Supervisors OK Workfare Plan

Without dissent, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Thursday approved an ambitious plan to eventually enroll more than 100,000 welfare recipients in job-training programs.

The workfare plan, mandated by state legislation two years ago, is now subject to approval by the Deukmejian Administration. Officials expect that approval may take as much as a year and predict its start-up in September, 1988.

The statewide Greater Avenues for Independence program was approved in 1985 through a bipartisan legislative effort. Patterned after programs in many other states, GAIN provides a number of strategies for getting people off welfare and into paying jobs. It will affect primarily mothers who now receive Aid to Families With Dependent Children. Among the key elements of the plan are remedial education, on-the-job training and free child care.

Critics of the Los Angeles proposal have predicted its failure, citing a lack of child care in the county as well as a shortage of available jobs that pay more than welfare benefits.