Birth of Tough Love? : Clinton’s instincts bode well for true welfare reform

What does a poor child require to survive? When parents can’t provide, how much can government afford to provide?

The national debate on welfare reform has been reshaped by the election of Bill Clinton. The next President is likely to reject purely punitive “reforms.” But he is not expected to ignore the huge costs--$74 billion--for the nation’s welfare programs, which include aid to families with dependent children. Clinton surely will be carefully weighing the two competing philosophies of welfare. The liberal approach to welfare reform tends to rely on providing incentives to escape welfare. Poor parents get child care and other support when they return to school or enroll in job training--no matter how long the self-improvement takes. Welfare recipients who find jobs are rewarded with continuation of medical benefits.

The conservative approach to welfare reform tends to rely on punitive measures. Workfare mandates that recipients either do some form of work or lose benefits. Training comes with time limits, typically two years. Parents who refuse to go to school or to work lose part or all of their small checks. Welfare mothers who have additional children get no increase in their welfare checks despite the extra mouths to feed.

True welfare reform combines the nurturing favored by liberals and the prodding favored by conservatives. The key is the proper balance of rewards and requirements.

Clinton combined those two when he was governor of Arkansas. His reform offered more training, but it set a time limit to get people off welfare. The combination worked. Welfare rolls dropped in Arkansas before the recession destroyed so many jobs.

Welfare reform is currently a popular subject at many state houses. Rising costs have driven this interest; the federal government requires states to share the cost of AFDC. That burden, bloated by the recession and, to a lesser degree, by immigration and migration, prompted California’s Gov. Pete Wilson to link welfare reform with budget reform and to limit the benefits granted to newcomers from other states. The Legislature agreed to smaller checks for those newly arrived from out of state, but a legal challenge has threatened that change. Meanwhile, voters wisely rejected Wilson’s well-intentioned but misconceived ballot initiative.

The timing of the ballot measure was bad. Record-high unemployment severely limited job opportunities for unskilled Californians. Workfare that requires employment at a time of high joblessness may reduce welfare rolls but substantially increases poverty and homelessness. The mandatory requirement is less onerous when accompanied by a public jobs-of-last-resort program. Such a program puts people to work but also significantly increases government expense.

Strengthening and enforcing child support laws also can reduce welfare costs. That’s an idea that an increasing number of public officials, including Clinton, have endorsed.

Of course, Clinton also can do much to reduce welfare dependency by making good on his campaign promises to improve the economy. A rebounding economy that creates jobs is perhaps the best single antidote to growing welfare rolls.

The new President can help long-term welfare recipients by seeking a pragmatic reform that uses carrots and sticks to promote movement from welfare to work. It’s true that welfare reform may take a back seat to economic reform during the first 100 days of the Clinton Administration. But the two should go hand in hand to eliminate dependency and reduce poverty without crippling the futures of poor children.