Deukmejian on Workfare Obstacles and Budget Cuts in Social Programs

Gov. Deukmejian says the state’s GAIN program is failing and that too much job training and education are to blame.

GAIN gives people the tools they need to get off welfare and into the job market. More than 80% of welfare recipients are single parent heads of households. GAIN jump-starts them by removing the barriers that usually keep people on public assistance. It provides child care, transportation, basic literacy instruction and job training.

Basic literacy training is the big one. The governor correctly observers that 60% of welfare recipients who are required to sign up of GAIN need some remedial education before they get hired. The governor finds that shocking, but it’s not. The fact of the matter is that there are few educated people on welfare. Many of those who are now in the program can’t even read or write at the sixth-grade level. That’s why they’re on welfare. They’re unemployable.

But in three years, GAIN has moved 70,000 welfare recipients into real careers. That’s a tremendous achievement. The critical boost for many of them was literacy training.

But learning to read and write takes time, usually months of hard work. To the governor, that’s time spent goofing off. He says GAIN ought to collar welfare recipients and hustle them into some job, any job, just as fast as possible.

There was a pilot program to try that approach in San Diego. It failed miserably in its goal to permanently get families off aid. It turned out that people who weren’t prepared for employment don’t stayed employed.

GAIN is now a mandatory program, but the governor refuses to provide the funds to serve everyone. The GAIN waiting lists run to tens of thousands, and the governor keeps cutting its budget.

GAIN is considered nationally to be the most enlightened act of Deukmejian’s career, and rightly so. What the governor signed in GAIN is a truly landmark move to break long-term welfare dependency. Why he attacks it just as he folds his tent is inexplicable.

Sure, GAIN should be evaluated. The state has already spent millions in state funds for a thorough, professional, competent study by a top-notch social services auditing firm. We will surely make corrections and adjustments based on those findings, but not on armchair musings.

DELAINE EASTIN

State Assembly

D-Union City