A Welfare Win/Win

The emphasis on work in the Los Angeles County welfare program is paying off with a small but measurable increase in the number of recipients who have gotten jobs and with higher earnings. The payoff for the state has been in savings on welfare spending. There are still some rough patches, but the county should stick to this path.

The results, from a study by the nonprofit Manpower Demonstration Research Corp., show how much progress the county welfare department has made since shifting in 1993 from a program that put little focus on getting a job.

The findings are based on a long-term study of 21,000 welfare recipients who were divided randomly into two groups. Some were assigned to the county’s mandatory and intensive Greater Avenues to Independence, or GAIN, program, which included some educational training but required trying to get a job immediately. Others were assigned to a control group that lacked the prod of GAIN’s mandatory job-seeking. They were tracked from 1996 through 1998. Both groups benefited from an economic boom and shrinking unemployment in Los Angeles, but the GAIN group did better.

When compared with the control group, single mothers in GAIN recorded a 10% increase in employment and a 26% increase in earnings. More families rose above the poverty level, and county welfare spending was less. These encouraging results were seen regardless of race or ethnicity, language ability, years on welfare or level of education.

There is no disputing such success, though not all kept their jobs or got beyond dead-end, low-paying work. The report also identified a major area for improvement--child care, which remains very scarce despite ample funding for such programs. According to the report, the child care shortage prevented 27% of new employees from getting to work on time and, in some cases, keeping a job.

The study also found some children failing in school or getting into trouble as their parents made the transition to paychecks. Astonishingly, more children were going hungry--possibly because of parents’ poor budgeting skills or because families lost aid for violating GAIN rules.

L.A. County has 584,000 families on welfare, down from 863,000 in 1996. That gives the county more than $360 million in incentives and savings to help patch holes in the program--increasing child care, aiding those who lose jobs and giving extra assistance to get the most disadvantaged families off welfare.

Welfare reform is still unfinished, but the results from the study indicate that Los Angeles County’s numbers are heading in the right direction.