THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 21, 1995 TAG: 9505190001
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
Virginia's welfare reform, designed to cut state spending on Aid to Families With Dependent Children by half within five years, begins phasing in July 1. The state's annual AFDC bill is $228 million. It's too soon to say that the savings objectives will be met. But Gov. George Allen and the General Assembly, like most other states' governors and legislatures, are deadly earnest about sharply shrinking the welfare rolls and bill. Grass-roots support is strong.
Last week the Allen administration listed the first 31 localities in which reforms will be implemented.
The savings for which Virginia aims are to be had by (1) denying welfare benefits to teenage mothers and requiring them to live with a parent or other adult and stay in school; (2) refusing additional benefits for children born to women already getting welfare checks; and (3) moving welfare mothers off the dole and onto payrolls while terminating benefits to women who fail to shift.
U.S. Roman Catholic bishops fear, reasonably enough, that such reforms will trigger more abortions. Meanwhile, statistics show that most AFDC recipients stay only a few years on welfare and that the benefits of those stuck in the welfare culture have eroded over the years, making welfare dependency far from the profitable choice some of its critics charge.
Neither the bishops' objections nor statistics matter, however. The mass of Americans, having seen their own incomes stagnate or decline and the quality of their lives worsen, are not in a charitable frame of mind. Public patience has been destroyed by the lamentable spectacle of welfare mothers whose daughters become welfare mothers in turn and whose sons tend to end up spending more time in prisons than schools. All of which is costly in blood, tears and treasure.
No matter, either, that AFDC rolls have swelled as jobs with tolerable pay and benefits for uneducated and unskilled men and women of all races have been vanishing. There is an American consensus, rooted deeply in human experience, that working is good and idleness is bad; the truism applies to rich and poor alike.
But transforming welfare recipients into self-sufficient members of the labor force is no snap. Ronald Reagan aspired to place 30,000 mothers a year in jobs when he was governor of California. About 1,000 a year was the best the state managed. Education, day care, transportation and job training for welfare mothers are expensive, and taxpayers foot the bill - which can be higher than the welfare bill it is supposed to trim.
In any event, for every success there are many failures. Perhaps Virginia's experience will be better than California's.We hope so, and much has been learned since Mr. Reagan's governorship, but there's heavy lifting ahead.
A further complication: With less than six weeks remaining before Virginia's reform takes effect, the state's social-service system appears not yet prepared for the transition. That staff is adequate to monitor welfare families' compliance with reform mandates is unclear. Meanwhile, though President Clinton is encouraging welfare-reform experimentation by states, his administration has yet to approve the Virginia experiment.
Virginia counts 74,000 AFDC households. That number can surely be whittled. But disappointing experience elsewhere in states that are trying similar solutions to their welfare burden argues against high hopes for speedy gains from Virginia's reform.
Reform is desirable, however, and Virginia's plan deserves a fair trial. But that fair trial may entail greater expense than is currently envisioned to provide what is needed in the way of social workers and community service jobs and subsidized jobs for women who do not get private-sector jobs paying enough to live on.
If future experience suggests that greater resources must be made available and spending for them to be justified, Virginia's choice will be to pony up or settle for poor results. Failure isn't what anyone wants. by CNB