By ELIZABETH HOPP-PETERS

Workfare: Is it fair? Does it work?

In a workfare program, recipients of public aid work at minimum wage for their benefits. Critics say workfare is little better than slave labor. Proponents say it offers both dignity and a chance to learn good job habits — as well as providing services for hard-pressed local governments. Chicago has the largest workfare program, but downstate townships have developed a workfare style of their own in which individual attention plays a major role

THE VOICE of doom greeted Willie Powell as he walked into Rockford Township's General Assistance office in May of 1981. "Oh man, it's rough. They make you work for it now," a man in the waiting room groaned.

But Powell, a recent CETA graduate who was out of a job, was delighted at the prospect of working for welfare. He painted walls at the local veterans' memorial hall and cut grass for the Rockford Park District in exchange for his monthly rent voucher. By early this year, Powell left the township rolls for the greener pastures of private sector employment — and became one of workfare's success stories. "I've heard a lot of complaints about workfare, but I don't think it's right to get something for nothing. A person ought to earn his keep," said Powell. "You get your self-esteem back."

Workfare, a welfare reform program in which recipients work at minimum wage for their benefits, is designed to preserve the pride of people like Powell who are imprisoned by a gloomy economic picture. But the program is aimed just as much at the complainers in the waiting room: Workfare attempts to purge them of their lazy habits or boot them out of the welfare office altogether.

Popularized by President Ronald Reagan, workfare has its roots in 17th century English workhouses established for the able-bodied poor. The California Community Work Experience Program that Reagan tried 10 years ago as governor of California was labeled a flop by most observers. Yet the idea was kept alive around the country, and workfare now is turning up as a surprising success in several Illinois townships.

An amendment to the Illinois Public Aid Code (P.A. 81-992) passed in 1979 enabled workfare programs to be set up in the 1,455 downstate townships and commission counties (those counties in which township government has been abolished and countywide commissions have assumed traditional township duties). Although only a minority of townships currently have such programs, another amendment signed into law in 1981 (P.A. 82-439), appears to make workfare mandatory wherever there are enough township recipients to make it feasible. Rockford, Thornton, Freeport and Decatur townships have been running programs of some magnitude, modeled after the recent legislation, for more than a year.

So far, the politically popular program has drawn both Republicans and Democrats into its camp. "It's work and it's fair," said Rockford Township Supervisor Helvig "Sory" Sorensen, a Republican who announced workfare's advent in Rockford during his reelection bid in April 1981. "The man on the street loves it."

Conservatives say workfare can save thousands of dollars by cutting out welfare cheaters and giving freeloaders an incentive to look for higher paying work. Neo-liberals are enthusiastic about workfare because it can offer a chance to climb out of a rut by teaching good job habits.

"It's a little tangent of hope coming out of the circle of self-defeat," said Democrat Sheila Hooper, a former school teacher who is now supervisor of Freeport Township in northwestern Illinois. "We see a changed person, clean and dressed properly, after a while with workfare," Hooper said.

In south suburban Thornton Township, welfare rolls were reduced by two-thirds during the first year of the program, according to Democratic Supervisor Lawrence P. Gulotta, who predicts his township will save nearly $250,000 in 1982 because of workfare. "We got rid of the people who already had a job. When they were scheduled for workfare assignments, they couldn't be in two places at once," said Gulotta. "It's a tremendously popular program. In two years we haven't had one suit," continued Gulotta, a lawyer.

But critics fear the workfare approach is being substituted for job training programs the federal government is trying to phase out (such as the CETA programs created by the federal Comprehensive Employment and Training Act of 1973 and greatly expanded during the next five years, especially by President Jimmy Carter). Instead of training the underskilled, workfare keeps them doing menial labor at the lowest possible compensation without any fringe benefits, opponents say. Chicago's Rev. Jesse Jackson, head of Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity), contends that workfare offers little more dignity than did slavery.

In Chicago, where the Illinois Department of Public Aid (DPA) distributes General Assistance, the department's Bureau of Social Services is running the largest and most often criticized workfare program in the state, requiring all of the approximately 70,000 General Assistance recipients to do at least a little work each month. The bureau estimates it will save approximately $4 million this fiscal year and claims the cost-benefit ratio for its program is 1-to-4. The legislative Advisory Committee on Public Aid, however, blasted Chicago's workfare in a report last spring for not teaching skills. "Workfare does virtually nothing in terms of offering participants real job training or upgrading their job skills," the report states.

"They say we don't train enough, but workfare was never intended to be a job training program," said Philip Hatmaker, chief of DPA's Bureau of Social Services. "Workfare walked into the vacuum created when CETA had its funding cut, and the two programs are always being compared."

