Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 18, 1994 TAG: 9403220014
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By TED EDLICH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
On the surface, both Democrats and Republicans are racing toward that goal to see who can get there first and claim victory. Beneath the surface, the current welfare system is a problem for almost everyone. The very word "welfare" is a term of rebuke.
Many of the attacks on the system and its beneficiaries or victims do not quite hit the mark. The explosion of women in the work force and their growing sense of independence, together with the falling wages of men, has had a far greater impact on changing family structures than Aid to Families With Dependent Children, with its relatively few recipients.
The fact that the average welfare mother has two children, no more than the national average for all mothers, belies the deeply held public conviction that welfare mothers have children to make money. The vision of welfare mothers living in abundance does not quite fit, when the average check - almost all of which may go for rent - is less than 50 percent of the poverty index.
The actual incidence of cheating is extremely low, since most of the increased funding in recent years to local welfare departments has been to catch the few who cheat rather than the greater number in need.
Nevertheless, welfare is almost universally disdained. David Ellwood in his book "Poor Support," the most important book on poverty in the three decades since Michael Harrington's "The Other America," explains why. Welfare runs counter to basic American values, most importantly the value of work. Americans believe work fosters a sense of responsibility. Any reform success will have to be consistent with the values of work, individual autonomy and responsibility, and the primacy of the family.
First, Ellwood exposes the fact that half of all poor children who make up the largest group in poverty are members of two-parent families. The parents are poor because they are unemployed or underemployed.
One parent working full time and another half time at minimum wage without medical benefits do not earn enough to lift the family above the poverty line. Ellwood argues that a welfare-reform plan begins by strenghening two-parent families and rewarding their efforts. People who work should not be poor!
To make work pay, Ellwood proposes an earned-income tax credit on earnings of up to $8,000, a refundable child-care credit to offset child-care costs, a child allowance or refundable child credit rather than the simple deduction system that benefits the rich far more than the poor, and access to health care. These measures would encourage work, independence and family self-sufficiency.
Second, Ellwood addresses those facing the most dire and lengthy poverty, families with a single head of household. Many of these make up the largest group on welfare.
Since the mother is also responsible for raising the children, Ellwood proposes a plan that would enable her to work half time and to support her family above the poverty line. Universal health care and all the tax credits provided the two-parent family not only would help make work pay for the single parent, but also would end the isolation from the mainstream that the current welfare system promotes.
In addition, Ellwood argues for strong support laws that would identify the father at birth and ensure that children have the support of both parents. He argues for a Support Assurance program that guarantees the custodial parent such support on a consistent and timely basis.
Since unemployment is often the result of lack of education and training, Ellwood proposes short-term transitional support and training enabling those people to gain the skills to enter the job market. In cases where there are insufficient jobs and a poor economy, Ellwood calls for public jobs rather than workfare.
In Virgina, the recently released report of the Commission to Stimulate Personal Initiative to Overcome Poverty has a number of proposals that are moving in the right direction:
Study of a state earned-income tax credit for inclusion in the 1996-98 budget .
Federal tax-code reform to allow for a refundable tax credit for dependent-child care.
A Welfare Avoidance Fund to help families facing crisis, and extension of assistance to unemployed two-parent families to cover 12 months rather than six months of a 12-month period.
Full state matching to draw down additional federal dollars for the JOBS program and for day care to promote job skills for welfare mothers.
Support-enforcement measures that allow suspension of professional licensure in cases of support noncompliance, and an arrangement with the Department of Motor Vehicles for the Division of Child Support Enforcement to hold liens on vehicles when child-support orders are $6,000 in arrears.
Community-based training and employment programs for ex-offenders with child-support orders.
Two welfare-reform pilot programs limiting welfare to two years. Participants would be entitled to case management, training, day care, housing disregards, an automobile disregard up to $5,000 equity and a 50 percent disregard on any earned income. Participants will not be entitled to any additional money for children born after entry into the program.
Technical changes to the Virginia tax code to support the implementation of Virginia's 1993 Welfare Reform Demonstration to assist the employment of 600-1,000 welfare recipients at a living wage.
Virginia's and the nation's success in this matter will depend on whether there will be real reform and not just a new round of welfare tinkering in the name of reform.
There will be no real reform unless:
There is universal health care for Americans. A major reason single mothers turn to and stay on welfare is the need for medical care for their children.
We structure welfare so that going to work pays, and enables two- and one-parent families to escape poverty through work.
The absent parent also contributes to the support of the children.
Some way is found to provide jobs in areas of high unemployment so that everyone can work.
Real welfare reform will save money in the long run. It will reduce teen pregnancy. It will reduce the 25 percent incidence of multigenerational welfare. It will encourage self-determination and reinforce the work ethic. It may eliminate a great deal of antagonism toward the poor.
Real welfare reform will also cost. It will require money up front for tax credits and incentives, training, day care, support enforcement, health care and job creation.
The public can be roused to think that we can get something for nothing in welfare reform, by focusing on measures to simply cut people off: two-year time limits, no support for additional children, no benefits to teen-agers who have children. Professionals in the business, who detest the present system as much as anyone, will tell you that simply cutting people off will result also in an increased cost in child neglect, foster care, delinquency and crime, and incarceration. There is, indeed, no free lunch.
For all its limitations, the welfare system has prevented millions of children in this country from starvation and disease. It has served as a transition to jobs and self-sufficiency for more women and their families than it has snared in its dependency net. Yet, other countries do much better and we can, too.
We face three choices: Continued tinkering with a system that is outdated and has no public support;increased class warfare fed by polemics against the victims and implemented by measures solely punitive in nature; or real reform, a restructuring of the entire system. We are already experts in tinkering and blaming the victim. It is time for reform.
Ted Edlich is director of Total Action Against Poverty, headquartered in Roanoke.
by CNB