‘Wisconsin Works’ Putting Welfare Families on Edge

When mice and roaches scurried from holes in her apartment walls, Linda Shaw moved her family out. When her welfare check wasn’t enough to keep her five kids together, she split them up for a while and lived in a shelter.

Now, she fears, comes the hard part.

Wisconsin is preparing to embark on a sweeping welfare reform requiring work for benefits in a pay-your-way program that states across the nation are eyeing as a potential model. Linda Shaw is watching, too--knowing her life will change.

“I’m panicked. My nerves are on edge,” says the single mother and cancer survivor. ‘I’ll have to take two or three jobs to make it. I’ll have to buy clothing, pay for shelter, pay for my utility bills. . . . How am I going to manage?”

For nine of her 27 years, Shaw’s lifeline has been a government check. She has no high school diploma, no driver’s license and few job skills. She wonders how she’ll make it in the work world. And she worries about supporting a family on a grant that likely won’t match minimum wage.

“I’m not saying people should be on welfare forever,” says Shaw, a soft-spoken, round-faced woman. “But [politicians] ought to once try to live as we live. . . . They should see both sides of the story.”

There clearly are two sides in the debate over Wisconsin Works, or W-2, an ambitious plan to replace Aid to Families with Dependent Children with a program that will require 45,000 welfare recipients to work in exchange for government aid. They’ll be limited to two years of payments.

The plan is spearheaded by Gov. Tommy Thompson, whose focus on welfare reform has propelled him into the national spotlight and earned him a mention as a possible GOP vice presidential candidate.

Critics condemn the plan as punitive and impractical, arguing it will destroy the safety net for the poor and penalize children--and doesn’t even guarantee a job.

“This is not welfare reform but welfare repeal,” Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee wrote in a July op-ed piece in the Washington Post. “Such a message may be politically attractive in this election year; it is not morally justifiable.”

Thompson had a tart rejoinder: He urged the church leader to “read the Bible,” referring to its emphasis on personal responsibility.

State Sen. Gwendolynne Moore, a Milwaukee Democrat and a former welfare recipient, also argues the program will put thousands of people in temporary, government-funded jobs with such paltry benefits--around $3 an hour--that work will, ironically, make them poorer.

“I don’t know that the taxpayers who have called for having welfare reform recommend doing something for people to be worse off working,” she says. “We’re actually creating indentured servants.”

But supporters say public aid as a guarantee--with no obligation--has been a disaster.

“Entitlement is one of those things that is so destructive and detrimental in the welfare system,” says Jean Rogers, the state’s top welfare administrator. “It sends the wrong message, that people have a right to government support in an unlimited way. That is not what fosters independence.”

Lawrence Mead, a professor of politics at New York University who has studied Wisconsin’s welfare system, dismisses suggestions that employment breeds hardship.

“The idea that you go to work and are worse off--that’s a fiction,” he says. “They’re [critics] focusing on clients as victims of whom nothing can be expected. It’s not clear anyone loses from this except welfare activists and poverty lawyers. Their vision of the world is rebuked.”

The state plans to impose its welfare vision in the fall of 1997. The Clinton administration recently put on hold Wisconsin’s request for a waiver of federal regulations--it needs to divert AFDC funds--saying a national welfare bill moving through Congress may make that moot. (The House and Senate passed versions of the bill, which now goes to a conference committee to resolve differences.)

But Wisconsin’s plan already has won praise from GOP candidate Bob Dole and President Clinton, who promised in 1992 to “end welfare as we know it.”

The politics aren’t lost on those at the other end.

“We’re scapegoats,” fumes Ramona Ruud, a 23-year-old mother of two on welfare. “It’s Aid For Dependent Children. It’s not aid for lazy moms sitting on their butts. The words ‘dependent children’ have gotten lost and ‘welfare’ has become a dirty word.”

Others who have made the transition, though, support the reform plan.

Nicole Smith, who was on and off welfare for three years, thinks the new welfare-to-work program will help break the cycle of dependency.

“AFDC is like a prescription drug that can be abused,” she says. “A person can get addicted to it, even though they don’t mean to.”

“The way the system is going now--it’s going nowhere. It starts with parents, then it goes to children and their children. . . . It was not meant to be a lifelong thing. Some people are making it their career,” she says.

Smith, a 26-year-old Milwaukee resident, began working at a jobs center for Goodwill Industries last fall. She was promoted to case manager in June and plans to return to college soon. She also bought a used car on her $11.53-an-hour earnings, which add up to about four times her welfare check.

“I have more confidence in myself,” she says. “It’s setting a good example for my son.”

Wisconsin Works is the latest reform attempted in a state that has seen its welfare rolls shrink by a dramatic 44% from 1987--when Thompson took office--to June 1996.

Boosters credit Thompson’s emphasis on work and a host of initiatives, ranging from Learnfare, which ties benefits to school attendance, to two-tiered benefits, designed to prevent the state from becoming a welfare magnet.

“There’s a clear understanding of the expectations,” says Rogers, the state’s welfare administrator, explaining the decline. “Once that becomes clear, often the choice is to stay in the private market.”

But others say studies show the drop is due mostly to the booming economy: Wisconsin’s jobless rate in May was just 3.6%, compared with 5.6% nationally.

“Wisconsin welfare reform is based mostly on smoke and mirrors,” says John Pawasarat, director of the Employment and Training Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. “It’s about making pronouncements 90% of the electorate really agree with and not worrying about the details.”