Workfare supporters say the program teaches good work habits to many people who have had trouble holding a job. "The best job training is by actually working," Carolyn Cunningham, deputy supervisor of Rockford Township, said. Because of the

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Hopp-Peters Photo Former school janitor Mike Baxter washes windows at the Rockford Park District greenhouse as part of workfare.

variety of jobs, Cunningham said participants can "advance their skills" by trying new tasks. "Take a cleaning woman whose back is no longer strong enough to scrub floors. We could start her sorting films in the county microfilm department. She would develop habits of being on time, dressing for the job and getting along with her co-workers. In another month or so she could move to light filing or answering the telephone at the health department. Then she could go to the library and learn the Dewey decimal system."

Outside the Chicago area, township rolls have not been reduced so dramatically by workfare. Both Rockford and Freeport township officials report only 10-15 percent of their recipients suffer a cutoff of aid. Under state law, a person can be denied township relief for up to 90 (days for refusing to work or not performing a task satisfactorily. Most township officials say they give recipients more than one warning before cutting off their aid.

High unemployment rates have caused township rolls to swell in the past couple of years, and as the picture worsens across the state, the jobless often wander into township offices looking for work instead of benefits. In June, Rockford's unemployment rate of 19.3 percent was the highest in the nation. In Bloomington Township, where workfare was initiated in mid-July, Supervisor Maxine Schultz said, "We had people calling us up, wanting to work even before the program started. Many people who are on General Assistance do not really choose that lifestyle," Schultz added.

The person who ends up in the township relief office could be a young, single man or a middle-aged displaced housewife. Township relief recipients do not support minor children (which would have enabled them to qualify for Aid to Families with Dependent Children), and they often have exhausted their unemployment compensation or have never worked long enough to qualify for unemployment benefits. They tend to be the last-hired, first-fired or the habitually unemployed. The majority are low-skilled, but many otherwise hard-working persons with college degrees or even professional experience find themselves down on their luck. "Our typical client has hit bottom when he comes to us," Anne Jenson, Freeport's workfare administrator, said. "I hate to think what they do when we cut them off."

Usually, women do clerical work and men have maintenance tasks under workfare. But in Chicago workfare workers canvass for sickle-cell anemia testing; in Freeport they sterilize Red Cross manikins; in Rockford they color-code sanitary district pipes; and in Decatur they pick up trash on the downtown mall. In Canteen Township in St. Clair County, workers support a township demolition and salvaging business that actually turns a profit because of the low "wage" paid to its workers. Officials agree they want to avoid giving workers "busy work."

"The last thing you want to do is load them on a truck and make them repaint the yellow line down the middle of the road," Thorton Supervisor Gulotta said. "Workfare should not be punitive."

Workfare failed under Reagan in California primarily because there weren't enough jobs, concluded the state's Employment Development Department in a 1976 evaluation. A key to success in Illinois seems to be the aggressive pursuit of jobs by township officials and the cooperation of local governmental agencies and not-for-profit groups. Rockford Township boasts 400 workers a month at 40 different sites. Thornton Township puts close to 150 persons — virtually all its able-bodied recipients — to work each month. In smaller Freeport Township there's a job for every worker: 50-75 participants monthly at more than 15 sites.

Decatur Township, a receiving unit of government that levies the maximum rate for its General Assistance Fund (10 cents per $100 assessed valuation) in order to receive matching state funds, puts a whopping 700 people to workfare each month. This record is due in part to Decatur's previous work program. In 1963, the state Department of Public Aid required receiving units of government to put at least some recipients to work; current workfare legislation strives to put every able body to work and has expanded Decatur's program.

"Historically, workfare is not a novel concept in Illinois," Gulotta explained. "From time to time a county board chairman or the supervisor of some independent township [which uses local funds only for General Assistance] would impose a work requirement on its relief recipients. But each time this was challenged in court, the judges ruled that the work program was arbitrary, since not all townships required it. At least now, [with a workfare law on the books] all townships have the statutory authority to establish a program."

Observers speculate that under P.A. 82-439, a class action suit by the people of any township without workfare could force that township into starting a program. But the state cannot force townships into creating workfare programs unless they are receiving units of government in which the state controls the funding.

Townships that have been unable to set up workfare programs say they can't get their local taxing districts to cooperate. In Peoria, for example, the park district and city sewer and street departments canceled because work-fare workers caused trouble. "The problem was this: A participant didn't want to work, so he lay down under a shady tree. The other employees who have to work for a living didn't think this was fair and started complaining,"

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Hopp-Peters Photo Marge Collins reviews statistics as part of her workfare assignment at the Winnebago County Health Department in Rockford.

said Supervisor Zack Monroe.

