Moynihan Welfare Plan Stresses Support for Children, Job Program

Child support would be withheld from parental paychecks and states would have to run extensive job and education programs under a long-awaited welfare reform plan developed by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.).

Moynihan, chairman of the Senate Finance subcommittee on Social Security and family policy, disclosed a five-year, $2.3-billion proposal this weekend and said he will introduce it in the Senate on Tuesday.

Aid to Families with Dependent Children, the current welfare system serving nearly 3.8 million families, is “a passive system. It’s a widow’s pension,” he said, referring to the original intent of AFDC.

Would Stress Obligations

Moynihan’s Family Security Act, similar in many respects to the major welfare bill making its way through the House, would stress parental obligations to support their children and participate in the work force.

“We’re trying to deal with the problem of dependency,” said Moynihan, an author and expert on families in poverty. “It is a very large problem, and it is not going to respond quickly to anything we do.”

The Moynihan plan, co-sponsored so far by six Democrats and two Republicans on the Finance Committee, would replace AFDC with a Child Support Supplement program. Like the House bill, it would require states to include two-parent households in the system. Only 26 states do so now.

Moynihan’s bill also would require states to set up within three years a Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) program that would be mandatory for many welfare recipients, including mothers of children 3 or over. About 120,000 people would be in the program in 1992--similar to the 115,000 projected that year for the House version of the work program.

The bill would require that employers automatically withhold court-ordered child support payments from paychecks of absent parents.

Moynihan said he tried to win Reagan Administration support but conceded he has failed.