Jobs Aren’t Part Of Welfare Reform Finding Work Tough In Northeastern Washington

The welfare reform working its way through the state Legislature lacks a key ingredient: jobs.

No matter which bill passes, most welfare recipients will be expected to find work within a certain time - no more than five years, under federal law. That will be tough in rural northeastern Washington, where even burger-flipping jobs are scarce.

“We want to employ these people that are able-bodied and can work, but with the high unemployment in the 7th (Legislative) District, where are we going to employ them?” asks Lincoln County businesswoman Penny Rosenberg.

Rosenberg made welfare reform one of the main planks of her unsuccessful campaign in last fall’s primary for the state House seat won by fellow Republican Bob Sump. For welfare reform to work, she said, the state must do more than slap a time limit on benefits.

To businesspeople like Rosenberg and to welfare recipients like Jennifer Poirier, one thing is painfully obvious: There are nowhere near enough jobs for all the welfare recipients in the sprawling 7th District, which includes Pend Oreille, Stevens, Ferry and Lincoln counties and portions of Spokane and Okanogan counties.

“I do my best at everything I do, but around here it doesn’t matter,” said Poirier, a Pend Oreille County resident who has held a variety of low-paying and unpaid jobs while working on a community college degree in business. “They need to make it so there are some jobs for people to get.”

Poirier said she needed connections just to get jobs as a waitress and a convenience-store clerk in Newport. There is little hope for advancement. Her promotion to assistant manager at a convenience store about six months ago brought her a 20-cent raise to $5.10 an hour.

“Five dollars an hour is the best you can do around here,” Poirier said. “In this town, there’s nothing. There’s convenience stores and restaurants and bars…

“They’ve got that paper mill up there (at Usk), but how many women can work there?”

Prospects are grimmer still at the north end of the county, where the cement plant, the sawmill and the mine all are closed and Canadian shoppers no longer come.

In Metaline, a town with just 171 residents, there are about 90 households on some form of public assistance.

Poirier has lived in Newport all her life and has family there. She doesn’t want to live in a big city, but said she’s willing to move to Spokane when she earns her degree this summer.

That’s a daunting prospect, though, for the 25-year-old single mother of two young children.

Could she find child care for her children, ages 9 and 5, as good as that provided by her aunt?

Could she afford the rent? Many Spokane apartments require first and last months’ rent plus a deposit. Also, the rent is higher than in Newport, where Poirier rents a single-wide mobile home for $350 a month.

“You’re looking at around $2,000 to get a place to live,” Poirier said. “I don’t have that kind of money.”

Lack of dependable vehicles or public transportation makes commuting a dubious proposition for many people in rural areas, according to Don Pratt, social services supervisor in the Colville office of the state Department of Social and Health Services.

“If you live in Northport and you have a ‘59 GMC pickup and it gets you 10 miles per gallon, it’s hard to conceive of driving (42 miles) to Colville for a $5- or $6-an-hour job,” Pratt said. “Besides, we’ve got enough people in Colville looking for $5- and $6-an-hour jobs.”

Even if they move to Spokane, welfare recipients may face the same dilemma. Spokane County has a much lower unemployment rate than its northern neighbors, but much higher actual numbers of welfare recipients.

There are only about 1,440 households on welfare in Pend Oreille, Stevens, Ferry and Lincoln counties combined, compared with about 9,200 in Spokane County.

Rosenberg believes more state incentive programs are needed such as the one her janitorial and grounds maintenance company uses to take people off the welfare rolls. While some welfare recipients may benefit from formal education, most need the kind of on-the-job training that only small businesses can provide, she said.

“We have a pretty high turnover until we get them trained, but once we get them trained, then we have really good long-term success,” Rosenberg said.

Welfare administrators like Pratt and Bernie Nelson, the Spokane regional director, say their agency no longer focuses on certifying welfare clients for eligibility, but on pushing them to look for work. Even if parents don’t find work, it’s important for their children to see them trying, Pratt said.

Child care is crucial in enabling welfare mothers to take jobs, Nelson said.

Both major reform bills before the Legislature - from Gov. Gary Locke and House Republicans - call for child care assistance to be provided on a decreasing scale until a family’s annual income reaches 175 percent of the federal poverty level. The poverty level is about $14,000 for a typical family of three.

Until recently, Pratt said, the welfare program could provide child care for only 38 children in Stevens County.

Rosenberg wants to attack the problem with economic birth control: Once a woman is on welfare, her payments would not rise if she has another child.

Poirier, who has been on welfare almost continuously since she had her first child at age 15, agrees that some mothers abuse the system.

“I know people that do keep having more kids just to get more from welfare, and I think that’s sick,” Poirier said. “There aren’t a lot of people like that.”

Contrary to what many critics believe, welfare doesn’t pay better than a minimum-wage job - at least not a job that approaches full-time. The maximum payment for a family of three is $546 a month.

Actually, Poirier said, one of the biggest reasons for staying on welfare is that it provides medical benefits while most minimum-wage jobs don’t.

Rosenberg agrees. She said her company can’t afford medical coverage for most of its employees, and she knows a mother who turned down a job because of that.

“I know the girl and she wasn’t lazy,” Rosenberg said. “She was just concerned about her children.”

Pratt said current welfare programs allow recipients to keep part of their medical benefits if they take low-paying jobs, but Rosenberg thinks the state should do more to eliminate what many believe is still an obstacle.

“If that’s why they’re saying they can’t afford to go out and be employed, then go around that excuse,” Rosenberg said. “Give them their medical.”

She also urged more economic-development programs such as the loan and low-cost building that Almira, Wash., officials used to lure Inland Tarp & Cover seven years ago. After moving to Almira, the company added about 20 jobs, President Glen Knopp said.

Most counties have similar loan funds, but their successes aren’t often dramatic.

The bottom line, Rosenberg said, is that northeast Washington’s rural counties are never likely to have enough jobs for all their residents who are now on welfare. For a variety of reasons, some of those people aren’t employable even if jobs were available, she added.

Because of that, Nelson said, both of the reform bills in the Legislature would allow 20 percent of welfare recipients to receive benefits beyond the ordinary time limit. Whether that’s enough is questionable.

“Based on our experience, it’s going to be close,” Nelson said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Graphic: Rural welfare recipients