Welfare caseloads are plummeting across the country, but Idaho and Washington so far have seen only small declines.
The reason is that both states are behind in the nationwide push for welfare reform. Idaho started work on its reform plan in 1995, and its sweeping changes - including two-year time limits for benefits - will take effect July 1. Washington's Legislature just approved reform measures this year.
Other states that started sooner to reform their welfare programs have seen drops in caseloads as high as 49 percent from 1993 to 1997. Nationwide, the number of people receiving welfare benefits has dropped 20 percent in that period.
"Washington is really down at the very, very bottom of all the states in terms of dependency reduction," said Robert Rector, a Heritage Foundation analyst. Rector ranks Idaho 20th among states for its efforts in the past six months.
"You can experience modest declines like Washington has just on the basis of the change in the economy," Rector said.
But the dramatic changes in the numbers in leading welfare-reform states can't be attributed just to a strong economy, the scholar and author said. "The only time that the economy really knocks AFDC (welfare) caseloads down is during wartime. During the Korean War, it fell 18 percent."
Oregon's number of people receiving welfare has dropped 43 percent since 1993. Utah has seen a 33 percent drop, while Montana has had a 25 percent decline. Numbers in Wisconsin, which Rector has studied in depth, dropped nearly in half.
Although Idaho's welfare reform efforts officially take effect this summer, some already have started. And word about planned reforms has spread.
"We've had information out to people from the early part of 1996," said Mary Anne Saunders, head of welfare reform for Idaho's Health and Welfare Department. "We've had our staff talking to people."
Reactions have varied, but some welfare recipients have decided to act when told they'll soon be required to work in exchange for their benefits, Saunders said.
"We've had our staff tell us people say, 'Oh, OK, well I'm just going to go get a job then.' They do that."
Idaho also has experimented with the tools it will use in welfare reform, like personal responsibility contracts that every recipient will have to sign and self-assessments to identify recipients' job skills.
"Some people have said, 'Oh gosh, I do have skills that I use.' And they start to leave the program," Saunders said.
Idaho's number of welfare recipients peaked in 1995 at 24,050, dropped slightly in 1996 and has really started to fall this year. The current figure of 19,925 is below 1993's level.
Washington's caseload peaked in 1994 at 292,608, and has experienced small declines since. But the state has a relatively high percentage of its population - 4.8 percent - on welfare. Idaho, at 2 percent, is the lowest in the nation.
Dropping caseloads can mean a windfall for states, because the federal government has moved to a block grant-type system for funding states' welfare costs. That means states are getting roughly the amount of money they needed in 1994, whether caseloads have gone up or down.
"Certainly as the number of cases goes down, it means that our staff will be able to do their job better with people," Saunders said.
Welfare workers in Idaho are being transformed into "self-reliance specialists." Instead of merely checking for eligibility and distributing payments, they will evaluate each recipient and design a program to move each toward self-sufficiency.
Saunders had anticipated that each specialist initially might have to juggle 100 cases, but said the number now is down to about 94.
Rector said his research suggests that any state that makes welfare less attractive by making people earn it will see significant and continued decreases in welfare loads.
"It's actually pretty easy to reduce dependence. All you have to do is start seriously requiring a recipient to do things. And they will respond to that by saying, 'Oh gee, if I've got to do all that stuff, I might as well go take a job."'
In Wisconsin, "most of the mothers took jobs," he said. "Some of them went and doubled up and are relying more on family and friends, which is actually a good thing, because the family provides a support and control system."
"Even if the mother is not necessarily in all cases getting a job, she's off welfare, and that's a better thing," Rector said.
Some disagree.
Sue Pearlmutter, a social work professor at Case Western Reserve University and a welfare reform expert, said, "Those families tend to be in the same position as the original welfare recipient, which means that they don't have the resources either to make sure that problems get attended to or that people can get out of poverty in general.
"Moving people off of very meager welfare benefits and into low-paying, low-skilled, entry-level jobs with no support does not constitute economic independence," she said. "All that we are doing is increasing the ranks of working poor."
Pearlmutter supports job training to match the labor market's need for skilled workers to the crowds coming off welfare. But that means investing not only in training, but also in child care and medical coverage, she said.
Welfare caseloads soared in the early 1990s, partly because of federal eligibility changes that drew in more unemployed parents in two-parent families, pregnant women and infants. But those gains since have leveled off. The eligibility category for unemployed parents was eliminated as part of federal welfare reform legislation.
Rector said he expects welfare numbers to continue to decline even in states that haven't aggressively pushed ahead with reforms, simply because of national publicity.
"Welfare recipients know that something is changing, and they are responding to that," he said.
