THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 29, 1995 TAG: 9510300201
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J1 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: Long : 381 lines
As vote-hungry politicians issue tough-sounding position papers and air incendiary attack ads, Congress is in the final stages of a major overhaul of the nation's welfare system.
If signed by President Clinton, it will overturn some of the system's basic tenets, including welfare's status as an ``entitlement'' - a guaranteed benefit for the poorest of the poor.
Meanwhile, a number of states - including Virginia - are moving ahead with radical overhauls of their own.
This month's Hampton Roads Roundtable examines these efforts and their potential effects. The discussion was held in conjunction with a daylong symposium in Virginia Beach sponsored by the Coalition for the Common Wealth, a group of local religious, business and university organizations.
For the discussion, The Virginian-Pilot and public radio station WHRV brought together a sociologist who has studied welfare, a local social services director, a former state human services secretary and a welfare recipient.
Their consensus: The system is clearly imperfect, but the current attacks on it do nothing to address fundamental inequities in our society and threatens more misery for its most vulnerable members.
The discussion was moderated by staff writer Bill Sizemore.
WHAT'S BROKEN?
The word ``reform'' implies that there's something wrong with the current system. What is it about the welfare system that is broken?
Suzanne Puryear: There are disincentives built into the system. Disincentives to work.
As most everyone knows, Aid to Families with Dependent Children is means-tested. It's built on an income test, and once you start to make x amount of dollars, your grant is reduced by x amount of dollars so that you're constantly held at this level. It's about 20 percent below the poverty level.
Cassandra Frazier: We are given a certain amount a month that is very unrealistic to live off of to raise children. In order to live off the assistance that we get a month, you either have to live with a relative and exchange services for the rent or you have to live in, probably, a redevelopment housing unit based on your income, in a neighborhood which is full of crime. You have to worry about gunshots, drug dealing right under your nose.
Howard Cullum: There's clearly always been a concept in this country, and it's still here today, about the ``deserving poor.'' We're willing to give public tax money to people we think deserve it. But if we think somebody is conning the system or scamming or not doing their share, then we're not willing to do that. . . .
It's a hot-button political issue. You have to be frank about it. This is driven by ``let's get the welfare queen.'' . . .
We're finally going to have to grapple with the issue of jobs. The reality is, most of the recipients, the research shows, want to better themselves and their family situation. But you can't get from Point A to Point B without some assistance. That's really what we're trying to fund.
And then, even if we can move them, we'll have to struggle with the public policy issue of what are we moving them to? Are we moving them to 80 percent of poverty, and then we'll be angry that they're not happy? Or are we going to try to have a broader system in place for the working poor and the current recipients and the unemployed - those at the lower end of the economic ladder who are always typically left out in the discussions because they don't have the money. They don't have political power, is what it comes down to. . . .
And it has a heavy race connotation. It always has. And people need to be up front about it.
A DISINCENTIVE TO WORK?
What evidence is there that the current welfare system creates a ``culture of dependency'' - that is, that recipients become pathologically dependent on government aid to the point that they have no incentive to go out and look for work?
Roberta Spalter-Roth: Our research consistently shows that there's a relatively small portion of AFDC recipients who use AFDC as their sole means of supporting their families. . . .
We haven't seen the evidence of pathological dependence. We've actually seen evidence that the welfare system, although there are problems with it and it has a perverse set of incentives, in fact, does tend to work. Most women don't stay on for long periods of time.
People use it instead of unemployment insurance. Very few AFDC recipients, even those with heavy work hours, get unemployment insurance. They don't earn enough to do so. Their jobs aren't stable enough. . . .
AFDC tends to be used as an income supplement for low-wage jobs.
Are the jobs out there? How realistic is it to expect that people are going to be able to find work at the end of their benefit period?
Cullum: Clearly there are jobs in some areas, and in some areas there aren't. . . . But you have to make a policy choice. Is your goal to have someone making $4.35 an hour, $4.50 an hour, that's going to gross out $9,000 a year?
In Northern Virginia . . . the total benefits won't even pay for a place to live, the cash payment is so low.
Virginia is 49th in the country in welfare payments. . . . It basically had the most restrictive program in the country before this started, and it's being squeezed down more. . . .
