Lessening Returns in Welfare Reform

The number of Los Angeles County residents on welfare has fallen by almost a quarter in three years, the result of tough reform laws and a buoyant economy that has eased the transition to the workplace for the most able-bodied.

But social scientists say progress may slow just as dramatically, as the most employable welfare recipients are eased out of the system, leaving behind families with more stubborn problems.

Finding work for those remaining on welfare is emerging as the biggest challenge to reform. Experts say that many are hobbled by language and cultural barriers, as well as by long-standing deprivations that have left them with virtually no work experience.

“I think the so-called creaming from the top effect is very real,” said Leonard Schneiderman, a retired UCLA social scientist and vice chairman of the county Commission for Public Social Services.

The men and women who have left welfare rolls so far, he said, “bring with them a better self-image and more optimism, who see there are options out there and they are going to take advantage of them.”

The success or failure of large urban centers like Los Angeles County to adapt employment programs to meet the needs of its toughest cases will greatly influence the outcome of national welfare reform.

Los Angeles County, for example, has a larger caseload than any state except California and New York. If large numbers of poor mothers fail to find work, the state could fall short of federal work requirements and risk losing millions of dollars in funding.

The issue assumes critical importance in the next year, as time limits on aid begin to bear down on all welfare families.

Federal and state welfare legislation requires most recipients to find work within two years or face loss of benefits. The laws impose a five-year lifetime limit on cash assistance. The clock for most California recipients began ticking Jan. 1.

Local social advocates say that some groups are already falling behind. County data shows that Iranians, Armenians, Cambodians, Vietnamese and Chinese refugees are being enrolled in the county’s welfare-to-work program at a much slower pace than others.

County officials point with optimism to a dramatic 23% plunge in cases since mid-1995. Close inspection of the numbers reveal inconsistencies.

Latino mothers, by far the largest group on assistance, show a 24% decline from welfare rolls. About 40% of white mothers have gone off welfare.

But cases of black single-parent families have dropped by only 16%; Asian families by 12%.

No one has determined why the disparities exist. Some social analysts say family size, education, language skills and neighborhoods are likely reasons.

“There are characteristics associated with demographic groups that affect their ability to avoid public aid,” said Casey McKeever, director of the Western Center on Law and Poverty. “Smaller family size reduces dependence on aid; there is a correlation between education attainment and reliance on aid; if ethnic groups live in more economically depressed areas and opportunities are fewer, the likelihood is it will be harder to get off.”

Sidonie Squier of the state Department of Social Services said many of these issues will be addressed in an evaluation of California’s welfare program by the Rand Corp. that is due next year.

Counties have, with good reason, said Squier, focused “on populations they can move more quickly off the rolls and we can’t argue with that. . . . But counties also have the flexibility to tune their programs to harder populations and they will have the resources to do that.”

Squier and others say, however, that continued progress will depend on whether the economy sustains its current rebound.

The homeless, drug addicts and the mentally ill probably face the most trouble getting off welfare. States may exempt 20% of those on welfare as hardship cases. But qualifications are vague, and most experts say the 20% threshold will quickly be filled.

Recent immigrants and former refugees also face distinct challenges, said welfare analysts. County officials are stepping up efforts to enroll them in Greater Avenues to Independence--known as GAIN. The program helps people become employable, and without the help, say community advocates, welfare recipients remain at a disadvantage.

“We are already in the 10th month of the year and many recipients have not been apprised of what is required to maintain their benefits,” said Nancy Au, director of the Western Region Asian Pacific Agency.

County welfare officials have contracted with the Department of Community and Senior Citizens Services to help enroll GAIN’s huge backlog. The department has experience working with refugees and will use an extensive network of community-based groups to provide welfare-to-work services to about 10,000 families speaking neither English nor Spanish.

The hurdles for these groups can be seen in the case of Ognes and Mariam Chaparyn, emigres from Armenia whose lives are still defined by the culture of their homeland.

Though both are under the gun to find work, their tradition dictates that the man be the breadwinner. But the odd jobs that Ognes has held have never been enough to sustain the family, and they have mostly relied on public assistance.

