Welfare System Defeats Attempts At Self-Sufficiency

Sat., Jan. 27, 1996

Kathy Estrada Special To Opinion

I ‘ve been on public assistance for several years now. I went on after I left my children’s father. My son was 6 months old at the time and my daughter was 1-1/2. I was 25 years old at the time and I didn’t feel good about going on welfare so I took a job, too. And I went back to school to get my high school equivalency degree.

I didn’t want to be the stereotypical welfare mother. You know, the woman who stays home and keeps having kids to collect more money. I found a job as a waitress and I also enrolled in community college after earning my GED. I will get a degree in natural resources in June and hope to work for a parks department. And I hope to get off public assistance for good.

I have been thankful for the assistance, but I see one huge flaw in our current welfare system. Everything I earn at my waitress job is deducted from my welfare benefit. I earn a little more than minimum wage and my benefit is taken from the gross, not the net, of what I make each month.

So I can never get ahead, never save a dime for the emergencies that come along when you are raising two children alone, working and going to school. I think the system should be reformed to enable those working to save some money and have a cushion. Some women, when crises strike, get so discouraged that they drop out of school or give up on trying to work. They turn their backs on the two roads that will lead away from public assistance.

I do think welfare reform should definitely stress both education and work for mothers. I dropped out of high school and considered myself dumb until I passed the GED. That gave me the confidence to try college. I really like my waitressing job and doing well there has given me the confidence to try for a better job when I graduate.

Instead of penalizing the mothers like me who are trying hard to get off public assistance, welfare reformers should go after those who abuse the system. Those people who are able to work or go to school but have no intention of trying either as long as they can live off the system. And food-stamp fraud is rampant. Lots of money could be saved by cracking down on that.

Legislators should build more incentives into the welfare system for people like me who are working, going to school and trying to get off the dole.

MEMO: Your Turn is a feature of the Wednesday and Saturday Opinion pages. To submit a Your Turn column for consideration, contact Rebecca Nappi at 459-5496 or Doug Floyd at 459-5466 or write Your Turn, The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210-1615.

Your Turn is a feature of the Wednesday and Saturday Opinion pages. To submit a Your Turn column for consideration, contact Rebecca Nappi at 459-5496 or Doug Floyd at 459-5466 or write Your Turn, The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210-1615.

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