Welfare Reform

The House on Thursday approved changes to the landmark 1996 welfare reform law, passing a bill that would require a larger percentage of a state's aid recipients to take jobs and work longer hours. Republicans praised the revisions as a boost to the welfare reform effort, which reduced welfare cases by more than half and moved hundreds of thousands of single mothers into jobs across the country.

At the White House, President Bush called Tuesday for welfare recipients to work more hours. In Olympia, Wash., and Lansing, Mich., and in state capitals around the nation, welfare officials asked: How? Facing their worst budget deficits in decades, state after state has cut back the support services designed to wean families from government checks. Tens of thousands of children have been cut off from subsidized day care. Millions will soon lose subsidized health insurance.

The Clinton-era plan to "change welfare as we know it" has been a dramatic, if qualified, success, helping to transform millions of people who had lived off others' taxes into working taxpayers. Under California's version, the 1998 CalWORKS program, the numbers dropped by almost half, to about 475,000 cases from a 1997 high of nearly 732,000. A booming economy helped by generating jobs at record pace.

Los Angeles welfare recipient Aretha Maxey was supposed to be among the 100,000 or so Californians scheduled to lose their cash benefits as the new year starts. Now she hopes to be among the tens of thousands expected to keep welfare checks coming for at least a few months more. Spurred by vigorous outreach efforts, droves of low-income adults who are facing a five-year welfare limit are receiving exemptions that could extend their aid a few weeks or even several months.

Like other parents throughout the United States, Sonya Brown scrambles every day to meet commitments for work and the care of her young child. For Brown, 25, who juggles her $6.15-an-hour job with college courses, a government benefit pays for her 3-year-old son's day care. Without it, she says, "I would be in big trouble." Rashida Walker, 32, is already struggling.

She needed instruction in everything from filling out a job application to cleaning a tub to deciphering the schedule of buses she'd take to get to her hotel housekeeping job on time. She needed financial help to buy groceries and pay for upkeep on the rickety house our parents had left her when they died. She needed child care for her young son during the hours she'd have to spend away.

President Bush insisted on tougher work requirements for welfare recipients Monday, denouncing the Senate Democrats' welfare reform bill as "a retreat from success" riddled with "loopholes." Bush all but threatened to veto that bill, which the Senate Finance Committee approved last month. His remarks set the stage for a potential end-of-session showdown with a looming deadline for Congress to extend the landmark 1996 law, which ended lifetime entitlements to welfare benefits.

Kathy Evsich learned the hard way that, as a victim of domestic violence, finding an ally in an employer was rare. She was fired twice because her employers wouldn't tolerate the hourly phone calls from her husband. Nor could they contend with his drive-by harassment, his threats to them or their fears that other employees could be harmed. But in November 1999, Evsich obtained a restraining order, found a job as a cashier and began building a nest egg so she and her two children could move away.

MILWAUKEE -- Using issues that worked for him two years ago, President Bush is revisiting some of the most important states on the political map, putting pressure on a Congress that has moved slowly on his limited domestic agenda. During the first six months of the year, the peripatetic president has visited 33 of the 50 states.

A push to restore immigrants' benefits that Congress took away in 1996 has scored some notable recent victories, as politicians compete for the loyalty of new American voters. Most recently, the Senate Finance Committee agreed Wednesday to end a federal ban on welfare payments to many noncitizens. The ban was enacted six years ago as one of the most controversial parts of welfare reform.