CALIFORNIA COMMENTARY : Clear Away Obstacles to Workfare : The state’s program is making progress, but putting people in jobs must become the top priority.

One goal I have stressed repeatly throughout eight years as governor and 28 years in public life is to help create a broadly based prosperity in California that leaves no one behind. We have made great strides toward that goal in the last eight years. For example, nearly 3.2 million new jobs have been created and our unemployment rate has been cut by more than half.

Nonetheless, as the following data show, a serious welfare-dependency problem remains, one that seems impervious to our state’s overall prosperity:

--California’s welfare caseload is growing twice as fast as the general population.

--One in every six children residing in our state comes from a family on welfare; more than 2 million people here receive these benefits.

--California, with 12% of America’s population, is spending 22% of the nation’s welfare dollars. Except for Alaska and one county in New York, California’s current $694 monthly welfare payment for a family of three is the highest in the nation and does not include other assistance, such as food stamps and Medi-Cal.

In the coming year, total funding for health and welfare programs in our state will increase to $26 billion, almost double the $15.5 billion we were spending when I assumed office.

The increasing number of people depending on welfare did not begin with my Administration. Former governors, beginning with Ronald Reagan, faced similar trends. In 1985, my Administration tried a new approach. We enacted the most comprehensive welfare-reform measure in two decades, the Greater Avenues for Independence program. The aim of the GAIN program was to place welfare recipients in jobs in the private sector to give them fresh hope and benefit taxpayers in the bargain. To date, we have committed more than $850 million to this program--above and beyond our standard welfare expenditures.

I am impressed by reports from people GAIN has helped, like one former welfare recipient who has acquired skills, is working in a school district and plans to become a teacher. She says that her children are more motivated in school, that their grades have risen and that she has discovered, “You do not have to be a prisoner to welfare.”

Yet despite such success stories, GAIN is placing far fewer people in jobs and at a much higher cost than originally anticipated. Overall, it is not reducing the welfare rolls or cutting welfare costs.

I believe it is time for an honest examination of GAIN’s track record--and a willingness to enact major changes to make this worthy program more effective.

For example, we originally intended GAIN to place a heavy emphasis on job-seeking up front. However, in a key compromise we accepted in order to enact the legislation, a provision was added that basic education--such as language or math study, high school-equivalence preparation or English as a second language--would be provided to people who needed this training before they had to seek work. It was estimated that 20% of GAIN registrants would need such education.

Instead, since the program began in 1986, more than 60% of GAIN registrants, including some who would prefer to work, are being identified as needing basic education, rather than being placed in the job market. This is the primary reason that the program is costing much more than expected.

In addition, if welfare recipients are attending college, even if they are pursuing a graduate degree, they are deferred from the requirement to seek employment. GAIN pays for transportation, child care and other support services for two years. Even after that, people on welfare can continue pursuing higher education as long as they desire. They can even seek a Ph.D. This delays .............their employment and is an excessive burden on taxpayers.

California cannot afford this kind of welfare system. We must go back to basics. We need to give a hand to those who cannot help themselves for a short period of time, until they can make it on their own. In turn, those we help must help themselves.

We need to rededicate ourselves to the original intent of the GAIN approach. GAIN should be transformed into a true “workfare” program, where the immediate priority is to remove people from welfare rolls and put them on payrolls as quickly as possible.

Therefore, I am proposing that we take the following steps to make GAIN what it was supposed to be: a program of work, opportunity and self-sufficiency.

First, all participants should be required to look for jobs before being diverted into any education or training program. Let the job marketplace, not case workers, determine who is employable. I am proposing that we lengthen this job-search effort from the current three weeks to six weeks to allow more time to test the labor market. Only if participants cannot find work after this intensive job-search effort and they demonstrate a lack of fundamental skills, should they be directed to basic education or vocational training.

Second, I am proposing that we limit basic education and vocational training to six months, at which point participants must again begin intensive job-search efforts, and that the law be changed to require that any participant who finds full-time employment paying at least minimum wage should be required to take the job. If the level of earnings is not enough to support a single-parent family (88% of the caseload) they would still be able to receive supplemental welfare payments, but at a reduced cost to taxpayers. And they would be acquiring work experience. Only if they are unable to find a job after these efforts should they be given additional education or vocational skills training.

Third, I am proposing that our welfare system stop subsidizing all post-secondary education that is not part of basic education or vocational training intended for rapid employment. Our welfare program was not designed to be a college or graduate-school scholarship program. Those already in the middle of higher-education courses would be allowed to complete the semester, but that’s all. No one who is able to work should be exempt.

California already spends well over half of its state budget on education, and we fund generous higher-education grant and loan programs for low-income individuals. Our community college system is the largest in the nation and among the least expensive. Welfare recipients who find employment can pursue this education on their own time as other taxpayers do.

Fourth, I am proposing that measures be strengthened to require mandatory participation in GAIN; under the current system, they are too lax. It’s mandatory that the taxpayers pay the bill for California’s welfare system. It should be mandatory that those who are able to work make an effort to find a job.

And I will be proposing additional measures to encourage more efforts by the private sector to hire and train welfare recipients, to make the process less cumbersome and to strengthen the state’s ability to temporarily place those who cannot initially find work in public or nonprofit agencies to gain experience.

When a society as prosperous and as compassionate as ours is faced with a growing class of its citizens who have little to hope for other than a life on welfare, then something is seriously wrong. Finding the answer to this unacceptable dilemma has been a long, hard struggle.

GAIN was a landmark first step. We must now take the necessary additional steps to ensure that GAIN remains true to its central purpose--transferring welfare checks into paychecks and dependency into opportunity for every Californian.