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Bleak Prospects for Welfare Programs
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11762 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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4 / 1987 |
2,206 Words |
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William P. O''Hare
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It seems that every recent generation of Americans has found it necessary to rethink the role that government should play in providing for the welfare of our neediest citizens. In the 1930s, such an examination led to such New Deal programs as Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). In the 1960s the rethinking of welfare issues brought about the War on Poverty and the Great Society programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and Headstart. Several recent events, including a White House study of welfare reform, suggest that we are again entering a period when we will seriously reconsider the role the government should play in providing for the welfare of needy Americans.
However, unlike the New Deal and the War on Poverty - which expanded government's role in providing for the welfare of our neediest citizens - the current discussions of welfare reform are marked by very different themes. The central theme of the recent White House welfare reform study reflects the general philosophy of the Reagan administration, which has consistently tried to reduce the role of the federal government in the provision of public assistance to the poor. Among analysts and observers outside the government, major themes include increased recognition of the responsibility that the poor have to help themselves, greater appreciation for the immense diversity that exists among the poor, and the ramifications of growing poverty among children.
Although the focus of public discussions has been on the poor who receive welfare assistance, a program designed to help the working poor is likely to have a more beneficial impact on the well-being of poor Americans. For starters, there are more than nine million working poor compared with four million adults who receive welfare. Further more, measures that improve the conditions of the working poor would provide additional inducements for welfare recipients to find jobs.
Workfare: different meanings
Workfare is the hottest topic in recent welfare reform discussions, but unfortunately, debates about workfare are often clouded by the fact that the term means different things to different people. Originally, workfare referred to programs that required all welfare recipients to perform public work at minimum-wage levels in exchange for benefits received. This is the type of program President Reagan tried to implement when he was governor of California in the early 1970s, and many elements of this idea were proposed during Reagan's first year in the White House, but most were rejected by Congress. This type of approach assumes that welfare recipients don't want to work.
However, several recent workfare-type programs initiated by state governments take a different approach. These programs are typically based on the assumption that most welfare recipients want to work but need some assistance to find and keep jobs. Such programs encompass a broad range of work and welfare activities that are often voluntary rather than mandatory and typically include education, training, job search assistance, child care, and transportation aid designed to help welfare recipients find and keep jobs. The new programs are often similar to the Work Incentive (WIN) programs that have been operated by the federal government on a limited basis since the late 1960s.
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