Asian Immigrants on Welfare Balk at Accepting Jobs

Carl Wells was excited about the prospect of matching eight refugees with eight factory jobs.

As coordinator of employment services for the Long Beach City College Refugee Assistance Program, one of his tasks is to help unemployed refugees find work.

So when a representative of Van de Kamp’s, a frozen food manufacturer in Santa Fe Springs, called recently with $3.70-an-hour jobs on its production line, Wells was optimistic. It was a good opportunity, he thought, for a few Southeast Asian refugees--of which Long Beach has one of the largest populations in the state--to get off the welfare rolls.

‘Pretended They Couldn’t Speak English’

Yet nearly two weeks later, despite the fact that his office had located 14 eligible candidates, only two had been hired. The reason, according to Wells: Most of them, influenced by ignorance and fear, simply didn’t want to work.

“We figured that a majority of them had the minimum English skills necessary to do the job,” he said. “It’s pretty obvious that they just pretended they couldn’t speak English.”

So the company had to look elsewhere for most of its recruits. And Wells’ program--which has a contract with the county to find jobs for refugees--lost an opportunity to bolster the sagging job placement statistics it needs to stay in business.

The experience isn’t at all unusual, says Wells. Of the estimated 50 refugees his office finds potential job offers for in an average three-month period, he said, 75% to 80% refuse the offers. And despite regulations requiring welfare recipients to be available for employment, Wells said, only a small percentage of those reported to the county for non-cooperation are ever actually kicked off welfare.

‘We’re Getting Kind of Burned Out’

“We’re getting kind of burned out with the frustration,” said Jim Martois, director of the LBCC project. “We can only do our part.”

Added Ken Rose, director of another refugee job training and placement service run by the nearby Asian Pacific Family Outreach center: “We have made every effort to try different ways of getting individuals to go to work and have not been very successful.”

Of the last 12 welfare cases referred to his program, Rose said, only one has been permanently placed in a job. Eight others flatly refused the jobs they were offered, and three more accepted jobs but quit on the first day.

“We have a performance-based contract,” Rose said. “We only get what we earn and we only earn when people go to work and stay at work. In terms of that, it’s been a disaster.”

Lack of Education, Skills

To understand what’s going on, state and county officials say, one must understand something of how the welfare system operates.

Traditionally, they say, most California welfare recipients--including refugees--have been removed from welfare rolls once they obtain full-time employment. For the state’s growing population of displaced Southeast Asians, however, that presented a problem. Often lacking in basic education and language skills, many were unable to find jobs that paid much more than their welfare checks.

A state study last year estimated that 60% of the 291,000 Southeast Asian refugees then living in California were on welfare.

So about six months ago, the federal government initiated new pilot programs in California and a handful of other states especially tailored to meet the needs of the country’s newly arrived refugee communities. Called Refugee Demonstration Projects, or RDPs, they require that refugees receiving welfare enroll in specially designated employment training programs during their first three years in the United States. And, with certain exceptions, they must be willing to accept jobs procured for them by refugee job placement services.

Benefits Continued

In exchange for their cooperation, the program allows the refugees to maintain medical coverage as well as total welfare benefits during those three years, which, added to the income from their jobs, equals the amount they would receive as ordinary welfare recipients. In California, that amount ranges from $498 per month for a family of one adult and one child, to $1,306 for a family of 10.

After three years, participants revert back to the traditional system under which they may not receive benefits while working more than 100 hours a month.

“The purpose (of the new program) is to let them work full time without facing the catastrophic decision of having their families go hungry,” said Walter Barnes, chief of the state Office of Refugee Services, which is overseeing the project. “The whole idea is to let them enter the work force to see what it’s like--to get training and experience.”

But word hasn’t yet filtered down to all of the refugees that the system for newcomers has changed. So, fearful of losing the medical and welfare benefits that sustain their families in exchange for low-income jobs that don’t, many simply make themselves unavailable for work offered through the program.

“Being new here and having friends who’ve been here longer than three years,” said Joan Pinchuk, refugee coordinator for Los Angeles County, “some of them find it hard to believe” that they can work and still retain their county benefits.

In addition, Pinchuk said, many are involved in cottage industries that provide higher unreported incomes than they could earn from any outside job for which they might realistically apply. And others have long-term training or employment goals that they believe would not be enhanced by their immediate acceptance of entry level positions.

Less-Educated Refugees

“There is a legitimate fear of changing a known for an unknown,” Pinchuk said. “I don’t think refugees are lazy people, but they look at the bottom line.”

The problem has been exacerbated, officials say, by the fact that the better-educated refugees tended to be among the earlier immigrant waves while the more recent arrivals tend to come from rural areas lacking basic educational opportunities.

Nil Hul, head of the Long Beach-based Cambodian Assn. of America, which provides many of the same services as the LBCC Refugee Assistance Program, says his agency shares that institution’s low rate of job placement among the city’s estimated 35,000 refugees. Hul attributes the problem to the refugees’ lack of English and other skills rather than any unwillingness to work.

“These people were farmers in the countryside,” often illiterate even in their own languages, he said. Once the system is explained to them, Hul said, few turn down jobs for which they are truly qualified.

Those who do, according to state and county officials, have only a small chance of ever being dropped from the program--or “sanctioned”--as a result. Statewide, according to Barnes, only about 5% of the participating refugee welfare recipients have ever been dropped for not cooperating. No statewide figures are available, he said, on what percentage of those reported for non-cooperation lose their welfare benefits.

But Paul Fast, research director for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services, which administers the county’s welfare program, said that in the second half of 1985--just before the special refugee program began--the county surveyed about 750 welfare recipients reported during that period for turning down job offers or refusing to cooperate with job-seeking services. The survey found that 50% were eventually determined to have acted with good cause such as illness, lack of child care or lack of transportation.

Of the rest, he said, about 37% were terminated for reasons other than willful non-compliance, such as moving or otherwise losing contact with the welfare office. And only 13%, he said, were ultimately terminated as a direct result of willfully failing to cooperate.

State Monitoring Cases

Barnes says he believes the statistics for refugees losing their benefits are roughly equivalent to those in the general welfare population. To arrive at more concise numbers, he said, the state is monitoring hundreds of cases--including 300 in Los Angeles County--and hopes to have results early next year. “We’ve had many problems in reporting,” he said, but the problems are finally beginning to be worked out.

Added Pinchuk: “The (refugee program) is not as successful as people had hoped, but we’re hopeful that over time people will learn that it’s worthwhile.”

Back in the trenches at Long Beach City College, meanwhile, employment services coordinator Wells said he’s trying a new approach to what has become an old problem. Instead of calling potential job applicants on the telephone, Wells says, he now knocks on their doors or corners them in public places.

“We can’t announce ahead of time that we’re looking for people, or they’ll disappear,” he said. “Offering a job is like serving a warrant.”