Experts Consider Obstacles as Workfare Program Takes Shape

California’s new landmark workfare program, designed to train thousands of welfare recipients for jobs, is confronted by major problems as it begins to take shape around the state, according to those charged with getting it off the ground.

Welfare officials and experts on private industry employment said that they are concerned about locating jobs for workfare graduates and assuring that there is sufficient child care for welfare recipients’ offspring.

“Unless jobs are created or the economy expands, training people for work is interesting, but I don’t know where the jobs are coming from,” said Berwyn Fragner of TRW Inc., chairman of a job program for the poor.

On child care, “participants have to have child care or they don’t have to participate in the program,” said Donne Brownsey, an aide to state Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), a long-time child-care advocate.

Another provision that could weaken the program’s effectiveness, according to welfare officials, shields government workers from displacement by workfare graduates who cannot find jobs in private industry.

But, while conceding that they see obstacles ahead, welfare officials said they hope to overcome them in the two years given counties to begin implementation of workfare, which was signed into law in September.

“In any county, it’s going to take a great deal of thought, organization and coordination and that involves the logistics, developing consensus of community support; the agencies, and the political bodies--the Board of Supervisors--all need to be on board,” said Lee Kemper, executive director of the County Welfare Directors Assn.

“The only concern I have on behalf of the counties is that expectations are very high,” Kemper said. “It’s a major new undertaking and we will need to be patient.”

The workfare program, officially called Greater Avenues for Independence (GAIN), combines a number of educational, job-training and counseling schemes borrowed from similar efforts in more than half the states. California’s 58 counties have two years to submit their workfare blueprint to the state. In general, welfare recipients will be asked to sign an agreement to participate in vocational training or take college classes aimed at helping them find jobs. The government also will pay for remedial education classes, transportation, clothing, tools and books needed for training.

Recipients who refuse to participate or who violate terms of the agreement could face limitations on how they spend their benefit checks, or suffer reduction of grant money.

Welfare recipients who cannot find jobs in the private sector would have to earn their benefit checks at government or private nonprofit agencies. Exactly what form these jobs might take is unclear, but the authors of the workfare legislation said that they hope that most of these participants will perform clerical or related tasks for nonprofit agencies that otherwise could not afford to have the work done.

California’s program has a unique feature: welfare recipients need not participate if they are unable to find convenient child care. Counties will locate child-care facilities, but parents will only be required to take part if they are satisfied that the care is safe and near their homes.

More than 175,000 welfare recipients, 70,000 of them in Los Angeles County, could be taking part in the program when it is fully implemented in 1990.

Most workfare participants are expected to be mothers in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program whose youngest child is at least 6 years old.

The workfare legislation will make “the poorest of the poor competitive with everyone else by giving them resources and training that they may have missed earlier in their lives at a point where they now need it to get them back into the work stream,” said Assemblyman Art Agnos, (D-San Francisco), one of two authors of the program. The other was Assemblyman Ernie Konnyu, (R-Saratoga).

Gov. George Deukmejian made the legislation a top priority and the Legislature passed it overwhelmingly. Passage finally hinged on Deukmejian’s acceptance of a proposal by Roberti to pump about $32 million into an existing after-school care program for children of working parents. This money is separate from about $118 million set aside in the workfare legislation for child care for welfare recipients’ children.

Child-care advocates contend that despite this money, they are worried that there are not enough child-care facilities or home baby sitters available.

Child-care programs for an estimated 90,000 children will be needed statewide for the workfare program, 40% of them in Los Angeles County.

As an example of the child-care shortage, Shizuko Akasaki, assistant superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s child development division, said the district already cares for 11,000 preschool and school-age children in 90 centers subsidized by the state. She added that at least that many children are waiting as long as three years to get into the current program.

“Where the need is the greatest, (near overcrowded city schools), we just don’t have the facilities,” Akasaki said. She explained that after Proposition 13, the tax-cutting measure, was passed by voters in June, 1978, a continuing state program subsidizing the creation of new child-care facilities was halted.

The $118 million in workfare program funds for child care will pay for remodeling of unused classrooms; providing temporary facilities for after-school care, and reimbursing parents up to $1.75 an hour for privately arranged after-school care of children ages 6 to 13.

Roberti aide Brownsey said that as much as $70 million more may be needed for care of welfare mothers’ children once the workfare program is implemented statewide.

Program supporters hope to eliminate the shortage of child-care facilities through an intense effort to line up homes where licensed men and women can baby-sit. It is unclear who will provide the remaining child care that will be needed but one source may be the welfare mothers themselves. By becoming licensed day-care providers, many of the mothers could satisfy workfare program requirements, welfare officials said.

