THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 18, 1995 TAG: 9507180304
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARGARET EDDS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
When Virginians decided this year to stop paying extra money to welfare mothers who have more babies, some advocates applauded the change as a way to reduce welfare rolls.
Now a review of a similar 2-year-old New Jersey reform casts doubt on whether that will be the result.
So far, an analysis by a Rutgers University consulting team has shown no statistical difference in birth rates among women whose benefits were capped and those whose benefits were not capped during the first year of the program.
``We find a 6.9 percent rate for women subject to the Family Cap and a 6.7 percent rate for those in the control group,'' wrote Michael J. Camasso, principal investigator in the review of 4,880 women.
Under a law that took effect July 1, Virginia women receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children will not receive extra money for children conceived while on welfare. Before, a newborn could increase the monthly allotment by about $60, up to a limit of five children in most cases.
Advocates of the caps say they foster responsibility by requiring the poor to play by the same rules as working families whose salaries do not increase when their families expand.
Critics say the losers will be children whose families, many already existing on subsistence welfare payments, will have to make do with less.
A spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Human Services downplayed Rutgers' findings, which are receiving extensive national attention because a growing number of states are adopting similar policies.
``Please recognize that this is preliminary data,'' said spokeswoman Winnie Comfort. Noting that the update was part of a five-year study of her state's reform, she added: ``We cannot say what these numbers mean at this point.''
New Jersey launched the drive with a cap that took effect Aug. 1, 1993. Delaware, Connecticut, Indiana, Illinois, South Carolina and Virginia enacted caps this year. Legislation creating such laws is pending in states including Florida, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Nebraska.
There is also a push to include family caps in national welfare reform legislation making its way through Congress.
Opponents of the cap have been quick to seize on the figures, which were released last month, as evidence that the cutoff is punitive and without positive result.
``I just think these are vindictive and shortsighted laws,'' said Louise Melling, senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union's Reproductive Freedom Project. ``The level of benefits are not what influence child-bearing decisions. . . . Who's going to get hurt but the child?''
Melling has been an adviser on a lawsuit challenging the New Jersey reform plan. The suit was brought by the ACLU of New Jersey, the National Organization for Women's Legal Defense Fund and Legal Services of New Jersey.
A federal district court ruled in May against the plaintiffs, but they have appealed. Virginia Attorney General James S. Gilmore III announced last week that his office will file a ``friend of the court'' brief, siding with the federal government and the state of New Jersey.
``Sooner or later, those who have vowed to go to court to challenge meaningful reform may file suit against Virginia,'' Gilmore said in a statement. ``Instead of waiting, I plan to go on the offensive by making common cause with New Jersey and the federal government.''
Officials of the Virginia ACLU said they are deciding whether to legally challenge several aspects of Virginia's welfare reform plan, including the family cap.
``We've opposed it from the beginning, and in our estimation the plan is unconstitutional,'' said Kent Willis, director of the state chapter.
The New Jersey plaintiffs argue that the family cap ``penalizes vulnerable and needy children for their parents' behavior over which they have no control: the circumstances of their conception and birth.'' The plaintiffs also argue that the law infringes on the reproductive choice of poor women.
The federal district court disagreed. Newborns in a household that receives AFDC simply partake of the assistance the family already gets.
``This court cannot discern any inherently sacrosanct status accorded to welfare recipients which somehow insulates them from the obligation to don a blue collar, a white collar or even a black robe in order to earn their daily bread, an obligation that is regularly imposed on the rest of us,'' the decision stated.
The New Jersey figures suggesting that capping benefits does not stop births provided a degree of comfort to some at the forefront of welfare reform.
Advocates who also strongly oppose abortion had worried that the caps might lead to more abortions.
``We'd like to see a decrease in the number of children born,'' said Del. Robert McDonell, R-Virginia Beach, a sponsor of Virginia's welfare reform. ``But we'd like to see that through sexual responsibility of the recipient rather than abortion.''
KEYWORDS: WELFARE REFORM VIRGINIA by CNB