Wisconsin Works’ premise is simple but firm: No work, no helping hand.

Benefits last up to 24 months--extensions may be granted on a case-by-case basis--with a five-year lifetime cap. Teens 18 and under aren’t eligible.

But mothers with children at least 12 weeks old must work, a rule some question considering that only 25% of non-welfare women with kids under age 2 in Milwaukee County have full-time jobs.

“Infant care is very expensive,” Pawasarat says. “To expect women who are poor and less educated will work full time in larger percentages than women not on welfare--that’s a stretch. . . . The odds are completely against them.”

Opponents see another obstacle, especially in Milwaukee County, which accounts for half the welfare caseload: Poor people are where the jobs are not. And jobs that do exist are beyond public transit lines or the skills of those in need.

“You have a virtually illiterate, unprepared work force that suddenly needs to be up to speed to match certain jobs that are not available,” says Jean Verber of the Women and Poverty Public Education Initiative.

Rogers, the state official, insists that Milwaukee has many, many jobs and that “creative solutions” can be found when transportation is needed.

And, unlike traditional welfare, Wisconsin Works will determine benefits not by family size, but by job category. State officials say that’s in line with the real world.

About 75% of families will end up in community service jobs or transitional placement (counseling, training, shelter workshops), receiving less than minimum wage. Those grants will be $518 or $555 a month plus food stamps, but benefits will be reduced if hours are missed.

Three sanctions--an unexcused absence or firing, for instance--and you’re out.

The state will provide advisors to help families, offer short-term aid and triple its child-care budget the first year. But, in another departure, families must contribute to both child- and health-care costs.

A University of Wisconsin-Parkside study estimates 25% of families will have less money with Wisconsin Works--with larger families faring worse.

Rogers disagrees and notes parents can take second jobs without penalty. “You can earn money on the side, taking care of kids, or part-time jobs--all the things the working poor do to make ends meet,” she says.

Bonita Freeman, a 27-year-old mother of six, is leery. She says she has been rejected 30 times by prospective employers because she lacks skills.

“On welfare now, I make $7 an hour,” she explains. “If they throw me into a job paying $5 or $6 an hour, it won’t help me be independent . . . if I wind up having to pay for child care and other bills. I will accept a job that is going to pay me a decent wage plus medical insurance plus child care. What job is going to do that for me?”

Advocates for the poor worry this change goes too far, too fast and will create more crime, evictions and homelessness. But supporters say it will offer advancement and motivate people because it provides tools for self-sufficiency.

They point to a Work-Not-Welfare pilot project in Fond du Lac County. In 17 months, the caseload has dropped from 607 families to 312. “It’s been a success probably beyond what we would have reasonably predicted,” says Edward Schilling, county social service director.

Nelda Bledsoe is testament to that. She works in a shelter for abused women earning $7.50 an hour. “I got to prove to people I was capable,” says the former AFDC recipient. “I don’t think anybody should be receiving benefits and be watching soaps. I think they should be earning it.”

But she also worries the new plan makes too many financial demands.

Rogers says welfare families will be offered a variety of services to ease the transition.

Linda Shaw already is working on a high school degree and getting job training in a Pay for Performance plan--a precursor to the new program.

After a brief stay in a shelter, she moved into a $355-a-month apartment in July. “I’m trying to get my life together,” she says.

Her caseworker is confident she can, provided she gets help.

Shaw still worries, but is determined to give her children a better life than they have now.

‘I want for us to be in a home together,” she says. “I want us to pray at night together, to eat dinner together . . . to see my sons and daughter graduate and say, ‘Those are my children.’

“I’m planning. I know I have to face the world. I’m going to get off welfare. I’m going to make it happen.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Wisconsin Works Program

Wisconsin Works, or W-2, the state’s welfare reform plan, was signed into law in April by Gov. Tommy Thompson and is set to take effect in the fall of 1997. Under the plan, about 45,000 welfare recipients will have to work for benefits, and must contribute to child-care and health-care costs. Some facts about the program:

* Mothers with children 12 weeks and older must work.

* Teen parents 18 and under will not be eligible for aid.

* It will have four categories of work:

1. Unsubsidized employment, private-sector jobs. Average starting wage: $6 an hour. About 15% of AFDC recipients expected to be in this group.

2. Trial jobs, limited work experience. Will pay at least minimum wage, $4.25 an hour. State will pay up to $300 monthly subsidy to employer. Lasts three months; can be extended to six months. About 10% in this group.

3. Community-service jobs. Must work 30 hours weekly and participate in up to 10 hours of education and training. Cash grant: $555 monthly. Job limited to six months; can be extended to nine months. Lifetime limit of two years. About 50% in this group.

4. W-2 transitions. Will be required to participate in some work. Activities also might include specialized training, drug or alcohol treatment. Includes those with physical or mental limitations. Must work for 28 hours a week and take part in up to 10 hours of education and training. Participation usually limited to two years. About 25% in this group.

* State earned income tax credits also will be available to many recipients. Health and child care contributions will depend on various factors, including income, the county and type of service.

* A single parent with two children in Milwaukee County and a gross monthly income of $700 can pay from $37 a month for unlicensed child care in a private home to $80 a month for a licensed day care center. If the parent’s gross monthly income is $1,600, child care contributions will range from $413 to $898.

* The lowest health-care co-payments are $20 a month. A family of three with a gross hourly wage of $9.99 would pay $38 a month. At an hourly wage of $12.11, that’s $143 monthly.

Source: Associated Press