A Boost for Child Care

Legislation aimed at helping people break the cycle of poverty has become snagged in Sacramento because it makes inadequate provision for child care. Senate President Pro Tem David Roberti finds himself in the unenviable position of holding up the legislation that many of his colleagues support; he is doing the right thing, however, because the program won’t help people get off welfare and enter the workplace if they don’t have anyone to take care of their children. The time pressure around the bill is increasing because the Legislature is now in its final week of this session, but better no bill at all than one that fails to do its job.

The workfare bill, as it is called, would require that people who receive public aid but are able to work either attend school, go to work or receive job training in exchange for their checks. The measure is commendable in its spirit of trying to help welfare recipients rather than punish them, as previous variations on the workfare concept had done.

But Roberti and other critics of the bill say that it would not provide enough money for the care of school-age children. Child-care services are already inadequate; the workfare legislation would only send poor families out into competition with middle-class families for spaces in programs that don’t exist. The Legislature has tried for two years to do something about that problem by setting up new programs to care for latchkey children. So far the governor has opposed them, even though his own task force recognized the need for more child-care programs and found that people were willing to pay higher taxes to get them.

The state cannot expect local welfare agencies to provide these services, but must instead take the leadership itself. Roberti’s insistence on a better bill will help the state achieve its goal of welfare reform, and will help the parents involved as well.