‘Work-First’ Approach Earns Critical Report Card

In this new era of welfare reform, work rules.

From the time they enter the welfare system, adults are now expected to search for a job, no matter what their circumstances, lack of experience or training.

This “work-first” model has become the central premise of virtually every welfare-to-work program in the nation under the theory that any job is better than nothing and that once employed, recipients can be steered into better-paying positions and perhaps careers.

This is in contrast to earlier versions of welfare reform, which emphasized education before sending recipients out into the job market.

But an exhaustive analysis of welfare-to-work programs in Los Angeles County said the “work-first” approach short-changes the value of education in the ultimate goal of helping recipients become self-sufficient.

The findings are included in a report, “On The Edge: A Progress Report on Welfare to Work in Los Angeles,” by the nonprofit Economic Roundtable. The study was commissioned by the Board of Supervisors and a copy was obtained by The Times.

The findings underscore the complexity of skills, education and training necessary to boost a welfare family above the poverty threshold and the tough road that lies ahead for government agencies under pressure to achieve results.

Researchers examined work and earnings records over an eight-year period for nearly 100,000 welfare recipients who entered the county’s welfare-to-work program, called GAIN, or Greater Avenues for Independence. During the study period, GAIN initially emphasized education and training and then shifted its focus to work.

Overall, 12% of GAIN participants took part in education or training programs. They entered GAIN with a history of lower earnings, but after GAIN they had earnings 16% higher in the first year and 39% higher in the fifth year than those who did not participate in education programs.

In fact, participants in the education phase of GAIN had the highest average earnings of any group served by GAIN, more than $10,000 compared to just above $7,000 for others.

“Education is not by itself a silver bullet that eradicates poverty, but findings in this report indicate it is the single most powerful factor affecting incomes of the working poor,” the report stated.

County officials said they agreed with many of the conclusions and recommendations of the study. But they also contended that the study was based on a program that has changed considerably in the last year as new welfare laws have taken hold.

Ann Jankowski, chief of budget and management programs at the Department of Public Social Services, said the county does not discount the value of education, only the timing of its placement.

“We agree that they are critical factors but disagree about where they come in,” she said. “Work-first is the model and it has become the state model. That is why we are focusing on post-employment services, mentoring programs; it just takes awhile to bring all of these programs up.”

And even the Economic Round-table study agrees that GAIN has been successful in increasing employment among welfare recipients, with an average of 56% of post-GAIN recipients recording some earnings, compared with 27% of those who had not gone through the program.

But more troubling is another finding: In 1997, 74% of GAIN participants who had been working for at least three years had earnings below the poverty threshold for their families.

Among other key findings:

* Most GAIN participants have low-paying jobs in low-wage industries, and many of these industries are growing in Los Angeles County.

* Education and the ability to speak English are the most significant factors associated with higher earnings.

* Characteristics of GAIN participants, the kinds of jobs available to them and the amount they earn vary significantly city by city within the county. Welfare recipients are concentrated in the inner city and San Gabriel Valley.

The release of the report coincides with the first anniversary of implementation of federally-mandated welfare reform in Los Angeles County, which has more residents on aid than any other county in the nation and all but two states.

Researchers were able to obtain confidential wage data from the state’s Employment Development Department showing the quarterly earnings of 99,469 welfare recipients from the beginning of 1990 through the first quarter of 1998. The study is believed to be one of the most comprehensive ever produced nationally because of its access to years worth of information in a long-standing program.

“Anything that can add insight is helpful and the fact that they have been able to look at data over such a long period is unusual,” said Nancy Pindus, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute.

Pindus said that the pendulum that had swung so far in favor of work first has now begun to swing back a little nationally, with more emphasis on post-employment support if not basic education.

In fact, the success of the work-first approach has largely been based on favorable evaluations of welfare-to-work programs in Riverside County, programs subsequently adopted by Los Angeles and other areas nationwide.

Judith Gueron, executive director of the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC), which has studied GAIN in Riverside and Los Angeles counties, said she still believes work first produces the best results.

But the Economic Roundtable study countered that work first tends to send recipients into dead- end, low-paying jobs that repeat “previous experiences of sub-poverty and temporary employment without career mobility.”

Economic Roundtable president Daniel Flaming said the findings are especially important now, because Los Angeles County is underusing education and training opportunities, despite having the resources and funding available to provide more of them.

“If we don’t use these opportunities now, the problems will become worse later,” he said.

Among the group’s key recommendations are to expand the role of GAIN to focus more on teaching marketable skills and showing recipients how to develop career plans.

Correspondingly, they urge authorities to create jobs that offer workers a future rather than a dead end.