Capitol Township, which includes the city of Springfield, also can't find enough sponsors. The local cemetery district dropped out of workfare last year when the district was told it had to buy protective shoes for workers cutting grass with hand mowers. Under law, workfare workers must be covered by workers' compensation insurance, receive transportation to and from their assignments and any necessary protective equipment. Townships with successful programs often have assumed many of these costs in order to encourage as many agencies as possible to participate. Freeport Supervisor Hooper said she doesn't hesitate to remind social service agencies that receive township funds of their responsibility to help the township in return by taking workfare workers.

Ideally, workfare offers an additional workforce virtually free of charge to local governments. The law specifies the work must serve a "useful public purpose" and that regular employees can't be replaced by workfare workers. But the line can blur and because of this, unions generally oppose workfare.

Mike Baxter, a 23-year-old school janitor, was laid off in early 1982 when the Rockford Board of Education was trying to save money. Six months later, Baxter was scrubbing greenhouse windows as part of the park district's workfare crew. Meanwhile, the school district was using workfare participants to wash its buses — the non-paid workers had not replaced any regular employees, but they were doing work that could have been done by hiring full-time workers. Nevertheless, Baxter was enthusiastic about workfare this summer because he felt he was helping the local agencies where he worked. "I've looked everywhere for a job. This is a whole lot better than sitting home," he said.

Park district officials in Rockford say they are pleased to have extra workers. "It's given us the extra help we couldn't afford to hire," Phil Hendricks, head of park special services, said. The parks have hired about 10 workfare workers part time after their assignments were done, he said. Hendricks said he likes workfare better than the CETA program because, "It's easier to deal with the hometown folks" — especially if a worker is not pulling his weight, Hendricks said.

A spokesman for the county health department in Rockford had a different opinion. "With an eight- to 10-day assignment, we don't have the time to train the workfare people, whereas our CETA workers could work in the laboratory," Ray Empereur, assistant administrator, said. Although most people are willing to work, Empereur said many seem embarrassed about being part of workfare. "CETA had a bad name, but the workers earned real wages; with workfare, people feel they are being punished," Empereur said. The Bloomington-Normal Post Amerikan, a left-of-center publication, concurs: "Since it's not your job you can't get fed up and quit. . .you can't get a raise."

"Workfare is not a solution to the unemployment problem. At best it's a stopgap measure," Empereur continued. He related the sad tale of a former professional man, about 40 years old, who had a drinking problem and ended up in workfare. The health department hired the man as an office worker after his workfare stint was over, but just before his probation had ended, the man skipped town. He was gone for a week and had to be fired under health department rules. The man pleaded with Empereur for his job back, but the decision was final. Two days later the man committed suicide by throwing himself on an electrical generator at the local power plant. "Here was a man who was disturbed and who fell through the social net," said Empereur. "Although the program is being run well locally, workfare needs to give more support to people. When you're out of work, you're seen as a loser."

Recipients with physical, mental or emotional disabilities generally are not required to work, but these problems can be hard to diagnose. In Aurora, where workfare began last March, a young woman was denied assistance because she couldn't get along with her supervisor. When her cutoff was appealed, it was determined the woman had emotional problems. She was put back on assistance and excused from having to work, according to Township Supervisor Dennis Wiggins.

Because workfare workers need some — and often lots of — supervision, the program is not completely without costs to sponsors. Empereur said he spends about 10 percent of his time making assignments and completing paperwork for workfare.

Many question whether workfare should be run by townships, which is ironic considering that the first welfare as such was administered at the township level. Today's workfare may be giving a new purpose to townships, whose existence has been questioned in recent years.

In downstate townships, it's the individual attention that seems to make workfare work. "We nurture, threaten and even chase some of our clients," Hooper said. One Freeport Township staff member recalled dragging a man "out of his love nest" one morning to escort him to his work assignment. Workfare administrator Jenson packed lunches for workers at her desk for a while to cut costs. And the efforts seem to have paid off.

"We've had such good experiences with people's self-esteem. Some tell us if they weren't working, they'd be drinking," Hooper said. On July 5, a legal holiday most places, all 15 workfare workers showed up at a Freeport school to cook breakfast for low-income children. "I was so proud of them I brought in a gallon of ice cream for us all to celebrate," Jenson said.

Elizabeth Hopp-Peters, a University of Illinois journalism graduate and former county and township government reporter for the Rockford Register Star, is a free-lance writer.

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