County Shows Steep Decline in Welfare Rolls

Ventura County welfare rolls have fallen to their lowest levels in six years, as recipients have been swept up by a booming economy and pushed into jobs by retooled employment programs or by fear that their days on welfare are numbered.

The number of families on welfare in the county dropped by more than 1,400 from June 1996 to June 1997, a far more dramatic drop than the 300 cases the previous year, officials said.

“This is the biggest drop I have ever seen in my career,” said Helen Reburn, deputy director of the county’s Social Services Agency for nearly a decade. “Frankly, during the period I’ve worked here, I’ve generally seen the numbers go up.”

The county’s 15% decline in welfare enrollment comes as state legislators quarrel over details of California’s revised welfare policy. Budget negotiations in Sacramento have snagged as lawmakers debate issues such as time limits and aid to legal immigrants. Although federal legislation signed in August 1996 requires welfare recipients to work after two years on assistance, Gov. Pete Wilson has said he wants to shorten that time limit to one year in California.

Gloria Payton, a single mother of two teens in Oxnard, said she feels the pressure of time limits since she joined the welfare rolls in March. But she hopes the county welfare office’s jobs program will help her find work before her benefits expire.

“I could be cut off and have nothing,” she said. “Public assistance employment programs open doors for work.”

Reburn said that the employment program, called Greater Avenues for Independence or GAIN, has placed 3,122 county welfare recipients into jobs in the past year. She attributes the success to focusing the program on moving aid recipients more quickly into jobs.

“We used to focus more on training and education in a classroom setting,” Reburn said. “We learned that getting a GED [high school equivalent degree] does not get people jobs; practical work experience does.”

Colleen M. Joyner, a Ventura mother of three boys, was one of those helped by the GAIN program. She rejoined the work force in February, landing a full-time job with the county government as a managerial assistant and computer specialist, after six years on welfare.

“The GAIN program offered me an outstretched hand to help me get back on my feet,” Joyner said. Most importantly, she said, the program provided child care and job counseling.

State and local officials also applaud the revised GAIN program, which emphasizes quick job placement to help reduce caseloads and save money.

“We used to think that education was the answer and we had absolutely no time limits, which became very costly. Now we believe the real solution is going to work,” said Kathy Smith, the supervising social worker at the GAIN center in Oxnard.

But Smith sees a danger in the “work first” approach, in that there is no way to know if the jobs will be career steppingstones or just a dead end.

Other local officials are also waiting to see the long-term results. “The big questions are whether these jobs are good enough and whether they lead to better ones,” said Ruth Irussi, Ventura County’s GAIN program manager. “Minimum wage just isn’t going to cut it for their [ex-recipients] whole life.”

Welfare officials also question if the economy will continue to grow enough to accommodate more workers.

“We will have to wait and see about the long-term success of all welfare-to-work programs by seeing what happens in the next recessionary period--God forbid it doesn’t come too soon,” said Frank Mecca, executive director of the County Welfare Director’s Assn. of California.

Ventura County’s caseloads, which dropped from 10,023 to 8,600 in the past year, mirror state and nationwide trends.

From 1995 to 1997, the number of welfare cases in California fell by 11% from about 927,000 to 821,000. Meanwhile, statistics show that the nation’s welfare caseloads have declined by 22% between January 1993 and April 1997.

During this period, California’s rolls dropped more slowly than other states, but have fallen off sharply in the last year, as is reflected in Ventura County, federal officials said.

“Because they have such big economies, states like California and New York typically go into recessions a little slower than other states and come out of them a little slower. This directly affects welfare in those states,” said Michael Kharfen, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

For now, economists are predicting sustained economic growth in Ventura County, where the number of jobs rose by 9,000 in the last two years. The county unemployment rate also continues to dwindle, going from 7% to 5.9% between January and June.

“The economy will be able to sustain the drop in welfare caseloads in Ventura County,” said Mark Schniepp, director of the UC Santa Barbara Economic Forecast Project.

“We now have one of the fastest-growing economies in the country and the consensus is that there is no recession on the horizon for the next two or three years,” Schniepp said. “With the strong economy and the new limits on welfare, we probably will continue to see a dramatic drop.”

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Dwindling Rolls

Ventura County’s welfare caseload has dropped to its lowest level in six years.

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Adults Children Cases June 1997 7,594 16,449 8,600 June 1996 8,994 19,422 10,023 June 1995 9,462 19,803 10,327 June 1994 9,706 19,687 10,230 June 1993 8,694 17,993 9,522 June 1992 7,570 16,504 8,659

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Where the Money Goes

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City Welfare recipients Total grant Oxnard 12,359 $1,846,330 Ventura 3,548 $587,145 Santa Paula 1,922 $314,235 Simi Valley 1,820 $306,436 Port Hueneme 1,291 $204,587 Fillmore 881 $132,603 Camarillo 780 $126,966 Thousand Oaks 628 $110,677 Ojai 532 $90,259 Moorpark 433 $72,497 Newbury Park 262 $42,798 Oakview 185 $29,507 Piru 133 $18,454 Somis 46 $7,704 Totals 25,146 $3,945,541

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Source: Ventura County Public Social Services Agency, 1997