Welfare reform: progress but no money

Photo by Randy J. Squires Edward Duffy, then-director of the Department of Public Aid, testifies for welfare reform in the House State Government Administration Committee. At left is House Minority Leader Lee A. Daniels.

Lawmakers considered twin "welfare reform" initiatives this spring. The administration revived and revised the unpassed portion of its 1987 welfare reform package. Advocates for the poor pushed "Work, Welfare and Families," a package that included an increase in recipients' grants and a proposal to create jobs. When lawmakers went home the parts of both packages that cost nothing had been passed. Those with dollars attached waited with other human service initiatives for the day when there is more money available.

The administration effort centered on H.B. 2862, the more controversial of the two 1987 bills that came out of the Governor's Task Force on Welfare Reform's 1987 report, Welfare Reform in Illinois: Breaking the Cycle. The measure originally contained two key provisions. It would have required participation by mothers with children between ages three and six in the Department of Public Aid's welfare-to-work Project Chance program. Mothers with children under six are now exempt from participation. The change would bring 49,000 mothers into Project Chance. Those in favor argued that this would help break the "welfare cycle" by getting mothers working sooner. Opponents claimed it was infeasible without adequate and affordable day care.

The second provision mandated that upon a finalization of a divorce, child support would be withheld from the parent's income. Failure to receive child support is the largest cause of welfare dependency for single mothers. Delinquency occurs at least once in 70 percent of support cases.

When H.B. 2862 was taken off the interim study calendar, the Project Chance provision was changed. Instead of making the bill applicable to the 49,000 recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children statewide, the measure opted for a demonstration program in a county outside of Cook. House Minority Leader Lee A. Daniels (R-46, Elmhurst) said that legislators recognized that day care is not in place to enact the program as originally introduced.

The Work, Welfare and Families package represented the views of a coalition of community organizations and human service providers. It would have:

• Boosted cash grants by 15 percent, returning them to 55 percent of the standard of need, or $150 million. Gov. James R. Thompson later proposed a 5 percent boost as part of his tax increase package.
• Provided $10 million to the Emergency Employment Assistance Program to help create jobs. Lawmakers in 1986 created the program to subsidize wages of welfare recipients who take jobs, but they have never given it any money.
• Extended from six months to a year the period during which a welfare recipient who takes a job could receive child care and medical benefits, an $8 million to $12 million item.

House Republicans contrasted H.B. 2862, which they termed "meaningful welfare reform," with the Work, Welfare and Families package, which they called "counterproductive welfare deforms." Politics and tax increases got mixed up with the proposals. Rep. Tom Ryder (R-97, Jerseyville) charged at a press conference on April 19: "The primary purpose of that Democratic sponsored package of

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bills is not to encourage welfare families to free themselves from welfare dependency, but to offer disincentives to seeking employment. . . . While we hear clearly the content of that package, we do not hear the source of the revenues of this budget busting package."

The cost items in the advocates' package went nowhere. They were able in negotiations to extend some protections against sanctioning (removal from welfare rolls for noncooperation with the Project Chance program) granted in last year's reform package. The administration bill fared better. Both chambers approved H.B. 2862 and Gov. James R. Thompson signed it (P.A. 85-1156) into law on August 1. "The law will ensure that thousands of Illinois children receive the rightful support of their parents rather than being forced to go on welfare," Thomspon said.

The governor signed two other measures: H.B. 4037 (P.A. 85-1157) increases from $4 to $5 the monthly fee an employer can charge for processing a withholding order. H.B. 923 (P.A. 85-1155) allows a court to order an unemployed parent to seek work to provide support.

Welfare reform will mean little for those on welfare this year. "The vast majority of people on public assistance probably took a step backwards because of inflation," says Douglas Dobmeyer, executive director of the Public Welfare Coalition and a leader of the coalition pushing Work, Welfare and Families. After Thompson's second tax hike failure, Dobmeyer sees a need for lawmakers and the governor to agree on funding for human services, and he wonders: "Will Thompson go to the mat again for a tax increase? Will the speaker come around?"

When he signed H.B. 2862 Thompson announced plans for public forums on further changes. Representatives of business, labor, religious, social welfare and community groups will discuss creation of opportunities for education, jobs and day care at a series of eight forums across Illinois. Those findings will be pulled together at a January session in Springfield.

The report of the governor's 1987 task force sparked the last two years' legislative efforts. It was criticized for its top down nature and imposition from above. Thompson's proposed forums will allow input by those who work with the poor. And despite the criticism, the welfare reform initiatives have been a popular success. Opponents have been accommodated and the bills have drawn bipartisan backing.

But the 1987 task force also proposed spending money. It said grant levels, unchanged since 1985, should be increased. They said that the State Board of Education's programs for early childhood education of those at risk of failure should be implemented. Like the portions of this year's "reform'' programs that cost money, those efforts are unfulfilled.□

Michael D. Klemens

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