Welfare reform ignores reality

Congress has debated new welfare rules for several years now. Some lawmakers want to build on the dramatic 1996 reforms that placed more responsibility on the shoulders of welfare recipients. The idea is to make people self-sufficient by increasing the required number of hours spent working, job training or performing community service. It’s a worthy goal, but it always collides with the real-world problem of child care.

It’s easy to tell people they need to work more or they will be cut off from public assistance. But many poverty-level households have only one parent. If that parent is working eight hours a day, who is watching the children? Because of the cost, day care is out of the question for most. If a relative cannot watch the children, then parents (usually mothers) must ponder the risk of other arrangements, such as neighbors, boyfriends or long periods of time when kids are on their own.

This roadblock to full-time work hasn’t changed, but the U.S. House of Representatives is pretending it doesn’t exist with its latest plan to overhaul welfare work requirements. In the past, efforts to bump up the hours to 40 a week have failed to gain enough votes. But this time, the rules are tucked into a larger budget bill that is touted as a deficit reduction package.

Stung by criticism over the gargantuan transportation bill, spending in Iraq and Afghanistan and pending bills for hurricane cleanup, Congress is feeling pressured to show discipline about the budget deficit. But its lack of seriousness is unmasked by a parallel effort to enact two new tax cuts for upper income taxpayers that will deepen the deficit.

Welfare reform was long overdue. For too long, people had the option of living off taxpayers without having to pursue a job. But realistic reformers noted long ago that the upfront costs to weaning people from government checks would be high. Training, child care and transportation are significant hurdles to those seeking employment. Scrimp on any of those and reform is incomplete — and doomed.

The House bill offers only one-eighth of what is needed to help people with child care costs, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis. Plus, the bill would slash spending on child support enforcement. As a result, CBO estimates that $24 billion in support from noncustodial parents would go uncollected in the first 10 years. That provision merely serves to punish the parents who are looking after the children.

It’s true that adults collecting welfare are largely responsible for their choices in life. But their children are blameless. Congress should not raise the work requirements until it comes up with a good answer to this perennial question: What about the children?