16-2 vote sent the bipartisan measure, fashioned during delicate negotiations between the Deukmejian Administration and Assembly Democratic leaders, to the floor where another favorable vote is expected.

The complex legislation would require about 170,000 of the state’s able-bodied welfare recipients to take jobs, enroll in job training, go to school, or risk losing all or part of their benefits.

Help for Parents

It also would provide welfare parents with transportation, child care and clothing allowances to help them get work.

The state Department of Social Services estimates that the program eventually would save taxpayers $136 million a year by reducing the welfare rolls. However, Legislative Analyst William G. Hamm has challenged the savings estimate, saying that it might be much too high.

The program is billed as the first major overhaul of the public aid system since President Reagan was governor in the 1970s, and has been a top priority of Gov. George Deukmejian since he took office in 1983.

“The current welfare system is an utter failure,” said Assemblyman Art Agnos (D-San Francisco), a key architect of the bill who helped work out the compromise. “It perpetuates a cycle of dependence and despondency that is well known even to the most casual observer.”

Major Redesign

“This bill redesigns the current welfare system in a major way so it becomes a thoughtful, constructive, positive program, which helps recipients to choose the education, training and work experience they need to gain unsubsidized employment in the private sector,” he said.

An opponent of the proposal, Assemblyman Tom Bates (D-Oakland), contended, “The problem with this bill is that it sounds wonderful. But if you read the bill, it doesn’t carry out the reality of the promise. . . . We should take the money to be spent on this program and develop some real jobs. . . . And to make it a good bill, it must be a voluntary program.”