Recycling an Old and Good Idea : Community works program is a promising approach to welfare reform

A public jobs program that would put welfare recipients to work is one of the gems in the federal tax bill that the Senate Finance Committee approved last week. The Community Works Project Administration (CWPA), modeled after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s WPA, which put people in jobs during the Depression, is a promising approach to welfare reform.

The CWPA, proposed by Sen. David L. Boren (D-Okla.), would require able-bodied welfare recipients, except single mothers with very young children, to work or lose assistance. The government would become the employer of last resort.

The public jobs would be created by local and state governments or federal agencies that applied for federal grants managed by the U. S. Department of Labor. Those jobs could include cleaning up parks, delivering hot meals to senior citizens or other tasks that require minimal skills. Using the CWPA to replace government workers would be prohibited.

Welfare recipients would earn the minimum wage or their welfare payment plus 10%, whichever was higher. In addition to a few extra dollars a month, CWPA workers would also gain training, job experience and references that could help them get better-paying jobs.

Many states require welfare recipients to go to school or work, but neither federal nor state government alone can adequately fund job-oriented education and training programs.

California’s workfare program, GAIN, is especially effective in smaller cities, suburbs and rural communities, but it has space for only a fraction of the state’s welfare recipients. GAIN would be complemented by the CWPA because the federal project would provide training opportunities and jobs for people who otherwise could not compete in a tight job market.

The Senate Finance Committee has allocated $400 million for demonstration projects in three cities and two states. The projects are to run for four years, long enough to determine what would work without harming poor children. Los Angeles should be one of the test cities.

Welfare reform is high on the public agenda. A public jobs program belongs in the mix of remedies designed to cure welfare dependency.