When Welfare Works : More good news comes out of Riverside County’s successful program

Welfare reform is not an oxymoron. Government programs for poor people can, and indeed must, be made to work better than they do now. That’s why the recent release of the latest promising results from California’s Greater Avenues to Independence welfare-to-work program was noteworthy. So was the positive report’s timing: It coincided with, though it was eclipsed by, the release last week of the long-promised Clinton Administration welfare reform.

Washington can learn a lot from GAIN. This powerful and innovative program works. It helps welfare recipients get education, training and jobs. Though relatively expensive, it saves government money. Every dollar that government invested in the Riverside County GAIN effort, the state’s most successful program, returned $2.84 in welfare savings in the long run and a large earnings gain for participants.

This encouraging news comes from a final evaluation of GAIN by the Manpower Demonstration Research Corp., famed for designing and studying programs that help disadvantaged people.

Based on the experiences of 33,000 welfare recipients in six counties, the research group found that GAIN participants, mainly poor, single mothers, did better than recipients not in the program.

Riverside County posted the most impressive results. Unlike most counties, it had enough resources to help all eligible recipients. For instance, mothers of preschool children were not excluded. They are hard to help because often they can’t afford or find decent child care. But they succeeded under GAIN.

GAIN also worked for welfare mothers who had received Aid to Families with Dependent Children for six years or longer and for women without skills and thus often difficult to employ.

Changing behavior is hard. Another welfare program evaluated by the research corporation was much less successful. New Chance, a federal demonstration project in California and nine other states, encouraged young mothers who were school dropouts to finish school and find jobs. Slightly more than 40% did go to work, but the majority quit because of low wages or they wanted to stay home with their children. More than 80% were on welfare 18 months later.

Teen-age school dropouts are the most difficult recipients to move from welfare to work. But, as GAIN proves, incremental success is possible. Although the GAIN program didn’t push every participant completely off of welfare, it started many toward independence with a boost in skills, and part-time earnings that the state allows them to keep as an incentive to get off of welfare. All this progress is worth noting in California--and Washington.