GAO Says JOBS Plan Not Working : Welfare: Report finds ’88 reform law fails to focus on employment. Poll reveals public support for change but not the GOP’s key initiatives.

A 1988 law designed to transform the nation’s welfare system from a permanent support system into a temporary safety net has fallen far short of its goal of helping recipients find jobs, the General Accounting Office reported Sunday.

In a separate study, a conservative polling organization said the public overwhelmingly supports the concept of welfare reform, but strongly resists many of the key elements of the welfare initiative contained in the House GOP’s “contract with America.”

The GAO report, commissioned by the New York senator who drafted the 1988 law, was released just as Congress is preparing to overhaul the welfare system once again. It could influence the direction of the debate by identifying unintended flaws in the previous reform effort.

Authored by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), the Family Support Act restructured the government’s principal form of welfare assistance, Aid to Families with Dependent Children. It created a new program, called JOBS, to help recipients get the training, counseling and job-placement services needed to leave the welfare rolls. The program was targeted at those recipients considered most at risk of long-term dependency on government benefits.

Although annual spending on the JOBS program had grown to $1.1 billion by 1993, its efforts “are generally not well-focused on recipients’ employment as the ultimate goal,” said the GAO, which conducts audits and investigations at the request of Congress.

The program’s lack of success reflects two key weaknesses, the report said. First, administrators are only held accountable for the level of participation by welfare recipients, and not for their ability to successfully place recipients in jobs. In addition, most JOBS officials have done little to forge strong links with private-sector employers who potentially could hire welfare recipients.

While some localities developed programs that helped recipients prepare for and find employment, after three years no JOBS program was able to move a majority of participants off welfare and into jobs, the GAO reported.

Participation has been disappointing, with roughly 11% of the 4 million parents receiving AFDC taking part in JOBS between 1991 and 1993, the agency said. Only 24% of teen-age mothers receiving AFDC participated in JOBS, even though they are especially prone to long-term dependency.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which administers the program, said in a prepared response that the GAO’s conclusions are overly harsh.

“What the report shows is what we already knew,” said HHS spokeswoman Melissa Skofield. “When the Family Support Act was passed, it set up a goal to move people from welfare to work. In reality, it did not change the program as much as Congress intended.”

HHS officials believe that too many AFDC recipients were exempted from participation in the JOBS program, which “diluted the message” that welfare is intended to be a temporary program, Skofield said.

“Part of what we’ve been recommending is a much narrower range of exemptions, which sends a much clearer message to recipients--and to case workers--that what the welfare system is about is moving people to work as quickly as possible,” she said.

Meanwhile, a separate survey conducted by the Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies suggested that most middle-class voters support efforts to reform the existing welfare system. Commissioned by Citizens for a Sound Economy, a conservative think tank, the poll solicited opinions from voters with annual incomes from $20,000 to $60,000.

More than three-fourths of those polled agreed “that the current welfare system is a failure because it encourages long-term dependency on the government and does little to promote self-sufficiency.” Only 6% said the welfare system should be maintained without significant changes.

But there is little in the survey to suggest that Americans want to totally junk the existing system. While just 2% of those polled endorsed spending more on welfare, only 36% want to spend less. The remaining 59% said they would keep expenditures at the current level but allocate the money in different ways.

The poll participants resisted some of the hardest-edged measures in the Republicans’ reform proposal, specifically those aimed at deterring out-of-wedlock births. Nearly three in five respondents opposed cutting off benefits for single women younger than 18 who bear children, and fully 77% opposed any effort to move children from welfare families into group homes or orphanages.

“Working and keeping families together (are what people want),” said Republican pollster Neil Newhouse, who conducted the survey. “But not taking kids out of the home. That doesn’t work.”

Like other recent polls, the survey found broader support for measures aimed at encouraging greater individual responsibility from welfare recipients. More than 90% agreed that welfare recipients should work while receiving benefits; 62% said recipients should be required to work before they reach two years on the rolls. Four out of five said business should be given tax credits to encourage the hiring of welfare recipients.

More moderate measures aimed at discouraging out-of-wedlock births also found wide support. By a 2-to-1 ratio, those polled supported a requirement that minors on welfare live with their families; nearly four in five said women should be required to identify the father of the child before receiving benefits, and only 15% said recipients should receive additional money to support children born while they are already on the welfare rolls.

The survey found widespread support for shifting responsibility for welfare away from Washington and toward local institutions. Some 82% of those surveyed said local and state governments should assume control of welfare.

Those surveyed divided almost evenly on whether charities or the government should play the lead role in providing assistance to the poor. House Republicans are studying proposals that would cut direct government social spending and use the savings to fund tax credits aimed at encouraging donations to private charities serving the needy.