U.S. Welfare Rosters Are Down 15%, Clinton Says

The nation’s welfare rolls have dropped 15%--a total of 2.1 million people--during the past four years, President Clinton said Saturday, adding that the statistics are proof that his 1992 campaign promise to “end welfare as we know it” is paying off.

“We were determined to move millions from welfare to work, and our strategy has worked,” the president said in his weekly radio address. He described the decline as “the biggest drop in welfare rolls in history.”

According to the White House, the number of people receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children dropped to 12 million in September, from 14.1 million in January 1993, when Clinton took office. That represents a 15% drop nationwide.

During the same period, the number of families receiving AFDC dropped 13%, from 4.9 million to 4.3 million, the White House said.

California, however, does not follow the national pattern. While the number of welfare recipients in the Golden State has dipped to 2.5 million from its all-time high of 2.7 million in 1995, California is among five states where welfare rolls are higher today than they were four years ago.

Disclosure of the welfare figures comes as the nation is overhauling its 61-year-old system of federal assistance for the poor.

The changes were underway even before Clinton signed welfare reform legislation in August. A number of analysts have noted that factors including improvement in the economy and a desire for a new direction among welfare recipients themselves have also played a role.

Under the legislation signed by the president, welfare recipients will be required to begin working within two years of entering the system. And for the first time, there will be a cap on benefits: No one will be permitted to receive more than five cumulative years of welfare payments.

The bill has aroused the ire of some Democrats who say it cuts too deeply into the federal safety net for the poor. Clinton, himself, has expressed reservations about it, pledging to correct “serious flaws,” such as cuts in food stamps and the elimination of assistance to some legal immigrants.

But the president gave no indication Saturday of what changes he might seek. Rather, he defended the law.

“When I signed the historic welfare reform law, we set out to honor a moral obligation for our nation, to help many people in our national community to help themselves,” Clinton said. “This law dramatically changes the nation’s welfare system so that no longer will it fail our people, trap so many families in a cycle of dependency, but instead will now help people to move from welfare to work.”

Congressional Republicans have complained that before reaching agreement on the overhaul legislation, Clinton was an obstacle to their drive for welfare reform measures. They maintain that GOP governors’ innovations in changing the system have played a significant part in reducing the rolls.

In the GOP response to the radio address, Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) challenged Clinton to find “creative ways” to cut back on welfare through private initiatives. He called for bipartisan support of a “charity tax credit” in which Americans would be permitted to take $500 of what they owe in taxes each year and donate the money directly to local charities that fight poverty.

“President Clinton won reelection on the themes of smaller government, family values and strengthening communities,” Coats said. “These are fine, noble ideas. . . . Yet we have reached a point where this discussion must get more specific. . . . Good intentions must become good laws.”

In his talk Saturday, Clinton called upon the private sector to help make welfare reform work by hiring the poor.

And he noted that welfare reform had begun before the signing of the new legislation. So far, 43 states have received waivers from the federal government that have enabled them to craft their own welfare reform experiments.

In some cases, the results have been striking. The welfare rolls in Wisconsin, known nationally as a leader in reform, have plunged 41% during the past four years. Indiana has experienced a 38% drop.

The next step, Clinton said, is for states to carry out the new law. To that end, he announced Saturday that his administration has certified welfare reform plans for four additional states, including California--a move that brings the number of states with certified plans to 18.

The certification is the final approval of steps the Wilson administration took last week to put the new law into action in California.

It means that instead of receiving federal money tied to highly specific federal programs, California will now be paid by Washington in a lump sum that the state can spend, for the most part, as it sees fit to help the poor. California’s grant of roughly $3 billion a year will not change for five years.

“It means that starting today, California will get funding as a block grant,” said Melissa Skolfield, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, which administers federal welfare programs. “And it means that the five-year clock for people’s benefits starts ticking today and all of the assorted work requirements in the legislation start ticking today.”

But the real battle over welfare reform in California will come in January, when Wilson unveils his budget. That is when the governor and the Legislature will decide who will get welfare and who will not under the new program, which does not guarantee benefits to all who qualify.

Sean Walsh, Wilson’s press secretary, said the governor will begin meeting this week with his advisors to come up with a budget plan.

“They will begin to map out what areas we want to cut, what areas we want to reform and what areas we want to replace with new proposals. We are going to have to take a clear, sober look at how we get people off the welfare rolls and onto the work rolls.”