Poll Sheds Light on Welfare Issues

Many welfare recipients in Orange County face significant obstacles as the government tries to move them off public assistance and into jobs, according to a first-of-its-kind survey released Monday.

The poll of about 800 aid recipients was conducted by the county Social Services Agency during the last few months and will be used to help develop a welfare-reform plan by the end of the year.

A key provision of the plan is a federal requirement that recipients receive no more than an additional five years of aid. For those now receiving welfare, the clock starts ticking in January.

The survey indicated that more than 40% of those covered by the new rules have already been on welfare for more than five years. Officials said the finding raises questions about whether this group of recipients is capable of permanently joining the work force and what will happen once their five years of aid run out.

“It’s a significant number,” said Larry Leaman, director of the Social Services Agency. “We really won’t know what happens until the five years are up. Time will tell.”

The welfare-reform plan will require most able-bodied adults receiving aid to get jobs or enroll in classes that will ideally lead to employment.

The plan also sets aside millions of dollars to provide the child care and job training that backers say is needed to get off welfare.

The survey, which officials described as the most detailed poll of recipients ever conducted in the county, suggests that many of those receiving aid will need help making the transition to work:

* Some respondents face language barriers that may make it difficult to find work. A majority of those polled said the primary language spoken at home was Vietnamese or Spanish. About 50% said English was the primary language spoken at home.

* A majority of respondents said they held their last job for less than a year, an indication that they might have trouble staying employed.

* Just over half of those polled earned less than a high school diploma. About a quarter said they usually work in the manufacturing industry--the single highest response.

“This raises a flag when you consider what we’ve read about the manufacturing industry moving out of Orange County and out of California,” Leaman said. “It would be a sign of that gap between the work-force ability and the jobs available.”

This gap is expected to be especially wide in Orange County, where a booming economy is creating many jobs for well-educated and highly trained professionals while most welfare recipients have limited job skills.

Officials said one of the biggest challenges of welfare reform will be finding enough limited-skill jobs that pay high enough wages to cover the cost of child care and transportation as well as the rent and food bills.

The vast majority of recipients polled reported making $9 an hour or less at their last job.

Child care emerged as the issue respondents considered the biggest barrier to work. While the government will make more money available for child care, officials said it probably won’t be enough to match the demand.

Other barriers to work cited in the survey include a lack of training or job experience, temporary health problems and a lack of adequate public transportation.

Just over 15% of respondents said they rely on someone else for a ride when they need to get somewhere, while more than a quarter said they use the bus. In a sign of Orange County’s car culture, 46% of respondents said they currently use their own vehicle for transportation.

Officials said that in other parts of the country where better public transportation is available, fewer than 15% of welfare recipients use their own vehicles to get around.

The poll surveyed 805 of the roughly 100,000 people who receive Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Angelo Doti, who is leading the county’s welfare overhaul, said the data will be used as a reform plan is crafted during the next few months.

About 42% of respondents said they have received assistance for five years or more. Of that group, all but about 20% must abide by the federal government’s lifetime cap of five years of aid, officials said.

Those polled appeared to be relatively optimistic about their future: Only 18.4% said they expected to need cash aid for more than five years.

Today, the Board of Supervisors will consider several key provisions of the plan including one that would require single parents on welfare to be at work or in school 32 hours a week.

The state guidelines give the county the option to require only a 20-hour workweek beginning in January and allowing recipients to build up to a 32-hour workweek by 1999.

Some educators and recipients are urging the board to start out with the minimum 20 hours of work or school a week.

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Welfare Clients Speak

About four in 10 county welfare recipients have been receiving aid for more than five years. The barriers to employment: mostly child care and temporary physical or mental incapacity. Highlights of a survey of welfare clients:

* Total time have received AFDC:

Less than five years: 58%

Five years or more: 42

* Problems preventing employment:

Child care: 32%

Physical/mental incapacity*: 10

Poor education: 6

Transportation: 6

Language barrier: 5

No experience: 4

Permanent disability: 4

Other: 10

No barrier: 23

*Temporary

* Hourly pay for current/most recent job:

Less than $5: 25%

$5 to $9: 61

More than $9: 14

* Education of AFDC recipients:

Less than high school: 55%

High school grad: 22

Some college: 17

Associate’s degree: 4

Bachelor’s degree: 2

Source: Orange County Social Services Agency