‘Welfare Magnet’ Idea Now Draws Skepticism : But there’s still a chance for real reform of benefits system

California, it turns out, isn’t a powerful welfare magnet that attracts hordes of poor mothers and children in search of benefits much higher than those offered back home. The limited evidence currently available suggests, contrary to popular stereotype, that fewer than 7% of welfare recipients moved recently to California.

This data, included in reports by Times staff writer Virginia Ellis, indicates that temporarily restricting the benefits of newcomers won’t make much of a dent in the state’s yawning deficit.

A few poor families do weigh the difference in welfare checks before making the move, according to anecdotal evidence, news reports and a handful of conversations cited by one of the governor’s social-services executives. That’s enough to convince Gov. Pete Wilson that California’s relatively high welfare checks--$663 a month for a single mother who has two children--plays a role in drawing some poor families to this state. To keep that kind of migration from further increasing the state’s heavy welfare burden, the governor wants to limit, for a year, the amount that new families could receive to the amount they would get in the state they left behind.

Wilson’s stance on this facet of the welfare debate is popular despite past constitutional challenges to such a position; a U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawed residency requirements that would, in effect, set up a welfare caste system within a state. The governor’s unlikely supporters on this issue include most Assembly Democrats.

Most Senate Democrats also support a limited welfare check for newcomers, but they offer a proposal based on the average of welfare rates in the other 49 states. A welfare check figured on that basis, though more generous than the governor’s proposal for some recipients, would total little more than half of California’s current benefit.

California pays higher benefits than most states to compensate for the very high cost of living here. Poor families, whether they are on welfare or working, often confront atypically high housing costs that consume as much as 80% of their benefits if they live in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Orange County or San Diego.

Only 11% of this state’s welfare families live in public housing or other subsidized housing, where rent is significantly cheaper. That percentage is much higher in other states where affordable housing is not as scarce.

In fact, the expense of housing may motivate some welfare mothers to leave California. The limited available research does not indicate an exodus, but the welfare rolls in nearby states like Washington do reflect an increase. Nor does the research indicate how many welfare newcomers are former residents returning to California. Such information, though difficult to obtain, is needed to shape farsighted welfare reform that will work without punishing poor children.

Gov. Wilson deserves credit for trying to reduce welfare dependency. He has initiated a serious debate in Sacramento that parallels the national debate on how to help welfare mothers become independent.

Despite his good intentions, the governor has proposed his reforms in the form of a rigid ballot initiative that would needlessly clutter the state Constitution. It would be far better for him to work out welfare reform with the Legislature. There is still time to reach such a legislative compromise, if the governor and legislative leaders get to work right away and come up with a compromise that puts helping poor children first.