Beyond the Buzzwords, What Reform Really Means : Welfare: Washington’s rush to rid America of ‘leeches’ without testing the results first will impose family hardships not seen since the 1930s.

According to a Nov. 5 Los Angeles Times poll, the public believes, by 72% to 24%, that “women on welfare have more children so they can receive more money.” But after $700 in food stamps and Aid to Families With Dependent Children for the first child, a second child will bring in only another $110, and a third only $95 more per month. There may be some economic incentive to have the first child, but not more than one.

Conservatives aware of the actual numbers argue that the initial $700 is the problem: It encourages young women to move out of the family home and have children without any means of support other than welfare. The result, according to this argument, is an increase in births to unwed teen mothers, a lack of paternal involvement, boys becoming hyper-macho and turning to crime and gangs as an alternative family.

Liberals contend that unwed motherhood has little to do with AFDC or adolescent promiscuity, that the problem is abandonment by fathers, a lack of economic opportunity and declining investment in education and social programs. They cite the statistics: Contrary to the public perception, the statistically typical AFDC mother is a white woman, 29 years old, recently divorced, with no more than two children. The precipitating cause of her application is a recent layoff from work or a divorce; most important, she is receiving no support from the father.

Ignoring the evidence, the right wing is clearly winning the “sound bark” war with powerful references to “welfare,” “dependency,” “lack of accountability,” “personal responsibility.” The theme plays to a fervent public rage at welfare “leeches.”

In California, one result has been a lowering of AFDC and food-stamp benefits for poor children from an amount close to the poverty line in 1988 to 70% of that line today.

More than 2 million children in our high-rent state live in families with barely $1,000 a month in total income. This figure is of special concern in light of the recent study by Tufts University indicating serious nutrition shortfalls for the very young whose families are 30% above the poverty line.

Child advocates decry the inequity of permanent harm being done to innocent children for the irresponsible decisions of parents. Conservatives argue that parents are using the children as a form of extortion to evade responsibility and that there is no choice but to cut off the inducement; eventually, they say, fewer children will be born to those ill-prepared to provide for them. Recognizing that it is the first child that provides the economic reward, they propose to cut off AFDC totally after two years if mom does not have a job.

This is the proposition now before the country, and it is about to secure passage with scant thought or debate about the implications.

Most people agree that the able-bodied should work. But there are some other realities to consider. First, the economy works on the assumption that there never is--and shouldn’t be--full employment. In some impoverished areas, unemployment exceeds 20%. Child care costs roughly $4,000 per year per child, and the minimum wage, unchanged since 1991, yields $8,800 per year. Many women who have been abandoned by the fathers of their children are at ages or in situations where jobs are difficult to obtain. Finally, the programs providing child care and job training for AFDC mothers have been cut over the past five years. And even Senate-proposed increases would not come close to providing realistic help to enable employment for more than 20% to 30% of the recipients.

Experts agree that about half of the children now eligible for AFDC will be cut off under the Republican plan. That’s 1 million children here in California alone. So, if cut off, all that a family of three might receive by way of assistance is $300 a month in food stamps--no rent money at all.

In short, the proposal now before us is among the most Draconian to afflict American children since the Great Depression. Yet its sponsors cite virtually no evidence to support their thesis that it will lead to fewer births of children whose families can’t provide for them.

On what basis does one contend that a tremendous sacrifice is needed for a larger gain without carefully measuring the cost and testing the thesis before it is fully rolled out? Why is it that the same sponsors of this measure would require “cost-benefit” analyses for every rule change applicable to business, but here they will bet the nutrition of 10 million children on a theory that does not measure likely costs and is not being tested anywhere first?

Beyond that abysmal flaw, the congressional proposal does not work on its own terms. It would maintain the very incentive its adherents decry. Prospective mothers are told: If you have a child to a nameless father, we’ll give you $700 a month for two years. There is no need to work, or even to look for a job. After two years, we plan to cut you off, but who knows? Maybe a job will develop; maybe the law will change.

Two years at $700 per month is hardly a disincentive to a group not noted for making long-term life plans.

Let’s consider hypothetically three politically incorrect alternatives: If you have a child without any prospect of support, it will be taken at birth and put up for adoption. Or, if that is too harsh, you can agree to have a Norplant implant; if you object to using birth control, you could sign a contract forgoing AFDC for any children you might have in the future. Finally, the state could get you a job and help with child care, but you’d be forced to keep working.

Each of these measures directly attacks the incentive thought to produce the despised welfare leech. Each protects children more than the current proposal, which would pull the rug out after two years--after the incentive has kicked in.

We’d like to think that most mothers will find some way to support their children. The Gingriches and Gramms and Buchanans and Wilsons of the world know how strongly we want to believe that.

The truth is that charity is already stretched thin, and family wealth is not prevalent among those at-risk. As for everyone’s favorite image of a grandmother pitching in, many of the elderly, particularly those living in poverty themselves, have health and other problems precluding such a contribution. Irreparable harm from persistent undernutrition, especially among children younger than 5, often is done before child-neglect caseworkers discover it.

The impact of the imminent new policy, compelling homelessness and hunger, is quite unthinkable, and we appear to be tolerating it by not thinking about it at all.

We manifest our values more by who or what we think about than by how we think. Child advocates wonder why some people are so outraged over the 1.5% of the federal budget spent on AFDC, given the much larger waste on corporate subsidies, and the expenditure of 20 times this amount on the elderly. The reason is that the AFDC leech image is on the table. The miscreant father avoiding child support less so. The tobacco farmer receiving crop supports, or the defense contractor negotiating for obscene profits, or the Mexican peso speculators we are supporting with Treasury guarantees, or numerous other beneficiaries--none of them are on the table at all. And children are under the table. If they were truly on it, the proposal about to be sent to the President would not have been an option warranting serious discussion.