Now in middle age, they fear it will be hard to find steady work.

“When we got married, he didn’t let me work. I had to stay at home and care for the children,” said Mariam, 47, a reserved woman who spoke in Armenian. “That’s the way I want it.”

Nevertheless, a week ago they enrolled in a welfare-to-work program run by Jewish Vocational Services. On a recent morning they huddled with a dozen fellow Armenians in a Los Angeles classroom, attempting to fathom the ins and outs of the American job interview.

They worry about the influence of a permissive American society on their three children, especially their youngest daughter, 15.

“I don’t want to lose my children,” said Ognes 55, a good-humored man who speaks in an animated, thickly accented English. He means he doesn’t want to lose them to a sex-saturated culture, boyfriends or gangs. The best way to accomplish that, the couple says, is through the time-honored tradition of keeping Mariam at home, even if they do not earn enough to be self-sufficient.

Such attitudes tend to be reinforced when groups are concentrated in neighborhoods where they can read homeland newspapers, shop at ethnic markets and largely avoid the need to speak English.

For some, the challenges go beyond language and culture. For many Cambodian refugees, painful experiences in their homeland make some fearful of dealing with government agencies. Many suffer psychological trauma from witnessing torture.

Sandra Chea left rural Cambodia at age 20 with a fifth-grade education and memories of dawn-to-dusk labor, tilling rice fields and digging irrigation ditches. One of her brothers was worked to death before her family of seven fled the murderous reign of Pol Pot.

“It’s difficult to learn English because . . . in Cambodia they didn’t believe in school and put everyone to work,” she said in Khmer during a break from a class at a Long Beach community center.

Her husband, Tharath Chea, 38, was beaten by security forces, she said, because he was a student who assisted the Red Cross. His injuries were aggravated by a car accident after coming to the United States and now he is unable to work.

Chea has worked as a nurse’s aide. But she too has had medical problems and believes that her limited education will make it hard to find work that pays enough to support her husband and two children.

Many poor Southeast Asian refugees are especially vulnerable to exploitation, said community advocates. Faced with governmental oversight that inspires deep suspicion, some parents are opting to take themselves--but not their children--off welfare although they still qualify, said Au, of the Asian Pacific Agency.

Many are working in the so-called gray market economy, laboring at below minimum wage with no benefits.

“It’s a very difficult situation to ameliorate, almost like Prohibition, which allowed for the development of this underworld gangster system,” she said. “There needs to be a lot more community outreach and in a pat phrase, education.”

Social analysts say the snapshot that emerges at this early stage of welfare reform is not surprising. Welfare caseloads have always been a mix of short-termers who ease in and out of the work force and those with more difficult troubles, who remain mired in the system, often across generations.

So far, there has been scant study of who is leaving welfare rolls.

Latinos, for example, face many job barriers--notably language and education--but officials say they have been just as successful as their white counterparts in Los Angeles County in getting work, sometimes more so.

They still have a long way to go. Over the past 15 years, the proportion of Latinos on welfare has more than doubled--to 913,000 from 360,000, about 22.5% of the nation’s welfare population. In Los Angeles County, Latinos account for nearly half of the 240,000 welfare cases.

In California--and nationally--Latino welfare recipients, on average, have dramatically less education, more children and children of a younger age than do blacks or whites on welfare.

Despite those disadvantages, the number of Latino single-parent families receiving welfare in Los Angeles County has fallen from 140,000 to 106,000 over the past three years.

One reason may be the county’s efforts to target programs to the population. Social researchers say welfare policy must take a far more individualized approach, better ministering to the particular needs of poor families if they are to survive without assistance.

“If we find some groups are being held back because of their education level or there is a mismatch between where they live and where the jobs are, there may be a need for different kinds of social services,” said Schneiderman, the social scientist. “One of my goals is to make sure we consider the policy implications of these changes.”

Staff writer Melissa Healy contributed to this story.

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Welfare Cases Drop

The number of single parents on welfare in Los Angeles County as dropped dramatically in the past three years, from 265,553 to 203,890, following a national and statewide trend. But some groups have made quicker progress than others.

Source: Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services