Welfare Reform Without Tears : How to save taxpayer money and help people get on their feet

Both Republicans and Democrats want welfare reform. Newt Gingrich, soon to be House majority leader, promises to hold hearings on the GOP’s Personal Responsibility Act--part of the House Republicans’ “Contract With America”--in the first 100 days of the coming session. President Clinton promises to make good on his campaign vow to change welfare through his proposed Family Support Act. Promises, promises. But surely common ground can be found in Washington. Here are three principles of sensible welfare reform:

1. PLACE A TIME LIMIT ON WELFARE: Work is part of the American ethic. Both bills would impose time limits and work requirements for Aid to Families With Dependent Children. However the proposals may differ, these common elements provide a good starting point.

Under the House Republican proposal, states could deny welfare to recipients who received benefits for two years if a parent had participated in a job program for one year. That restriction, though reasonable for literate welfare recipients in areas with booming economies and plenty of jobs, would punish recipients in states like California that have been crippled for years by a lingering recession. It would also punish illiterate welfare recipients who need help to get a job.

The Administration’s plan would require parents to work after receiving aid for two years. This approach would benefit the mothers of infants and other preschool children. It would also allow more time for poor parents who lack basic skills to get the training they need. If California’s workfare experience is any indication, this approach is more likely to pay off in the long run. But America’s patience is running out.

2. EMPHASIZE, EMPHATICALLY, WORK: The GOP plan would require parents who applied for welfare to look for work immediately. States would be required to place 100,000 recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children in work programs next year, and the figure would increase to 900,000 in the year 2000. The emphasis on finding a job is appropriate, as the success of Riverside County’s state workfare program has proven. But GAIN, California’s increasingly successful welfare-to-work program, provides education and training as well as child care; the GOP bill provides neither.

Under the House Republican proposal, all welfare recipients would lose benefits after five years on AFDC regardless of their circumstances. They would lose everything even if they were willing to work, went to school, participated in job training and followed every rule. That sink-or-swim approach may motivate some families, but it would sink many.

3. TRY TO KEEP FAMILIES INTACT: Both Republicans and Democrats target teen-age childbearing, where long-term dependency typically begins. To discourage early childbearing, the Administration would require the youngest mothers to stay in school, get training and go to work. To reduce illegitimacy, Gingrich’s bill would deny welfare benefits to mothers under the age of 18 and states would be allowed to raise the age to 21. Children, no matter how poor the family, would be permanently barred from welfare unless their biological parents married or their single mothers married men willing to adopt them. Mothers who did not establish paternity of their children would also lose benefits. And all legal immigrants would lose benefits even if they had worked legally and paid the taxes that support welfare. This is ridiculous.

If the House Republicans prevail, up to 5 million children and their parents will eventually be thrown off welfare. What would happen to those children? The House Republican contract calls for orphanages, group homes and adoptions. The well-publicized orphanage proposal is seen by many now as a red herring, since such care costs from $30,000 to $50,000 a year per child, nearly 10 times the cost of maintaining a welfare child. It’s also hard to see how sending kids to orphanages is pro-family. Gingrich would encourage families who exhausted welfare benefits to turn to private charities. But most charities already are stretched beyond capacity.

Gridlock on this issue would not do anybody any good. Welfare reform that encourages parental responsibility without scarring poor children and that supports families without swelling taxes or deficits--these should be the goals of Republicans and Democrats alike.