Welfare Reform Is Flawed, Study Says

A variety of well-paying jobs that can support a family are available in Los Angeles County, but welfare recipients are not being trained for them.

That is the conclusion of a new study that, for the first time since the passage of landmark welfare reform, attempts to target promising occupations for poor people in Southern California.

The report, scheduled for release today by the nonprofit Economic Roundtable, identifies 48 entry level jobs that pay living wages and are projected to yield 145,000 openings over the next five years.

But those fighting to work their way off public assistance face stiff competition--as many as 5.4 unemployed job seekers for each opening. What is worse, few of them have the skills needed to put themselves into contention.

Welfare recipients mostly have experience and training in dead-end jobs--ones with the least prospect of making them self-sufficient, researchers found. Far more of these low-wage jobs open each year.

Moreover, current welfare policy is steering most recipients toward dead-end occupations. The new welfare laws, which took effect in January, compel most recipients to find work within two years. As a result, welfare workers push their clients take the first available job.

The policy, according to the report, is shortsighted.

“It is clearly in the interest of welfare recipients, as well as the taxpaying public, for welfare-to-work programs to target occupations that offer solid prospects for economic self-sufficiency and to avoid occupations that already have an oversupply of workers and poverty-level wages,” concludes the report, titled “Survival Skills, Welfare to Work in Los Angeles.”

The report by the public policy research group was funded by the Arco Foundation. It offers one of the first comprehensive pictures of what welfare recipients face in the local labor market and what skills they need to secure stable jobs.

County welfare officials said they have not seen the report yet. But John Martinelli, chief administrator for the county’s welfare-to-work program called Greater Avenues for Independence, disputed some of its conclusions, especially the emphasis on training over finding immediate work.

“This is the historical debate around the work-first approach, and frankly the Economic Roundtable is a few years behind the times,” he said.

The report identifies occupations such as emergency medical technician, dental hygienist, telemarketer, credit checker, security guard and bus driver as among the most promising, using previously disparate data on labor demand, job growth and wages.

Many Candidates Lack Job Skills

But the study found that the typical welfare recipient--usually a mother with two or more children--lacks the most basic skills to compete for such jobs. They instead are increasingly directed toward work as janitors, short-order cooks, child-care workers and file clerks--jobs that hold little hope for the future and pay so little the job holders still qualify for welfare.

Many poor mothers have worked these jobs before, so they return to them. Under welfare reform, there is a five-year lifetime limit on benefits, and most have to find a job by the end of 1999.

“They’re the low-hanging fruit of the labor market,” said Daniel Flaming, president of the Economic Roundtable and one of the report’s authors. “Despite their low wages, lack of benefits and other drawbacks, they are the easiest jobs to go after so there’s great competition for them.”

The challenge of getting a good job is exacerbated by the profile of most welfare recipients: Although the majority--76%--have worked before, 54% lack a high school diploma, 23% have limited or no English-language skills and 38% do not have access to a car, the study found.

Most will have to work hard to learn important skills, such as better speaking, writing and listening. They need to learn how to gather information and establish work relationships, as well as the social skills to deal successfully with the public, said the authors.

The report provides detailed information about the requirements for landing promising jobs in the professional, clerical, technical and service fields.

Emphasis on Work Over Training

It suggests that policymakers in welfare and education can do a better job. They need to identify promising jobs--and accompanying skills--so they can create programs that best prepare and train workers, the report said.

Referring to the welfare-to-work program, Flaming contended that local officials also will have to revise strategies that emphasize work over training and education if welfare reform is to succeed.

“Education and training are really the key to becoming economically self-sufficient,” said Daniel Flaming, president of the Economic Roundtable and one of the report’s authors. “Even for people with the same level of education, knowing which jobs to go after can make a difference. It would be helpful for recipients and people working for them to know which jobs to avoid.”

County officials have argued that it is too soon to assess the impact of it programs. Indeed, a previous study by another research group, the nonprofit Manpower Demonstration Research Corp., found the welfare-to-work program has succeeded in increasing recipients’ earnings and employment. The program has won praise nationally for finding work for a diverse and disadvantaged welfare population.

Martinelli argued that welfare work incentives make even low-paying jobs financially sound for welfare families and that it is easier to find a better job once you are employed.

“Evaluations of programs nationwide show that the most effective ones get people initially into an entry level, minimum-wage job, followed by more specific skills training so they can move toward upward mobility,” he said.

But Martinelli conceded that finding and getting better jobs for welfare recipients still poses a huge challenge.

The authors of the Economic Roundtable report argue that it makes more sense to give poor mothers the education and training they need before they are thrust into the work world.

“I got a master’s degree and a PhD while I was working; certainly some people do it,” said Flaming. “But we’ve tried to be pragmatic. There are good jobs out there, we know what skills are needed and we have a shared interest with welfare recipients in seeing they succeed.”