We are the one Western democracy, the one developed country that's still having the most trouble providing support networks for its lower-income people.
SHREDDING THE SAFETY NET
Under the ``two years and out'' plan that we are now starting to put into effect in Virginia, what happens to an aid recipient at the end of that benefit period if she's unable to find work?
Puryear: There is no clear safety net. . . . What I do think we'll see is this kind of gradual erosion of the quality of life. You know, folks will move more often because they'll be evicted more often. Bills and grocery stores won't get paid and the kids come to school shabbier or dirtier.
What about what some people say - that welfare destroys the will to work?
Frazier: I think that's a very misconceived statement because I know a lot of women, including myself, who have a determination to want to work. Being a student, I work part time and I am a three-quarter time student. I mean, the determination is within me to work hard, to get off public assistance permanently. . . .
There's a lot of misconceptions about women on public assistance. The one that we don't want to work is far from the truth.
What do you see down the road? Are you concerned about what's going to happen to you and others in the system?
Frazier: Yes. I'm very concerned, because I'm right in the middle of getting my education. It's like I'm heading for the finish line but I'm not there yet. And if they make us go out to work as well as go to school, that can be a very bad downfall. It's just demoralizing women.
I think they have an unrealistic idea of how to raise children. You know, that we have to be home with the children, we have to get them off the bus, we have to provide the child care. There is no way off of the monthly income coming from the state - we cannot afford child care. Some women do not have cars. . . . How can you get to and from work? How can you get your children to your day-care center, to school?
There are various aspects that need to be looked at, and not just ``Oh, gung ho! Let's get these deadbeat mothers off of welfare!''
WHAT ABOUT THE KIDS?
What about the conflict between wanting to get women out into the labor force and the need for them to look after their children? How do you address that?
Spalter-Roth: Well, I think it's not being addressed. As we've said before, the notion is to be tough on welfare, to decrease the size of the system and to assume that these women got themselves into this bed and it's their problem. It's full of contradictions. . . .
No matter what women do, it's wrong. White women should be staying at home caring for their children. Women on welfare - both black and white, Hispanic, Asian - should be in the labor market and somehow their children should be taken care of. No matter what choice women make, it's going to be the wrong choice.
If a woman finds a job and needs child care, is it going to be available?
Puryear: At this point, AFDC recipients who are working are entitled to child care. It's a big-ticket item, and one that we all see is clearly critical. As women move off, as their income becomes such that it puts them over the income level for AFDC eligibility, then there's a year of transitional benefits that are also guaranteed. After that, it's anyone's guess.
They're on their own?
Puryear: They get thrown into this pool. There is a small program of income subsidies, day-care subsidies for low-income working families. And folks get thrown into that pool with everyone else. The resources are clearly inadequate. I have a $3 million child day-care budget and I'm able to serve just slightly under 1,400 children with that. That nowhere begins to look at the need.
Spalter-Roth: The ideal society, or the society that we should be moving toward, is one in which both men and women are caretakers and workers, and people will need child care, and child care is a big-ticket item. And we have to think about, where is it going to come from? And is it the case in the end where we're going to have to raise taxes because we need this for our children?
Isn't that just exactly opposite from the direction we're now going in?
Spalter-Roth: Yeah. That's why I'm not running for public office.
SHRINKING RESOURCES
One of the things that Ms. Frazier said early on was that from her experience, the current levels of benefits are inadequate. But the resources are actually going to be reduced. How are you going to cope with the load?
Puryear: If I had an answer to that, I'd be sitting in this chair much more comfortably. I think that a lot of the rhetoric is wrapped around language of creativity and innovation. And certainly when you're facing situations like this, sometimes it does bring out the best in folks. And I think there are certainly areas in which improvements can be made.
However, I think Howard Cullum said it best when he talked about viewing this in a vacuum. It's just impossible. I just think that you cannot possibly discuss welfare reform without discussing health care reform, without discussing educational reform, without talking about economic development andthe impact of a well-developed work force and the advantages of that in your local economy. . . .
What about the argument that some of the slack can be taken up by private charities?
Cullum: I'd say it's a myth. Someone did a calculation that every church in this country would have to raise $75,000 to replace the federal safety net that exists now. Most churches don't have a budget of that size. And it isn't a one-time thing. It would be every year. . . .
