Welfare Reform Plan to Seek Lid on Aid to Teens

Hoping to discourage the formation of long-term welfare families, the Clinton Administration’s welfare-reform task force intends to recommend that teen-agers who qualify for aid be prohibited from receiving it unless they live with a parent or other responsible adult, sources said Monday.

The change is intended to eliminate what some analysts view as an incentive for unmarried young women to have children: the resources to establish their own households with the aid of welfare payments.

“We want to do everything we can to try to prevent young women from going on welfare in the first place and remove any incentives for them to do so,” one senior White House official said. “We also think children who have children should have a responsible adult around.”

The proposed requirement that teen-agers live with an adult reflects an ongoing shift in the welfare reform debate toward efforts to deter out-of-wedlock births, particularly among teens. Though most attention has focused on President Clinton’s promise to require welfare recipients to work after two years, reducing incentives for out-of-wedlock birth may be even more essential for reforming the system, the senior official said.

“In the long run, that may be the most important thing,” the official said.

The task force is expected to deliver its recommendations to Clinton by the middle of this month. In broad outlines it has approved a plan that tracks closely with Clinton’s campaign promises to increase funds for training and education, require welfare recipients to work after two years and demand greater “personal responsibility” from the recipients of government aid.

But many details remain to be resolved--key among them how quickly to phase in the work requirement and the closely related question of how to pay for the overall initiative.

The proposal that teen welfare recipients live with an adult--which, like all the task force’s recommendations, must still be adopted by the President--is likely to draw fire from welfare rights activists, who maintain that such a prohibition may compel some young women to remain in unsafe or dysfunctional homes.

“Increasingly, research is providing evidence that in a number of cases where there is a teen parent there is evidence that the teen has been a victim of prior abuse in the home,” says Mark Greenberg, an attorney at the Center for Law and Social Policy in Washington. “There is a tremendous danger that government will be intruding into decisions where it doesn’t have the facts to know the best answer.”

Under current law, states have the option of requiring teen-age welfare recipients to live with an adult; six now do so, including Maine and Georgia. The task force’s recommendation would change the law to mandate that states impose such a requirement.

To further discourage out-of-wedlock births, the welfare task force is planning a broad educational effort--dubbed a “national campaign against teen pregnancy”--as well as more pointed measures aimed at both young fathers and mothers.

The task force is considering a change in federal law that would make it easier for states to deny additional benefits to women who have children while already on the welfare rolls. But the task force is divided over the question and officials say that Clinton will have to resolve the dispute.

The task force already has decided to recommend steps to increase collection of child support from absent fathers.

The task force plans to propose tying federal aid for child support collection to improved performance by the states in establishing paternity for children on welfare. It will also urge stepped-up enforcement of existing laws to recover child-support payments after paternity is established.

Many liberals have long maintained that such efforts are misplaced because the young men who father such children typically have small incomes. But the Administration believes that tougher enforcement is necessary both to discourage young men from fathering out-of-wedlock children in the first place and to reclaim a share of whatever earnings are available later.

“These fathers have earnings eventually,” the senior official said. “So it is not as hopeless as you think.”

In an effort to increase their earnings’ potential--and thus the funds available for the government to claim--the task force is likely to recommend pilot programs that would provide job training for young men identified in child support cases.

As the welfare debate coalesces, Clinton will face proposals that would take significantly more severe steps to discourage out-of-wedlock births. The welfare reform bill recently introduced by Republicans in the House would bar teen-age mothers from receiving any welfare benefits--though states could override the federal ban with specific legislation. Any state that did provide such benefits would be required to mandate that teen-agers live with an adult.

In addition, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) is considering legislation that would make it easier for states to deny additional benefits to women who have children while on the welfare rolls.