Ready... set ... go!
The race to end welfare
by Jennifer Davis

And then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no 'One, two, three, and away!' but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked so that it was not easy to know when the race was over.
— Excerpt from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Through the Looking-Glass.

Lewis Carroll could write the rules for the states as they race toward welfare "reform."

It's quite a complicated game.

Simply put, when President Bill Clinton signed legislation last summer changing welfare as we knew it, the federal government set few guidelines: Welfare recipients must find work within two years. Benefits will end after five years. And no one is entitled to help from the government. The guaranteed safety net put in place some 60 years ago is gone.

Under that old system, the federal government shared the cost of social welfare, but attached strings to the dollars. Beginning July 1, all that will change. The states will have authority to determine who qualifies for welfare, and how much help they'll get.

"Some states are still developing programs, and others are still in [their] infancy in some regards," says Sid Johnson, executive director of the American Public Welfare Association. The association is a nonpartisan group that represents the interests of many social service organizations, including this state's new human services agency.

APWA takes no position on the merits of welfare reforms in any given state. It's too early to spot a leader of the pack anyway, Johnson says. As of mid-April, six states, including Illinois, had yet to file their plans with the federal government.

"The ones that have [filed] can still tinker with them at any time," Johnson adds. "In California, for example, one plan has been submitted by the administration, but four competing plans were just introduced to the legislature."

That makes it hard to judge who is doing what, when and how.

"Before, welfare was basically the same program state to state," explains Michael Kharfen of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. "That's gone. Now, every state can define eligibility."

It seems we've stepped through the looking-glass. The power has been reversed.

Yet, given the freedom to turn welfare reform upside down, some states are choosing to walk at least a little way in each other's footsteps.

For example, Illinois, along with 10 other states — Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey and Wisconsin — have child exclusion provisions. In general, that means these states will not increase benefits to welfare recipients who have more children while on aid.

Illinois and eight other states — Arizona, California, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Vermont and Wisconsin — also require unmarried minor parents to live with their parents or in another supervised setting.

Where states tend to run awry, welfare analysts say, is in the benefit timelines they have adopted. Two years to find work; a total of five years to receive aid — these are the federal maximums. States can, and are, going much lower.

In Connecticut, it's a lifetime limit of 21 months. Indiana and Oregon: 24 months. Texas and Utah: 36 months. Georgia and Florida: 48 months.

Former Clinton official Peter Edel-man, who recently resigned in protest over the new welfare law, calls it a race to the bottom.

"No state will want to be a magnet for people from other states by virtue of a relatively generous benefit structure," Edelman wrote in the March edition of The Atlantic Monthly. "As states seek to ensure that they are not more generous than their neighbors, they will try to make their benefit structures less, not more, attractive. If states delegate decisions about benefit levels to their counties, the race to the bottom will develop within states as well."

After all, soon all states will be dependent on fixed federal funds, block grants that won't increase when or if welfare caseloads do.

Wisconsin has one of the most aggressive welfare programs. Since 1993, that state's welfare rolls have dropped 49 percent, the most nationwide.

Again, no coincidence, says Jack Tweedie, welfare reform policy analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures.

"There was a big [caseload] reduction in Milwaukee right after they implemented Wisconsin Works. It's clear the strict work requirements are discouraging a lot of applicants there.

6 / May 1997 Illinois Issues

That doesn't necessarily mean people are working."

In Wisconsin Works, every welfare recipient must work. The state will either help you find a job or put you in one. The only exception: mothers of newborns. After 12 weeks, even they must get a job.

"Really aggressive welfare reform does cause some complications in people's lives," says Jason Turner, director of capacity building within Wisconsin's human service agency, the Department of Workforce Development. "In the end, the new and ambitious welfare reforms will result in better lives for people inside the system."

For another one of our neighbors, Indiana, the answer is the same. Indiana's caseload has dropped 42 percent, the third highest nationwide.

"Our main goal is to get these people into jobs. Honestly, we're not worrying too much how good they are," says James Hmurovich, director of Indiana's division of Families and Children.

Whatever works. That's what every state is trying to determine for itself. So far, every state except Alaska, California and Hawaii has seen at least modest success in reducing caseloads. In Illinois, welfare rolls have dropped 13 percent in the last four years. Nationwide, the average is 20 percent.

Illinois has also already met a fall deadline requiring at least 25 percent of all families to work at least 20 hours a week.

"Wisconsin has taken strong steps while other states are trying to work their way through, one step at a time," Tweedie says. "Illinois falls somewhere in the middle. A lot more states are in Illinois' position than Wisconsin's."

For Illinois, FoCUS may be the answer. "We know one size doesn't fit all," says Joanne Chezem, executive director of the Federation of Community United Services, one of five FoCUS programs operating statewide. "We identify the major stumbling blocks for our area and then work to overcome them."

Yet, FoCUS' main innovation is simplicity itself. Welfare families have one caseworker, not dozens. One-stop shopping will begin statewide July 1 when the state merges six human services agencies into one, the new Illinois Department of Human Services. Illinois' push to find work, officials say, will be balanced by a desire to find something that fits. "We deal with all their

issues," says Chezem. "We know if they have drug or alcohol problems or mental health issues, they won't be able to keep a job." FoCUS is combined with financial incentives, such as $20 work stipends and allowing recipients to keep $2 of every $3 earned. There's even creative new funding to help people avoid welfare: a one-time payment of up to three times the grant they would receive. So far, this is part of Illinois' answer. "I don't think we'll ever see one plan [nationwide]," says Tweedie. "States are too different, both economically and in what they deem important."!-]

However... the Dodo suddenly called out, 'The race is over!' and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, 'But who has won?'

Illinois Issues May 1997 / 7