Advocates for Poor Protest Wilson’s Welfare Remark : Budget: Governor is called insensitive after saying AFDC cut would leave recipients less to spend on beer.

Gov. Pete Wilson, trying to sell his proposed budget, said Friday that under his welfare cuts poor mothers still could afford rent, but would “have less for a six-pack of beer.”

In defending his proposal to cut checks by about 9% in the Aid to Families With Dependent Children program, Wilson also said the smaller grants would keep recipients from paying “top dollar to a slumlord.”

Wilson’s comments drew an immediate and angry response from welfare rights advocates and their supporters in the Legislature, who said the new governor was showing an insulting insensitivity to the plight of the poor.

The Republican chief executive made the comments at a press conference after touring a special-care nursery at Sacramento’s Sutter Memorial Hospital. He went there hoping to drive home his point that keeping pregnant women off illegal drugs is far wiser and more humane than waiting to treat the infants after they are born.

The hospital tour was the first stop in what is expected to be a series of campaign-style visits around the state during which Wilson will attempt to generate public support for his proposals.

“You’ve got to keep selling your program,” he told reporters after speaking with doctors in the nursery and stroking a baby that was born several weeks prematurely.

But Wilson’s advocacy of drug treatment for pregnant women was overshadowed by his statements on welfare. When asked about criticism of his proposal to reduce the monthly grant for a mother and two children from $694 to $633, Wilson at first mocked the comments of his detractors.

“ ‘Poorest of the poor, balancing it on the backs of the poor’--brand-new phrases, I’ve never heard those before,” Wilson said sarcastically.

The governor acknowledged that welfare recipients use most of their grant to pay for housing. But he said he believes they still have money left over for non-essentials.

“I am convinced they will be able to pay the rent, but they will have less for a six-pack of beer,” Wilson said. “I don’t begrudge them a six-pack of beer, but it is not an urgent necessity.”

Wilson said his proposed $225-million cut in Aid to Families With Dependent Children was necessary to pay for the preventive programs he touted all week in his inauguration address, his State of the State speech and his budget message to the Legislature.

“What you have in this budget when you cut the AFDC grant, you have prenatal care, you have programs that prevent drug use during pregnancy, you have preschool,” Wilson said. “You have a lot of things that are a lot more important than a six-pack of beer or providing top dollar to a slumlord.”

Wilson pointed out that he also proposed increasing food stamp allotments by $20 a month. Additionally, he embraced the Democrats’ proposal that welfare recipients be allowed to receive grants and health benefits for a time even after they find work.

The governor said he believes the state can be more effective by offering food stamps, preschool, health care and other services instead of cash grants because many welfare recipients are not able to manage their money.

“I am not convinced that people who are not capable of earning (a living) are best left with discretion to spend,” he said.

In response, advocates for the poor suggested that Wilson was naive to believe that welfare mothers have money to spare and insulting to declare that his cut would do no more than deprive them of beer.

“He has bought into the generalization that the poor have mismanaged their money, that they are not to be respected or treated as adults, that they have gotten themselves into a situation and they need a baby-sitter to help them,” said Grace Galligher, directing attorney for the Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations. “What he’s saying is that they don’t know enough to come in from the rain.”

The state expects to spend $2.2 billion next year in AFDC grants to an estimated 719,000 families.

According to federal government figures supplied by the Western Center on Law and Poverty, the current AFDC grant for a family of three--which is supposed to pay for housing, utilities, clothing, transportation, and some food--is below the cost of rent alone for a “modest” two-bedroom apartment in most of the state’s urban areas.

The $694 payment falls short of what it costs to pay rent in San Francisco, San Jose, Orange, Oakland and Los Angeles, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Wilson’s proposal to cut the grant to $633 would make the payment insufficient for rent in his hometown of San Diego, leaving only Sacramento’s housing prices still within the range of the poor.

Politically, Wilson’s comments seem certain to sour his relations with Democrats in the Legislature, who spent most of the week praising him for being different from former Gov. George Deukmejian.

Sen. Diane Watson said the governor’s comments “add insult to injury.”

“I am really sorry to hear comments like this,” said Watson, a Los Angeles Democrat who chairs the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. “I had great hope for this governor. He seems now to be imitating his predecessor by blaming the victim and then complaining about the problem rather than proposing a solution.”

Assemblywoman Delaine Eastin (D-Union City), whose legislative specialty is welfare, said Wilson’s statement showed a “lack of sensitivity.”

“The typical welfare recipient is a woman whose husband has left her, she’s got a couple of kids and she probably dropped out of high school,” Eastin said. “We get calls every day from people looking for housing. I think the governor is a reasonable man. He must have gotten some bad information.”

Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), one of the Assembly’s leading conservatives and an advocate of health and welfare cuts, refused to comment on Wilson’s remarks, but he strongly defended the governor’s plan to reduce grants.

“I think the governor’s welfare program is entirely defensible,” he said. “Even with the cuts, we will still lead all the industrial states in our commitment to welfare. It’s hardly Draconian.”

RENTAL HOUSING COSTS FOR THE POOR

These are the fair market rents as determined by the Department of Housing and Urban Development for one- and two-bedroom rental units in seven metropolitan areas of California. The maximum monthly Aid to Families With Dependent Children grants are $694 for a mother and two children and $824 for a mother and three children. Gov. Pete Wilson’s budget proposes to cut the benefits by about 9% or $61 monthly for a family of three. In some cases, the federal government will pay the cost of rent that exceeds 30% of the family’s monthly income.

REGION 1-BEDROOM 2-BEDROOM L.A.-Long Beach $615 $715 Orange 701 826 San Diego 568 666 San Francisco 748 887 Oakland 625 736 Sacramento 448 536 San Jose 747 878

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Metropolitan Area Residential Area Rent Increases, Legislative Analyst, budget analyses, 1980-89.