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

DATE: FRIDAY, June 4, 1993                   TAG: 9306040133
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

SHALALA: NO WORK, NO WELFARE

Low-income women should not stay home at taxpayer expense while working-class mothers must help support their families, Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala said Thursday in tough comments on welfare-to-work requirements.

"I don't think we should subsidize poor mothers to stay out of the work force when working-class mothers Shalala are going into the work force," Shalala said in an interview.

The Clinton administration is beginning work to overhaul a welfare system serving a record 5 million families. Shalala's comments were the first indication how stringent the reforms might be.

Her remarks also are at odds with the positions taken by the Children's Defense Fund during her long tenure on its board of directors.

The liberal advocacy group opposed a 1988 law that required states to put a growing share of recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children into education and training.

President Clinton wants to go even further. He has said low-income Americans should be given education, training and public assistance for two years, followed by work requirements for those who are able.

Asked Thursday whether mothers of young children would be exempt, Shalala said: "Not necessarily."

"There are large numbers of mothers of young children in the work force because they have to be. And we should not have different expectations for public programs than what society at large has evolved into," Shalala said.

"The issue is what kind of work," she said. "It may not be fair to ask them to work an eight-hour day . . . but it may be appropriate to have part-time work for mothers who have young children."

Robert Rector, policy analyst for welfare issues at the conservative Heritage Foundation, dismissed Shalala's comments as hypocrisy. He noted HHS asked Congress earlier this year to delay a work requirement for unemployed parents on welfare. The requirement is scheduled to take effect Oct. 1.

"She wants mothers with young children to work while she guts a work requirement on fathers in two-parent families. Absolute hypocrisy," Rector said.

Shalala said welfare reform would include a "day care system and a child care system that's supportive of people that go to work." One reason the administration wants to spend an additional $14 billion over five years to make Head Start full-day and year-round, she said, "is that it's [Head Start] got to fit with our changing ideas about welfare."

by CNB