DATE: Friday, April 4, 1997                 TAG: 9704040017

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B10  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   52 lines

THIS COULD HURT KIDS THE ONLY POSSIBLE JUSTIFICATION FOR THE CAP ON BENEFITS IS THAT IT WILL BENEFIT FUTURE GENERATIONS

Can public policy on welfare change human behavior?

It's the $64,000 question of welfare reform, and it's one to which answers may be long in coming.

Take the matter of the ``family cap.'' Under this provision, various states - including Virginia - are declining to give mothers on welfare extra money if they give birth to another child. Unquestionably, the cap is one of the harshest provisions of welfare reform. But proponents counter that taking away all financial incentive for giving birth is imperative if the nation is to reduce illegitimate birthrates.

So far, the evidence is inconclusive. New Jersey, which has perhaps the nation's longest experience with such a cap, has shown a 15 percent reduction in welfare births since the policy took effect 3 1/2 years ago. Independent researchers in states including Nebraska and Arkansas have found no statistical difference in birthrates between women affected by the cap and welfare recipients who are not. In Massachussetts, the welfare birthrate has gone up slightly in the five months that the cap has been in effect.

Meanwhile, Virginia reports a 15 percent drop in welfare births since reform took effect here almost two years ago. In Arizona, the decline is 6 percent. And in Mississippi, officials report a whopping 45 percent downturn. The latter figure is sufficiently out of line with those elsewhere to bear further scrutiny.

Deciding what accounts for the decline in states such as Virginia is equally tricky. Is it the cap? Is it unrelated efforts to drive down teen pregnancy? Is it something else altogether? For instance, births were down 7 percent nationally between 1990 and 1995. The figure among black women, who are disproportionately included in the welfare population, was 17 percent.

Many social scientists argue convincingly that the link between illegitimacy and welfare policy is tenuous. For instance, prior cutbacks in welfare benefits - though not as severe as the current ones - have not reduced illegitimacy. In interviews, teen moms appear to be driven more by a desire for love and meaning in their lives, and by disorganization when it comes to birth control, than by conscious desire for financial gain.

Still, who can say that a concerted effort on many fronts will not over time reduce the number of children born to women ill-equipped to support them? This is a worthy goal. But not so worthy as to allow deprivation for children already born if there is no demonstrable link between the cap and a lower birthrate.

This area of welfare reform deserves the closest scrutiny. The only possible justification for worsening the poverty in which many children live today is the certain knowledge that it will better the lives of generations yet to come.

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