Coalition Works to Dispel Welfare Stereotypes

The economy is humming, help-wanted signs are going up on businesses from coast to coast and new efforts are underway to ensure that welfare recipients--often vilified as shiftless and irresponsible--benefit from the nation’s burgeoning economy.

If a new national advertising campaign, launched last month with Los Angeles as a key target, is successful, those welfare stereotypes may begin to break down.

The graphic ads in black and white show long-held misconceptions like “Welfare mothers are irresponsible” deftly edited to become “Welfare mothers make responsible workers.”

The campaign, sponsored by the nonprofit Welfare-to-Work Partnership, stems from President Clinton’s challenge to businesses to hire people now on the dole.

That challenge spawned the Welfare-to-Work Partnership, whose original participants included United Airlines, Sprint, Burger King, Monsanto and UPS.

All promised not just to talk about welfare reform, but to hire recipients. Eli Segal, the partnership’s president, said that since the group was formed last May, nearly 3,000 companies have signed on. The budget, raised by private industry, has grown to $4 million this year.

“We came along at the right time, with the end of welfare as we know it coinciding with a strong economy,” he said. “With the [ad] campaign, we can really do good. The basic thing is if we can change attitudes, we can change behavior.”

Under federal legislation, most welfare recipients must find work in two years and can receive benefits for no longer than five years during their lifetime. Many states, including California, have begun aggressive welfare-to-work programs.

But stereotypes persist and moving welfare recipients beyond entry-level, low-paying jobs is proving especially difficult. And some advocates for poor people say there is concern about what the jobs picture will be if the economy turns down.

Segal acknowledged the obstacles but contended that there have been more successes than failures. He cites employment surveys suggesting that more than 300,000 welfare recipients have moved into private-sector jobs in the last year and a half. And most of these newly hired employees are staying put, he said.

Los Angeles economists seconded Segal’s views, asserting that the booming economy seems to be lifting all boats.

“The job market is so good that businesses are bringing in people who have in the past been discouraged from looking for jobs,” said Jack Kyser, chief economist with the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp.

His group recently prepared an economic forecast for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to help officials develop welfare-to-work programs.

Hiring welfare recipients makes good business sense and good social policy--at least for now, Kyser said.

“People know this is something they need to do,” he said. “We hired someone in our own office who was in the welfare-to-work program working as a receptionist. She was so motivated that she is now an administrative assistant.”

More than 47,000 Los Angeles County welfare recipients got jobs in 1997, according to welfare officials. Most were in retail sales, personal services and clerical positions. But a surprising 18% were in manufacturing, which can require a higher level of skill and pay better wages, Kyser said.

Many companies that have hired welfare recipients are enthusiastic about the experience, although the hiring results have been mixed.

Burger King has hired about 5,100 people from welfare rolls in less than a year and a half and has set a goal of hiring 10,000 annually, company officials said. Most of the jobs are entry level, but the welfare recipients have as much chance to advance as anyone else, officials said. The company is monitoring turnover to determine if mentoring programs would be helpful.

“We find it to be very symbiotic,” said Burger King spokeswoman Marion Hoffman. “We need workers and they need jobs.”

Sprint has hired 200 people from welfare rolls. Most have been customer service representatives with a starting wage of $7.10 an hour. The company is working with a local community college to train recipients as telephone operators. Training for more technical jobs is in the works.

“Many of our technical jobs require a college education, and obviously most welfare recipients don’t have that,” said spokesman Darryll Fortune. “In Denver we have a pole-climbing course for our employees that former welfare recipients can take, and we will be looking at more technical training.”

*

United Parcel Service hired more than 7,200 welfare recipients in 1997, including 63 in Southern California, company officials said.

And United Airlines hired more than 500 people off the rolls and has set a goal of hiring 2,000 welfare recipients by 2000.

The program has taken on personal meaning for United Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Gerald Greenwald, who is chairman of the partnership’s board. Greenwald said he and his wife have long been committed to working with economically disadvantaged children.

“It quickly became clear that some of their problems had to do with living in an environment of no work,” he said. “Like a few others out there, I realized that welfare reform can never succeed if there are not meaningful jobs--and in the private sector.”

Greenwald said employees hired at United from the welfare ranks have a higher retention rate than other employees. And the mentoring program has worked so well that the company is thinking of expanding it to all new hires.

The partnership, he said, will focus on ways to remove impediments to hiring such as lack of transportation.

“We’ve been trying to work with local transportation authorities to get new routes, poking around to see if one answer might be financing for low-cost but reliable used cars, maybe even a program that uses confiscated assets,” he said.

Greenwald said he is confident that programs like those initiated by the partnership can continue to unite welfare recipients with employers, even in a lagging economy.

“In the last month or so, what I’m finding is corporations are increasingly satisfied there is a population of people coming off welfare who really want to work and who have the basic skills to do it.”