Workfare

Re "How Fair Is Workfare?" March 9: Big labor and low-income advocacy groups expressed concerns over the proposed workfare program. They should think again. Any effort that increases the number of productive members of a society increases the prosperity of that society. Workfare will result in a combination of more products and services generated, as well as an opportunity for those already active to allot some of their workload to someone else. Those now given the prospect to become contributors are not going to take away food, clothing or household appliances from the rest of us. They already dress, eat and watch TV. We owe them the opportunity to earn it as well as the self-esteem and pride that comes with bringing home your own paycheck.

NEW YORK -- Three mornings a week, like thousands of others who pour into the buildings clustered around City Hall, Francella Daniel reports to work. She lifts bags out of trash cans, dusts offices and cleans glass doors. But unlike most others who toil inside the aging municipal building, Daniel, 52, is not a public employee. She is a welfare recipient. The city of New York has ordered her to get "work experience," and it pays her with a welfare check and food stamps.

This is in response to Assemblywoman Lucy Killea's desire to spread San Diego's workfare program throughout the State of California. ("State Should Adopt 'Workfare' Program Similar to San Diego County's," May 19.) Workfare in San Diego is a requirement for those receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). Therefore, it is primarily a female project. It forces the free labor of masses of females in the marketplace without responsibly addressing child care. It created thousands of latchkey children.

Congress has begun debating the reauthorization of welfare, and President Bush has made his preference clear: He wants a New York City workfare-type program to become the national model. Back in 1998, then-Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani announced that every adult or head of household still on the rolls in the year 2000 would be working for a welfare check. He hired Jason Turner, then-Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson's welfare administrator, to accomplish this task for New York City. In an attempt to achieve the mayor's goal, Turner created the largest workfare program in the country . Under the Turner program, recipients first attended a 30-day job-search program.

Tom Bates's article on welfare reform (Aug. 18), concludes that workfare will not reduce the number of people on the welfare rolls. However, before the welfare rolls can be reduced, the rate of relief spending must be checked. Workfare is a good start. The compromise plan has an estimated cost of $136 million, but--as Bates failed to mentioned--it will save an estimated $272 million, or $2 saved for every dollar spent. No longer can we afford the quick-fix, short-term solutions to long-range problems handed to the taxpayers by liberal Democrats.

Union officials and community activists have challenged Pasadena's use of General Relief recipients for labor in exchange for receiving welfare checks. The city in the last two years has began using General Relief recipients to do work ranging from pulling weeds to sodding the turf at the Rose Bowl in exchange for monthly $212 checks from the county. Nationwide, the workfare program of toil for welfare stretches back nearly five decades.

Scores of Los Angeles County's poor and the homeless have been unfairly denied welfare benefits after being ordered into work programs that they cannot complete because physical disabilities make the work painful or impossible, advocates for the indigent say.

Welfare recipients in Los Angeles County's workfare program will be allowed for the first time to file formal complaints about working conditions under new county regulations. The grievance procedure applies to recipients in the county-funded General Relief program for single adults with no dependents. Most General Relief recipients must perform clerical tasks or building, road and grounds maintenance to receive a $221 monthly benefit check. The hours worked are based on the minimum wage.

The Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee approved a bill Wednesday that would spur states to find private sector jobs for long-term welfare recipients. Committee Chairman Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) called the bipartisan effort "a worthwhile first step toward comprehensive welfare reform." The measure would give bonuses to states that train and find jobs for people who have been on welfare for at least two years.

Los Angeles County Supervisors provoked a showdown Tuesday with the state, insisting that an inexperienced private corporation run a new $7.9-million workfare program, despite opposition from the Deukmejian Administration. Attorneys for both sides are scheduled to meet Thursday. Already delinquent in meeting a Sept. 26 deadline, the county risks losing millions of dollars in federal welfare funds if no program is in place by Nov. 1.

Most aid recipients who are placed in jobs through Los Angeles County's welfare-to-work program bounce from low-wage employer to low-wage employer, have stagnant incomes and remain stuck below the poverty line, according to a sweeping new study of welfare reform. "The fundamental truth about welfare reform in Los Angeles County is that we are not yet seeing satisfactory outcomes," stated the study by the Economic Roundtable, which tracked nearly 100,000 welfare recipients over eight years.

Los Angeles County's decision to revamp its welfare program and push poor mothers to find jobs quickly has paid off, boosting employment and earnings and markedly reducing welfare spending, a new study concludes. The study, released today by New York-based Manpower Demonstration Research Corp., found that recipients enrolled in the county's welfare-to-work program were more likely to get jobs and earn higher wages than those not enrolled in the program.

The Board of Supervisors moved Tuesday toward making the county the nation's largest jurisdiction to privatize part of its program for training welfare recipients and helping them land jobs. In a 4-1 vote, with Supervisor Gloria Molina opposing, the board directed its welfare office to solicit bids from companies to run 25% of its job-training and placement program, known as GAIN.

The first comprehensive study of the effects of welfare reform on young children suggests that poor children's lives do not improve when their mothers go to work. Reformers overhauling the nation's welfare system in 1996 said they were ending the "cycle of dependence" many families experience generation after generation. Mothers who work to support themselves feel better about themselves, they said, and their children benefit too.

Attorneys for four legal aid agencies intend to file a complaint today against Los Angeles County's welfare-to-work program that claims people who don't speak English are denied access to a full range of services, including job training. The complaint alleges that the county's Department of Public Social Services violated the civil rights of an undetermined number of welfare recipients by denying them an equal opportunity to participate and succeed in a program that is supposed to wean them from federal assistance.

Attorneys for four Legal Aid agencies intend to file a complaint today against Los Angeles County's welfare-to-work program, charging that people who don't speak English are denied access to a full range of services, including job training.

California's fledgling workfare program, touted as a national prototype to substitute paychecks for welfare checks, has run into an unexpected barrier that is crimping the flow of participants into job training and employment. Surprised state and local welfare officials report that many participants are so poorly educated that they cannot read, write or do simple arithmetic and thus are unable to fill out job applications, read an employer's written directions or make change at a cash register.

Under a new federal program to help those on welfare make the transition to work, Anaheim will receive more than $4 million in housing subsidy vouchers, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo announced. The new welfare-to-workfare vouchers were among $280 million in added rental assistance for 35 states. The program, which will assist about 700 low-income families in Anaheim, was designed to help needy people live closer to jobs, day care and public transportation.

All 50 states have moved the required number of people from welfare to work, the White House said Sunday, noting that 35% of the nation's welfare recipients held jobs or were actively preparing for work in 1998. President Clinton plans to promote those numbers Tuesday at a welfare-to-work conference in Chicago.