ROANOKE TIMES 

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

DATE: TUESDAY, December 20, 1994                   TAG: 9501200024
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

GOV. ALLEN'S WELFARE REFORM

TED EDLICH, director of Total Action Against Poverty in Roanoke, got it right: ``Is it a good thing to get people in the work force? Yes. Do people feel better about themselves when they're earning their own way? Yes. The question is: How do you help people stay independent so that they don't need [welfare] services?''

The purpose of welfare, in other words, should be to end the need for it. Contrary to popular myth, most Virginians (and Americans) who receive Aid to Families with Dependent Children do in fact get off the rolls within two years. The harder ones to deal with are the minority of recipients, usually lacking fundamental skills, for whom welfare dependence has become a way of life passed on through generations.

There is broad, bipartisan agreement on the need for welfare reform. But successful reform will require both toughness and understanding. Toughness, because people shouldn't be allowed to collect cash payments endlessly without making serious efforts to get jobs and become self-sufficient. Understanding, because torturing people for being poor won't achieve the desired results, and would be unfair in any case to the children involved.

Last week came Gov. Allen's welfare-reform proposal, and it is, in its stated intent and broad outlines, a good one. It is similar to other reform schemes floating around the states and in Washington, and builds on recommendations of an anti-poverty task force headed by Lt. Gov. Don Beyer during the Wilder administration. It seeks - rightly - to overhaul a system that not only is wasteful and self-perpetuating, but also demeans and disables some of the very people it is meant to help.

The core of Allen's plan is to bump from the state system over the next five years about 48,000 welfare recipients - mostly mothers who now get AFDC. Allen would impose a two-year limit on AFDC payments. There also would be a work-for-benefits (``workfare'') requirement: New enrollees would have to find some sort of work in the private sector, public sector or in a nonprofit community-service agency within 30 days of starting their two-year benefit period, and they'd have to keep up this work while they receive state-sponsored vocational training or education.

All of which is reasonable, provided that: 1. Jobs are available that enable their takers to support themselves and their families. (This is by no means assured.) 2. Education and training are relevant and effective. (Usually, this means focusing on education rather than training.) 3. Medical benefits are available for former welfare recipients and their children. (Health-care reform, anyone?) 4. Good, reliable child care is available. (It's in short supply now in Virginia, and too expensive for the working poor.)

Everyone, state officials included, needs to understand that welfare reform will cost more money in the short run than keeping welfare as it is. Private charities cannot take up all or even most of the burden that the state wants to unload. Long-term savings, plus the impact on those helped out of dependence, make welfare reform well worthwhile - even urgently necessary. But it comes with a price tag that needs to be figured seriously into a budget. Preliminary numbers in Gov. Allen's budget proposal, unveiled Monday, show nothing approaching seriousness in this regard.

On the plus side, the governor's welfare plan has some commendable flexibility. It takes into account those areas of the state where unemployment is high, where major provisions must be phased in. It emphasizes the responsibilities of fatherhood and the need for stronger child-support enforcement. It does not turn its back on people with emergency needs for assistance.

It could prove, if it were funded, a sound start for welfare reform. 


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