Finding Jobs for the Least Ready
Economic recovery has made the challenge of welfare reform a little easier nationwide, but in Los Angeles County, with its huge welfare population, a respected new report says that it won’t be good enough. The Economic Roundtable, a business group, predicts a shortage of jobs and a surplus of difficult-to-employ recipients. Many won’t make a two-year deadline for finding a job unless better training is in place and more jobs are created, the report says.
The economy may continue to pump up the local job market beyond optimistic predictions. Even so, the report projects that welfare recipients will vastly outnumber jobs and face stiff competition from the unemployed, immigrants and graduates entering the work force. The county welfare department, which is putting together job creation plans for consideration next month by the Board of Supervisors, ought to be reading this new report cover to cover.
One key to keeping welfare recipients on track to independence is the state-sponsored GAIN job-training program. Its current focus is to tell applicants to try first on their own to get a job; this push-them-from-the-nest approach works with the top 20% of welfare recipients--the best educated, with work histories. But what about the rest?
The study’s most startling finding swas that an estimated 60% of the county’s adult welfare population, primarily single mothers, lack the skills, education and work history to make them attractive to employers. That’s a higher figure than expected. Welfare recipients who do find jobs are poorly paid and unlikely to receive even Social Security, much less health benefits.
The worst outcome of reform would be a large percentage of welfare parents who have exhausted their lifetime benefits and are still jobless. For those at most risk, the county welfare department needs to supply intensive assistance. That means basic math, reading and English language classes, high school equivalency diplomas and “basic training” in work behavior--things like being on time and having a good attitude. Such training, though GAIN or a community college or elsewhere, ought to be defined as satisfying the welfare reform work requirement. Child care will remain a critical component, as well as transportation.
California has given every county the freedom to build its own welfare system. L.A. needs to be taking better advantage of that flexibility to get the least-ready 60% to the point where they can hold a job. Without that effort, the numbers left behind on welfare, with only the county for a safety net, will far exceed the 20% of current recipients allowed by federal law.