Perhaps the greatest concern expressed by welfare officials and potential employers is over the availability of jobs. Interviews with dozens of officials produced both optimistic and bleak forecasts for the program. No one was able to predict with any certainty that even the most motivated workfare program participant will get off welfare and find a job.

TRW’s Fragner learned of some of the difficulties in finding jobs as chairman of Los Angeles County’s Private Industry Council, which oversees an existing similar program for general relief recipients, who are poor people not eligible for welfare.

Fragner expressed hope for the workfare program, but said that it could also lead to competition between welfare mothers and (other) unemployed workers for jobs.

“We may just be slicing the same (job availability) pie into too many pieces,” Fragner said.

The worry over the size of the pie was responsible for language in the legislation designed to protect government workers against officials who might want to replace them with lower-paid workfare graduates.

Unions representing government workers have expressed concern at the section of the law requiring participants to work for their welfare checks for up to a year at private nonprofit or public agencies if they fail to find permanent jobs. Participants would work from three months to a year, up to 32 hours a week, for either a government or nonprofit agency. Their pay would be their welfare checks.

State Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles), one of two senators to vote against the workfare legislation, called the requirement “slave labor.” Unions, meanwhile, fear that their members’ jobs could be threatened by such employees. They forced backers of the workfare program to write job-protection language into the law.

Eddy S. Tanaka, director of Los Angeles County’s Department of Public Social Services, contending that the job-protection language is “practically impossible” to implement, said that local officials will probably seek legislative amendments to soften it, an effort that labor leaders--who helped write the protections--vowed to fight.

Bill Bruce, administrator of the City of Los Angeles job-training program, said the trend in Los Angeles and other urban counties is away from manufacturing jobs and toward service industry positions in hotels, restaurants and amusement parks.

“Those are not your high-paying jobs,” Bruce said, “those are closer to minimum wage; while we thus have jobs available, they don’t fit . . . the GAIN (workfare) program.”

Bruce was referring to language in the law that says that workfare participants may refuse a job resulting in a net monthly income loss from the average $587 cash and $113 food stamp payments they now receive under the aid to dependent children program. In hourly terms, that means a $5.07-an-hour minimum. AFDC parents who head a three- or four-person family would have to earn more than $6.50 an hour to avoid a net income loss.

Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Greater Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, added that if the economy sours, both the unemployment rate and welfare rolls would climb.

“People are finding jobs, but other people are getting laid off,” Kyser said.

Referring to fluctuations in the economy, he said, “It’s a real crap shoot because what’s good this year may not be good next year.”

Kyser’s comments are underscored by local unemployment figures. They show that more than 250,000 people are out of work in Los Angeles County. That number does not include about 200,000 AFDC parents, about a third of whom would be competing for jobs under the workfare program.

Sen. Watson said she will propose legislation next year to promote economic development so that more jobs with a future, as opposed to menial, dead-end work, will be available. She called the current law a “Band-Aid” that will leave many workfare participants disappointed, because the skilled jobs for which they train will not exist in large numbers.

Carl Williams, deputy director of the state Department of Social Services, said he is not worried about a shortage of jobs, citing studies showing that California’s economy will require tens of thousands of new workers over the next decade.

Williams said workfare program participants will likely fill jobs in data processing, clerical, banking, accounting, machine operations and nursing.

Williams added that welfare officials also will try to tailor job training to the local economy’s demands.

“Realistically, we would figure about 80% going into jobs after their training,” Williams said, adding, however, “That’s just a guess. . . . I’ve got nothing to base it on.”

The estimated 20% who do not find private-sector jobs, he added, would work for public or private nonprofit agencies.

In Los Angeles County, welfare officials said they will try to promote the advantages of hiring AFDC recipients.

Ray Garcia, governmental relations chief for the county’s Department of Public Social Services, said the program will include various incentives for businesses to hire workfare graduates. Among these are tax credits and initial subsidizing of training costs. Garcia added that large businesses also would be asked to set aside 20% of their job openings for welfare recipients.

“We would negotiate with employers with the idea they would be willing to hire at entry level (wages) train them, then consider putting then on staff as permanent employees,” Garcia said.

The cost of implementing the workfare program worries even supporters such as Los Angeles County Supervisor Deane Dana, a close political ally and personal friend of Deukmejian.

“I support it 100%,” Dana said in an interview. “My only concern is with anything that the Legislature mandates--that the funding be adequate. This is a very expensive program. I have seen too many cases where we have had to go back and sue the state government (to recover county costs).”

Dana explained that if the state-run workfare program goes over its budget, the state might decide to make the counties pay for a portion. That has happened with other programs and has caused a longstanding dispute between county governments and Sacramento.

