THE LEDGER-STAR
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, December 6, 1994 TAG: 9412060564
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY VANESSA GALLMAN, KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long : 152 lines
Most welfare mothers have one or two children, not three or four. Most welfare recipients first gave birth when they were adults, not teenagers.
Most people on welfare are children, not adults. Most adults on welfare are white or Hispanic, not black.
Reforming the nation's welfare system will be a top priority for the new Congress. Virtually everyone - liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, the middle class and the welfare recipients - agree that the program has big problems.
But there is also little doubt that many people have only a vague notion of the realities of the 14 million people on welfare, two-thirds of them children.
``Most of the things people think about welfare recipients are wrong,'' said David Kass of Children's Defense Fund, an advocacy group for children. ``And stereotypes lead to policy decisions that could ultimately hurt children. Because when people think about welfare, they don't think about children. They think about coming down on the parents.''
Consider Edwina Fields, a welfare recipient who doesn't fit the stereotype. A 34-year-old mother of a 9-year-old son, she was not a teen mother and has worked off and on in nursing and child-care jobs.
Yet she is typical of the mothers receiving monthly cash benefits: caught in a zigzag struggle to break free of a system never designed to promote self-sufficiency.
Fields has been on welfare four different times in nine years, using it in between jobs she said were usually lost because of child care or transportation problems. The Alexandria, Va., resident now attends state-run classes to refresh job skills, and plans to get licensed to care for children in her home.
``I know a lot of people say people on welfare are lazy. But I've been working since I was 13,'' said Fields, who had come early to the class for some quiet time on the computer. ``You feel good when you work and make money and take care of your family. But you have to do what you have to do to take care of your child.''
The national debate over welfare reform primarily targets Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), a $22 billion program begun in 1935 to give widows with children limited cash support until they remarried.
The best way to care for poor children is at the crux of the reform debate. AFDC is now paying out benefits for one child in every seven in this country.
One survey after another reveals public disdain of a welfare system seen as unfairly burdening taxpayers and making little dent in the poverty rate.
Both blacks and whites strongly believe most welfare recipients ``do not deserve'' the benefits, according to a survey by four liberal social advocacy groups. And most surveyed said the majority of recipients ``never get off welfare.''
Following are some of the myths about AFDC recipients, along with the realities that do not make the challenge of reform any easier:
MYTH: Welfare mothers have lots of children.
REALITY: More than 80 percent of welfare families have only one or two children.
The size of welfare families has been decreasing.
But illegitimacy remains a major issue in the reform debate. The focus has shifted from the number of children in the families to the number of unmarried women choosing to have children.
The percentage of never-married mothers on AFDC has more than doubled since 1976, reaching 52 percent of the total in 1992.
The increase reflects a national trend - spurred in part by white, working women - that resulted in a tripling in the number of never-married, single mothers.
Those unmarried mothers on AFDC are less likely to become self-sufficient. And it is harder to collect child support from never-married fathers.
Policy analysts have been bombarding lawmakers with dueling studies over whether or not welfare benefits actually encourage out-of-wedlock births and a host of other social ills.
Those who say yes want to stop giving mothers extra benefits for new children to encourage them either to find husbands or stop having babies they can't afford. Opponents see unmarried mothers as a sign of the changing American family and say they need support rather than punishment.
MYTH: Most welfare recipients are black.
REALITY: In this case, blacks and whites are about equal.
Whites make up 38.9 percent of welfare recipients; blacks 37.2 percent.
But a higher proportion of blacks lives in homes receiving government cash assistance, primarily AFDC: 29 percent of blacks compared with 8 percent of whites.
Blacks are still the majority of welfare mothers who never married, but their percentages dropped from 71 to 57 percent over the last two decades. That compares to an increase from 18 to 27 percent for whites.
Some analysts warn that white unmarried mothers have reached the point where blacks were in 1968 when a national commission warned of family deterioration and crime. That specter fuels some of the worry about welfare contributing to moral decay.
MYTH: Most welfare mothers are teenagers.
REALITY: Teen mothers make up only 8.2 percent of the welfare rolls. Teen mothers are still a major concern for those worried about breaking any cycle of dependency. Half of unwed teen mothers get on welfare by the end of the first year after giving birth; 77 percent are on the rolls five years later.
Also, 34 percent of adult recipients started on welfare as teens. These women are poorer, less educated and less likely to marry than those who started welfare as adults. And even though these mothers work just as much as others on welfare, they earn less.
Some analysts say teen mothers require intensive therapy: programs for job-training, parenting class, remedial education. Others promote ``tough love:'' no cash benefits and either group homes for them and their babies or orphanages for the children. That discourages teen parenthood and sets a standard of values, they say.
Still others say it would be more cost-effective to focus on the biggest bulk of the AFDC rolls: the average recipient who is 31 years old, has school-aged children and some work experience. Help that mother become self-sufficient, they say, and establish a role model for the younger generation.
MYTH: Welfare mothers stay on the rolls continuously for years and refuse to work.
REALITY: Most welfare mothers are on and off welfare. Many try to work.
Within two years, 70 percent of recipients get off welfare, primarily to work. But one of the greatest challenges to reform is that a lot of them get back on welfare within a few years.
Major reasons include job loss, the high cost of child care and the need for medical benefits often not available with low-paying jobs.
Of those who leave welfare, 45 percent return within a year.
At least one-third of single women on welfare worked some time during a year, often in part-time or part-year jobs. Federal officials think many more don't report that they work so they can hold on to some benefits.
Younger women are just as likely to work as older women; women with children under age 6 work as much as those with older children.
Still, the average total family income earned by welfare recipients in 1992 was only $6,865, low enough to qualify for various forms of government aid.
Part of the welfare debate will focus on how to help those who tend to ``cycle back'' into the system.
Ironically, the group not targeted by any welfare reform proposal is that hardcore 15 percent that stays on welfare for five years or longer without a break in aid.
MYTH: The monthly benefit checks are generous.
REALITY: The average check for a family is $373.
That totals $4,476 a year - far below the federal poverty level of $11,522 for a family of three. Of course, AFDC benefits were never intended to be enough to compensate for a job - only enough to keep people from starving.
Maximum benefit amounts vary by state, ranging from $120 a month for a family of three in Mississippi to $923 in Alaska. But there has been no increase in the average national benefit since 1990.
With inflation, today's welfare check buys about half as much as it did in 1976.
Even with food stamps, the AFDC family lives below the poverty line. Just one-fourth of welfare families receive any government housing assistance. ILLUSTRATION: Who's on welfare
KRTN graphic
[For a copy of the graphic, see microfilm for this date.]
KEYWORDS: WELFARE REFORM by CNB