RECESSION PUT THOUSANDS OF KIDS ON WELFARE ROLLS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 4, 1993                   TAG: 9302040210
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium
RECESSION PUT THOUSANDS OF KIDS ON WELFARE ROLLS
Hard times drove 2,000 children a day onto the welfare rolls at the height of the recession, and now one in every seven American children is supported by these cash benefits, government records show.
Activists say the surge in Americans who receive Aid to Families with Dependent Children lends urgency to President Clinton's promises to reform welfare and health care and revitalize the economy.
The situation provides impetus for change "because the severity, the breadth of the problem, is so much more visible," said A. Sidney Johnson III, executive director of the American Public Welfare Association.
The government's most recent data show that a record 13.89 million people, including 9.43 million children under age 18, got cash assistance in November under AFDC. In July 1989, the total was 10.9 million Americans.
The major cash welfare program for families with children, AFDC has seen its caseloads grow every month but two since July 1989, a year before the recession officially began.
Benefits are expected to cost the states and federal government $22.4 billion this year.
The average monthly payment to an AFDC family is $376.
Clinton said Tuesday he will soon name a task force on welfare. He laid out several goals, such as moving able recipients off the rolls and into a job after two years of education and training.
Peter Gottschalk, a professor of economics at Boston College, said many families added to the rolls since 1989 were forced onto welfare by the recession but are likely to be short-term recipients.
"For them, the safety net works very well," he said. "A good recovery will take care of part of the problem."
But studies have shown that a sizeable number of AFDC recipients will stay on the rolls a long time. They have little work experience and less education than the general population; the cost of training them and placing them in jobs would be enormous, experts said.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB