Incentive Found Through Reform

A California woman who could have once been labeled the classic welfare mother recently showed that welfare reform is working.

This mother of two illegitimate children from different fathers had a history of bouncing on and off the welfare rolls, so when the father of her second child left without paying the rent, a trip down to the welfare department seemed likely.

To the surprise of many, this woman instead sold some personal belongings to raise money, found a family member that would let her move in short-term, registered her car, filed her taxes, took her 2-year-old to get shots, transferred her 5-year-old to a new school, arranged day care, filed a child-support lawsuit against the second child’s father without an attorney and, most important, found a job - all in one week.

While many of the “compassionate” critics of welfare reform would scratch their heads in bewilderment, to her the choice was clear: “If I have to sit in a GAIN program (California’s work training program) for 20 hours a week to receive my benefits, I can just go get a job myself.”

This is not an isolated incident. Welfare reform has indeed revolutionized the system.

In fact, the Clinton administration recently lauded the success of the 1996 Personal Responsibility Act that reformed welfare by requiring recipients to work after two years of benefits and limiting lifetime benefits to five years.

Nationally, caseloads have fallen by 38 percent since 1994 as 3.3 million people have left the welfare rolls.

Many states have gone even further. A recent Tufts University study ranked states in relation to how they treat their poor. Not surprisingly, the states in which the welfare caseloads have decreased the most ranked at the bottom of the list.

Idaho, which has seen its welfare rolls shrink by 77 percent, was dead last. There, families receive $276 per month, irrespective of size, and have a lifetime benefit limit of two years rather than five. Recipients are also required to work at least 20 hours a week in exchange for benefits.

Despite being blasted for its lack of compassion, Idaho’s system is a ringing success.

A recent survey of former Idaho recipients found that 79 percent were paying their rent and 50 percent had found jobs. There is no evidence of increases in homelessness, either, as critics might suggest.

Similarly, Wisconsin’s welfare rolls have shrunk by 40 percent - 80 percent or more in one-third of its counties.

In addition to time limits, Wisconsin’s program provides counseling to new applicants on the negative effects of dependency, offers short-term aid such as auto repairs, which may eliminate the need for welfare, and requires applicants to complete several weeks of a supervised job search before the first welfare check is issued.

Wisconsin was also the first state to actually make recipients earn their benefits. If recipients don’t perform the specified number of hours of community service or other work, their money and food stamps are reduced accordingly.

Since the program was instituted, the flow of new recipients has been cut in half.

Two lessons have emerged from these success stories. First, it is easier than previously thought to get welfare recipients to find work.

Critics thought the 1996 law was cruel, and the media predicted, as social scientist Charles Murray pointed out, “the coming of Calcutta on the Hudson, a million children thrown into poverty.”

However, critics of welfare reform have had a hard time finding crowded homeless shelters and starving children.

Second, true compassion is evaluated by far more than the size of the welfare check.

By raising the obligations of recipients and expecting work in return for benefits, these reforms have given millions of people the incentive to better their lives and their children’s lives through private-sector jobs.

The formula seems simple - the more difficult it is to receive welfare, the fewer people sign up. Once government dependence is removed, people are finding that they can accomplish more than they ever dreamed.

Does this mean that all welfare recipients will find work or that all families have been helped by welfare reform? Of course not.

But in terms of measuring compassion, which is better: encouraging the California woman to turn to welfare or empowering her to find the independence that she had forgotten she could achieve?

Tragically, we are already seeing the welfare-reform laws being picked apart slowly, as many people still cling to the tired notion that it takes a hefty welfare check to raise a child.

But if we want to see welfare reform continue to work, we must hold fast against attempts to disguise dependence as compassion. This would be a poor substitute for actually helping the people who need it.