For years, counties have protested that the state has mandated programs, such as workfare, that the counties must administer--without providing enough money. Counties, forced to pick up the extra costs, have banded together against the state in lawsuits and carried their fight to the Legislature and to the offices of every recent governor, without much success.

But Dana, summing up hopes also voiced by his colleagues, said: “Even if it’s a break-even situation, obviously to have people get back productively in society is very important.”

Exactly what the workfare program will cost is unclear. First-year start-up financing is $7 million, eventually rising to 10 times that amount when fully implemented, and when all the child-care workers, job trainers and administrators are at work.

The Deukmejian Administration has estimated that once workfare is fully implemented, enough people will get off welfare to save the state about $150 million a year, but opponents have disputed that projection.

Assemblyman Agnos said that even if the program loses money, “I’m convinced that the (Deukmejian) Administration is sincere enough in its desire to make it work and if indeed the program does come up short, we’ll put the necessary funds in.”

Agnos sought to calm fears of local officials such as Dana that extra costs will be imposed on counties.

“We put in a fail-safe mechanism that is the most foolproof ever devised, that if there is not enough money, it gives (counties) a whole process they can use to reduce the cost of the program commensurate with the money they receive,” he said.

THE GAIN PROGRAM

Here is a summary of how the Greater Avenues for Independence (GAIN) program, also known as “workfare,” is expected to work:

WHO MUST TAKE PART You must participate if you are a parent under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program who:

Has dependent children between 6 and 18 who applies or reapplies for monthly AFDC benefits.

You will not be required to participate* if you are an AFDC parent who: Has children under 6 years of age.

Has a disability or is needed at home to care for a disabled person.

Is aged 16 to 18 and is still in school.

Is under 16.

Has a physical or mental incapacitation.

Has a drug or alcohol dependency.

Lives more than two hours from your job site.

Cannot find acceptable child care.

Already is working 15 or more hours per week.

Has two years or less to go to complete a college degree.

Is involved in a family crisis.

Does not have a U.S. work permit.

Is involved in a legal dispute requiring frequent court appearances.

Has been laid off temporarily with an expectation of being rehired within a short time.

Is a member of a union that controls your access to certain jobs.

*You may still participate on a voluntary basis. WHERE YOU WILL START IN GAIN Regardless of how you begin GAIN, you will continue to receive welfare grants. An initial screening will determine how you start and will depend on: A. Whether you need English or other basic educational skills. If you need more educational training, you must enroll in classes for a maximum of two years, after which you will be required to enter the program’s jobs portion.

B. Whether you have been unemployed less than two years. If so, you may choose one of two options: 1) Either begin immediately looking for a job for at least three weeks, or 2) Enroll in a “Job Club,” a workshop offering such job-seeking skills as resume preparation and lining up interviews. After a week in the class, you will then begin a supervised job search.

C. Whether you have been unemployed more than two years. If so, you would be diverted directly to a Job Club classroom for up to three weeks of courses and an actual job search.

D. Whether you have been on welfare or unemployed more than twice in the previous three years. In this case, you would bypass the initial job search and Job Club and instead be sent immediately to an assessment program described in more detail below.

THE ASSESSMENT PROGRAM AND THE CONTRACT The assessment program is for those in group D and those in groups B and C who are unable to find a job. This program would help assess needed skills, educational and work background. You and a job counselor will devise a contract in which you would specify such things as work goals or training and educational goals. After signing the contract, you could enter one of two basic programs.

“Job Services.” Activities include a supervised job search, job development, employment counseling, one-on-one counseling or unsupervised job searches.

“Training and Educational Services.” This program focuses on such activities as vocational training or college classes, adult basic education and English-as-a-Second-Language vocational training. It also could involve what is called Pre-employment Preparation, or PREP, for three months or one year, in which you could work up to 32 hours a week in a public service job designed to meet your employment goals.

Under most circumstances, the Job Services programs will last a maximum of three months, during which time you will be expected to actively seek a full-time position. The Training and Educational Services program could last much longer. If you do not find a permanent job within the three months, you will be expected to work in a public service program commonly referred to as “workfare.”

WORKFARE Workfare is a one-year program to help you develop a marketable skill while you work a maximum of 32 hours per week for a public agency or a nonprofit organization. You would be expected to seek a full-time permanent job on a day off. You could wind up in an advanced program expanding the skills you already have developed.

You could also end up in a more basic one-year program of unskilled work, if you are unable to successfully complete your educational or training courses or officials determine that you have been uncooperative. A reassessment would be conducted after six months in any case.

If you have completed a year in the workfare portion of the GAIN program and still have not found a permanent job, you would be required to repeat the program, starting with the Job Club, etc.