Atlantic City Takes a Gamble on a Pilot Welfare Reform Project

When state Sen. William Gormley began hearing complaints from Atlantic City casino executives about the shortage of qualified employees, he wondered why there were so many people on the welfare rolls.

“It was just a matter of cross-referencing these two groups,” he says.

Drew Altman, the state’s Human Services commissioner, was understandably enthralled with Gormley’s idea.

“We have a concentration of big employers in Atlantic City,” he says, and starting salaries at the casinos range from $6 to $9 an hour.

‘Hope to Send Signal’

By starting a pilot welfare reform project in the seaside resort, “we hope to send a signal to other big employees around the state,” Altman says. The goal in Atlantic City is to place 1,500 welfare recipients.

The “Atlantic City Initiative,” as the project is called, is the first stage in New Jersey’s comprehensive welfare reform proposal called Reach, for Realizing Economic Achievement. If the state legislature approves the plan, Reach is scheduled to start in several New Jersey counties this October in an effort to reduce the 365,000 welfare beneficiaries in the state.

Under the plan, all able-bodied welfare recipients under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program who do not care for children under age 2 would be required to find work, enroll in job training or go to school. In return, the state would provide child care, medical coverage and transportation.

Exceptions would be made for recipients because of age, poor health or responsibilities to care for the disabled.

Not Without Critics

The idea of forcing a mother of a 2-year-old toddler to work instead of collecting welfare is not without its critics.

In Massachusetts, the participation requirements in the highly touted Employment and Training Choices program are not as strict. In California, the Greater Avenues for Independence program requires only mothers of school-age children to work instead of collecting welfare.

Even the welfare reform program being developed in Congress is considering mothers of children age 3 and up.

Gov. Thomas Kean’s administration has put a price tag of $12.5 million on the first year of the program and $100 million over the three-year phase-in. The plan would pay for itself if it reduces by 15% the number of heads of households receiving welfare, Kean aides say. But some critics say costs of job training have been underestimated.

Aimed at Motivated People

The program is aimed at people like Barbara Carrington, whose path to welfare followed misfortune more than a lack of motivation.

This 34-year-old single mother holds an associate’s degree in secretarial science and is skilled with a computer. For about three years, she worked at a nearby insurance company and felt good about herself.

“But then I decided to go where the money was,” she says, and in 1978 she took a job as a cashier at Resorts International Casino Hotel.

Optimistic about the booming business, she went on to dealer school--hoping for an even higher-paying job--and went through the tedious process of obtaining a casino employee’s license.

Worked Two Jobs

Then Aisha was born. Carrington collected unemployment for a while, and when Aisha was old enough to leave with a baby sitter, she took a temporary job as a blackjack dealer.

At the end of the summer, she hoped to stay on permanently. Optimistic about her prospects, she waited, but her casino license expired in the interim.

“I went to McDonald’s, but the hours weren’t flexible,” she says. “And in order to make more money, I took a second job at Best Western as a chambermaid.

“It was rough, and even with two jobs, the money wasn’t right.”

Welfare Was Better

Carrington realized she could make out better collecting welfare than to continue working. But, sitting in her modest subsidized apartment, she admits, “You get tired after a while of cleaning the house all the time, washing clothes by hand. I wanted to get out and work again.”

Debbie Rago, project specialist with the state Department of Human Services, says state officials knew they had obstacles to overcome.

“If a woman on welfare took a job, she’d lose so many benefits and the pay didn’t offset the costs of the job--transportation, day care, clothes for work, health benefits for the kids,” she says. “When you calculate it, she was better off staying at home on welfare.”

The program has generated controversy. Advocates of the poor say that making the program mandatory strips recipients of their dignity and self-respect. Right now, only women with school-age children are required to become self-sufficient.

Imperfect Schedule

Carrington, however, doesn’t feel like a pawn working as a casino floor cashier at the Tropicana Hotel and Casino. She’s hoping that a pit clerk position will soon open--the position she trained for that will once again let her use a computer.

Carrington admits, however, that it hurt a little to watch 4-year-old Aisha cry the first time she dropped her off at the nearby apartment of an elderly baby sitter hired by the state.

And all is not perfect with the family’s schedule. Carrington leaves work at 4 a.m. and usually gets home an hour later to pick up Aisha.

“Most of the time she’ll go back to sleep,” Carrington says. “But sometimes we’ll get home and she’ll say, ‘Mommy, I’m hungry,’ and I get upset because I’m tired at that point. If she stays up, she knows to stay inside and watch TV while I sleep.”

Kinks to Be Worked Out

Carrington is trying to enroll her daughter in a nearby day-care center during the mornings so she can sleep after work. But space in the center probably won’t open until September, she says.

John W. Cosby, director of Atlantic County’s social services department, concedes there are kinks to be worked out because of the casinos’ night shifts.

“My own feeling is that I would rather not see a sleeping child disturbed,” he says. “We’re looking into a double day-care voucher for those instances.

“This is a very, very challenging concept,” Cosby says. “But it’s an exciting concept and there is a lot of motivation on everybody’s part.”

Erasing the Hassle

Everyone is convinced except, possibly, the welfare recipients. Carrington said she knows several friends “who are not motivated enough to try the program. Some people are just so used to welfare, they don’t even want to try.

“But to me, it’s been a hindrance.”

Erasing some of the hassle of applying for the program will be one first step, Rago says. Agency heads are meeting regularly “to develop some reporting systems and procedures so we can keep clients, not lose them in the maze.

“We can’t hand-carry them from agency to agency, but it’s intimidating for a lot of clients. They fear the questioning, the lots of forms, and they get discouraged.”

Gormley says, “It would be foolhardy to say that I guarantee this program will work, but the ingredients are there.”