Wisconsin Welfare Reform a Mixed Bag, Study Shows

A study of Wisconsin’s pioneering program to get people off welfare and into jobs found the majority of participants are still living in poverty.

Wisconsin Works, or W-2, was launched in 1997 by then-Gov. Tommy G. Thompson and hailed by President Clinton as one of the most revolutionary welfare overhauls in the country.

It replaced the main federal welfare program with child-care funding and other financial incentives for unemployed parents to find work or job training. Participants’ cash benefits are reduced if they miss work or fail to participate in required activities.

Wisconsin’s tough work rules--developed over years of experimentation--became a cornerstone of the federal welfare overhaul of 1996.

During W-2’s first three years, Wisconsin’s welfare rolls were cut in half, from 14,204 to 6,771, falling further and faster than almost any other state, according to the study released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau.

But one-fourth of the people who left W-2 at the start of 1998 were back on cash assistance within 18 months. And half of those who continued working were living below the poverty level, according to the study. The current poverty threshold for a family of four is $16,400.

When W-2 was introduced, the state announced no specific goals for how many people it would move off the welfare rolls and what wages they would earn. Its aims were simpler: putting as many people as possible to work.

Workforce Development Secretary Jennifer Reinert, whose department administers the program, said W-2 can be considered a success because it introduced families who depended on welfare checks to the work force.

“We recognize, however, that while the initial connection to the work force breaks the cycle of dependence on cash assistance, it does not accomplish full self-sufficiency,” Reinert said.

The state is shifting its focus from helping people find jobs to helping them keep their jobs and advance, she said.

“Let’s not kid ourselves. W-2 was not set up to get people out of poverty. It was set up to get people off welfare,” said Ellen Bravo, with the Milwaukee-based 9to5, National Assn. of Working Women.

Thompson, whose success with welfare reform helped lead to his appointment as President Bush’s secretary of Health and Human Services, led a decade of experiments before implementing W-2.

Among them were programs such as Learnfare, which reduced benefits for recipients whose children skipped school, and Bridefare, which provided cash incentives for teenage parents to marry and not have more children.

The number of people still getting cash benefits from the state has remained steady at about 6,700 for several months, according to the state.

Workforce Development spokeswoman Rachel Biittner said the group is made up to a large extent of people with problems with drugs or alcohol or mental illness.

The state budget proposed by Gov. Scott McCallum dedicates $20 million in federal money over two years to help poor workers get the training needed to move up in their jobs.