There's a myth that somehow United Way agencies and all these other nonprofits and private groups are going to spring out of the closet and take care of everybody. . . . People need to be up front about privatization. It's a scam. We're still talking tax money, real public tax money.
Another argument is that states need the flexibility and freedom to run the programs the way that they find works best - that the one-size-fits-all, Washington-knows-best approach has failed. Do you think that your agency and others will be able to do a better job with fewer federal strings attached?
Puryear: No.
Why not?
Puryear: I think that federal regulations tend to protect localities from cost-shifting, from individual interests. I think that it insulates local government operations from some of that, and I find that helpful.
Spalter-Roth: We're probably going to see more rather than less corruption and waste and fraud and abuse in these programs. . . . One of the rationales of federal law has always been the amount of corruption at the local level and the fact that certain people were just excluded. In the South, for example, under AFDC, during crop picking times, black women were basically excluded from AFDC whether they qualified or not.
CHASING DEADBEAT DADS
One reason that so many women and children live in poverty is that they get little or no child-support from absent fathers. Are we doing enough to ensure that fathers pay their fair share?
Frazier: Absolutely not. No. I mean, my husband has been footloose and fancy free for the past two and a half years without paying a dime for three children who require a lot of financial support. I mean, the people down at social services, they ask for information on the father and it's all there. They don't pursue him. He has a driver's license. Why they can't go through the DMV to track him if it's all national? If he's working, why can't they track him through the taxes at the end of the year?
Spalter-Roth: There has been a tremendous effort at both the federal and the state levels to improve child-support collection. Not much, however, has really happened. With great infusions of dollars, that system has not really improved.
What we've also seen is a sort of a punitive side for this, where women are punished. For example, under Idaho's waiver, if a woman doesn't name the biological father of her child, she doesn't get any AFDC benefits. That's true for most states. Then they have this additional little catch that if the state can't find the father, you lose half your benefits. . . .
And when I spoke to the Idaho officials about this, they said, well, yes, they knew that it did sound a little strange, but they really wanted to punish bad behavior. So I guess the bad behavior they were trying to punish was the idea that a woman had sex with a man who fled the state.
Cullum: I think Virginia, if you look at the collection rates, has collected quite a lot of money. But you've got uncooperative people on the other end, and people, when they are tracked down at their jobs, are going somewhere else. . . .
Ultimately, the thing that's frustrating for a lot of us is that we're talking about a lot of preventable things in people's lives . . . things that could be prevented if you could have some early intervention.
That's why I have some fear of some of these block grants for child protective services. I know prevention money for domestic prevention of violence, family violence, all those will lose out.
LOOKING AHEAD
What about the so-called family cap? We are faced with the prospect of no additional benefits for children born while on welfare. Is there any evidence that recipients, for instance, will be more inclined to have abortions?
Spalter-Roth: In New Jersey, one of the big family-cap states, Rutgers University is doing an analysis. . . . It's still relatively early. There was some initial evidence that more abortions were happening. I think that that's not entirely clear right now.
Cullum: I think in a lot of cases, no matter what the data is, it won't make a difference for a lot of people. There is a political need to not provide additional money for additional children if someone's getting public assistance.
Spalter-Roth: I think one of the things that we've been seeing in this last couple of years is that data often doesn't make a difference - even really well-done, well-thought-out studies. In Wisconsin, for example, a study showed that in the ``learn-fare'' program, where you take away benefits or at least partial benefits from families if kids aren't attending school, there were no differences in school attendance between the control and the experimental group. Basically the research was denounced and ignored. . . .
I was told by a management information person in New York who runs the New York City welfare data that she's being basically told not to do research. They don't really want to know that it may not be working.
Congress appears to be getting ready to end welfare as an entitlement. That is, it's no longer to be a guarantee. Is this something that you think needs to be debated more?
Cullum: I think it's a done deal. . . .
In reality it's the federal officials who are being smart. They're saying this is going to be local. These are going to be state and local decisions. They'll take the heat when somebody doesn't have health care, when we end up with people not getting immunizations.
What do you see as good, if anything, in what is being done now at the state and federal levels, and what other things do you think ought to be done?
Cullum: Some of the emergency assistance capacity clearly is helpful for some people. . . .
