Welfare Mothers Have Image Problem Afdc Recipients Say Picture Painted By Gop Inaccurate

Most Idaho mothers receiving welfare have more in common with Adrianne Dougal than with the stereotypical teenage mom envisioned by opponents to the program.

The Boise woman is 30 and the mother of four girls.

Statewide, 38 percent of single women receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children are between the ages of 21 and 44. The average number of children in such a home is 2.7.

The counties with the highest percentage of aid money are Bannock, at 9.3 percent; Minidoka and Bingham, both at 9 percent; and Twin Falls, at 8 percent.

Dougal, who is in Boise State University part time, said Congress wrongly portrays single women struggling to get by. Republicans favor limiting lifetime welfare assistance to five years and putting parents off assistance after two years if they have no job.

“I think it’s scary,” she said. “Where are they going to put the children while they’re at work? If they can’t afford child care, they’ll take the child from them.”

The House last week passed legislation dismantling direct federal welfare payments in favor of block grants to states with a handful of strings attached. Welfare would end as an entitlement.

In Idaho, 22,550 receive Aid payments: 15,150 children and 7,400 adults.

House GOP members were particularly piqued about Aid to Families with Dependent Children, the largest cash welfare program. It serves nearly 5 million families and 9 million children.

Critics say it has fostered illegitimacy and dependency. In 1960, before the program went into effect, less than 6 percent of all births were out-of-wedlock. In 1991, about 30 percent of births were to unmarried parents, the Census Bureau reports.

Aid supporters, while saying they back reform, fear that erasing the safety net will put more families on the streets.

They say many separated and divorced parents - most of them men - contribute to the problem by not paying child support. Half of the parents waiting to receive child support in Idaho have been or are on the Aid program.

In anticipation of congressional mandates, Idaho is putting together a state Welfare Reform Advisory Council.

“We’re concerned with block grants not having enough flexibility for Idaho, and we’re concerned with the funding level, but at this point we don’t know enough about either,” said Judy Brooks, state administrator of the Division of Welfare.