2 Florida Counties to Test Clinton-Style Welfare Plan

The Administration approved an experiment in two Florida counties Thursday that will give poor people a taste of the reforms President Clinton is advocating for the entire country.

The experimental programs will put a two-year time limit on public assistance benefits and require recipients to work, two of the basic principles of Clinton’s welfare reform strategy.

Nine other states already have received Administration approval to try welfare reform projects, but the Florida initiative most resembles the plan being designed by the Administration working group on welfare reform.

In his State of the Union speech Tuesday, Clinton said that he would introduce welfare reform legislation this spring.

The Florida experiment could provide a sneak preview of what the rest of the country would face if the Administration succeeds in pushing its plan through Congress.

“Other states will want to look at it as they think of how they want to proceed themselves,” said Mary Jo Bain, an assistant health and human services secretary who is a leader of the welfare reform working group. “We continue to learn a lot about welfare reform from these state demonstrations.”

In an attempt to force the President to move faster, Senate Republicans Thursday called a press conference to push their own welfare reform bill, which was introduced Tuesday and has much in common with what the President has discussed.

“President Clinton continues to fiddle while millions of Americans are trapped in a welfare system that creates dependency and condemns them and their children to poverty,” said Sen. Hank Brown (R-Colo.). “Our plan changes welfare to a program that offers hope, opportunity and independence.”

*

The Florida plan, called the “Family Transition Program,” will limit to 24 months the length of time some welfare families in two Florida counties, Escambia and Alachua, will be eligible for Aid to Families With Dependent Children benefits in any five-year period.

“Our goal is a system that provides temporary help for families, to help them succeed on their own--instead of creating a life-dependency for generations,” said Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles.

Participation will be mandatory in Escambia County, which includes Pensacola, and voluntary in Alachua, which includes Gainesville. The total current number of welfare recipients in the two counties is 30,000.

“Able-bodied people who want to work will get the chance to work and those who don’t want to work will be out the door in two years,” said Jim Towey, secretary of the state’s Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services.

The similarities between the Florida project and the federal working group’s yet-to-be-unveiled plan reportedly include:

* Case workers will use every effort to get private sector jobs for participants as soon as they walk through the welfare office door.

* Before getting jobs, participants will be required to attend school or job training classes.

* Government-subsidized child care will be available during the training period and for the first two years on the job.

* Exemptions from the work requirement for parents with young children will be available only for those with children up to 6 months, rather than 3 years.

* Participants who cannot find private-sector jobs by the end of two years will be offered public-sector jobs.