Despite all of the rhetoric, there have been extra dollars put in for child care. . . .
The state will not have to put up the match at the same level it does now. To think that the state would pull out $23 million that goes for this population struggling to make it and somehow put it into a prison or something else, I think that has to be debated.
Spalter-Roth: I think one of the things that have been going on at the state level that is good is the increase in ``earnings disregard,'' where people can earn more and not lose as much in their AFDC benefits, therefore allowing them to have a somewhat higher living standard.
I like the idea of transition benefits in terms of Medicaid and child care, which would allow women to keep these benefits for at least a year. I think, however, what's going to happen with the passage of the federal bill, unless Clinton does veto it, is that we'll see the end of those. There's going to be a hard-line time limit and then there's going to be no transitional coverage. Meanwhile, other programs like Medicaid are being capped or cut.
And so I think that there's a real possibility of a steady erosion of the quality of life. MEMO: A full text of the discussion is available on the News page of Pilot
Online at the Internet address http://www.infi.net/pilot/
ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
Roberta Spalter-Roth, director of research at the Institute for
Women's Policy Research. She recently directed a study, ``Welfare
that Works: The Working Lives of AFDC Recipients.''
Howard Cullum, a former state mental health commissioner and
secretary of health and human services under Gov. L. Douglas
Wilder.
Cassandra Frazier, a pre-nursing student and welfare recipient. She
lives in Portsmouth.
Suzanne Puryear, director of human services in Norfolk.
Graphics
WELFARE: MYTH VS. FACT
MYTH: Once people get on welfare, they stay on.
FACT: 70 percent of recipients are on the rolls for two years or
less.
MYTH: Welfare is a major contributor to the budget deficit.
FACT: Welfare accounts for about 1.5 percent of the federal
budget.
MYTH: Most welfare recipients are black.
FACT: 39 percent are white, 37 percent black and 18 percent
Hispanic.
MYTH: Welfare mothers have more children to get more benefits.
FACT: The average family on welfare has two children - about the
same as the typical family not on welfare.
MYTH: Most immigrants are on welfare.
FACT: 4.7 percent of legal immigrants are on welfare. Illegal
immigrants are not eligible.
MYTH: Welfare goes mostly to teenage mothers.
FACT: 8 percent of families receiving Aid to Families with
Dependent Children are headed by teens.
MYTH: Welfare payments are more generous than they used to be.
FACT: Adjusted for inflation, AFDC benefits have decreased 47
percent since 1970.
MYTH: Most people on welfare don't work.
FACT: More than seven out of 10 AFDC recipients spend significant
time in the labor force, either working or looking for work.
Sources: American Friends Service Committee, Children's Defense
Fund, House Ways and Means Committee, Institute for Women's Policy
Research
REFORM: WHERE IT STANDS
IN CONGRESS:
A conference committee is trying to resolve differences between
bills passed by the House and Senate. Both bills abolish the
entitlement status of Aid to Families with Dependent Children,
meaning AFDC payments would no longer be guaranteed to poor
families. Both bills essentially would freeze federal spending on
AFDC, the main welfare program, for five years.
The House bill, passed March 24, is designed to save $100 billion
over seven years. It would turn over federal welfare programs to the
states in the form of block grants. States would be allowed to cut
off benefits after two years, and would be required to do so after
five years. No federal funds could be spent on unwed teenage mothers
or children born to mothers on welfare.
The Senate bill, passed Sept. 19, would save a projected $70
billion over seven years. It also turns welfare programs over to the
states in the form of block grants, but leaves specific benefit
prohibitions up to the states. It would cut nutrition programs,
including food stamps and school meals, and would deny assistance to
most legal immigrants.
IN VIRGINIA:
In a bipartisan compromise, the 1995 General Assembly enacted a
welfare-to-work program for which about 49,000 of the 74,000
Virginia recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children are
eligible. The program:
Requires work in exchange for benefits. Most benefits are cut off
after two years and cannot be reinstated for two to three years,
depending on the case.
Prohibits additional benefits for children born to mothers on
welfare.
Is being phased in over four years, with about 10,000 people
expected to be enrolled in the first year. It has not been announced
when the program will come to Hampton Roads.
KEYWORDS: WELFARE REFORM ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION by CNB