‘57% on Welfare Lack Basic Skills’

The Times’ article (April 27), “State Study Finds 57% on Welfare Lack Basic Skills,” failed to draw an obvious conclusion. The study, which we all paid for, reveals a situation that has prevailed for decades and has been well known to employers throughout the state and the nation for the same period. Moreover, there are plenty of “professionals” within the state Human Resources Development Department who also knew or should have known of this situation.

Why did we have to pay for a study to simply verify that which was already well known to those who have tried to work with the group of people covered by the study. The study only covered about 6,000 Workfare applicants, but employers have, over the years, studied many tens of thousands of these people.

Employers have a vested interest in having a literate work force available to them, and they have long recognized this fact. Why haven’t their concerns about this inexcusable situation been heard in Sacramento and in our local communities? Why did it require decades before the state got around to checking on the basic job skills of its unemployed citizens, and why did they not first get the information on this subject that was readily available from the employers of the state?

The answers to these questions are very important if we want to effectively address the problem. Just as there are probably some employers, a small minority, who profit from having a pool of unskilled people available, there are some in both the state and federal governments who also profit from these truly unfortunate individuals. Their jobs depend upon their being enough people lacking job skills to justify their job positions. In addition, a literate and well-informed citizenry could very likely bring about significant changes in the politics of the state. So no one should be surprised at the fact that the political will to quickly and effectively address the needs of those lacking basic skills has been lacking in Sacramento for decades.

Virtually no employer, employee, or person who ever applied for a job within the state of California within the past few decades, could possibly not have been aware that a very high percentage of the unemployed lacked the necessary basic skills to obtain and retain a job. They may not have picked 57% as the number requiring some remedial education, but almost certainly they would have picked a number in excess of 50%.

So we are left with yet another question. Why did the state finally decide to do a study to verify that which was known to almost everybody? If you believe that Sacramento has decided to lay the groundwork to garner support for a costly new program of remedial education for the unemployed who require it, I would tend to concur. But, if you believe that the program will be designed and implemented in such a manner as to be effective and primarily for the benefit of those who genuinely need it, well, then I suspect you will be in for yet another disappointing attempt by Sacramento to seriously address the needs of some of the most unfortunate among us.

I predict that any such program will have the effect of benefiting the existing bureaucracy most, by assuring more money and jobs for itself, and that those benefits that slowly leak through the system will be of little or no practical benefit to the unemployed in need of remedial training.

ROBERT S. LEVIN

Los Angeles