POLITICS

Let's not deny our moral duty to the vulnerable

by Charles N. Wheeler III

If welfare-to-work is to be more than an election-year slogan, we must be willing to recognize the obstacles that prevent welfare recipients from entering the job market.

"I am tired of my hard-earned tax dollars going to support other people's children. ...

"It is time for these welfare recipients to stand up and take responsibility for their own lives and for their own children."

Those sentiments, expressed in a letter from a reader to a Chicago daily a few weeks ago, put quite succinctly what seems to be the prevailing mood among the American public these days.

People are fed up with a welfare system they believe encourages slackers and shirkers to take advantage of their more industrious fellow citizens. And they are pleased that the U.S. Congress and President Bill Clinton have agreed to recast federal welfare programs so that reliance on public aid is a temporary condition, not a permanent state of life.

The landmark federal legislation requires most recipients to work within two years and limits them to five years of benefits. In addition, the new law gives states greater authority over their own public assistance programs, although not as wide a latitude as Gov. Jim Edgar and some other chief executives would like.

The law will require teenage mothers to live with their parents or legal guardians and pursue an education to get benefits, requirements already in place in Illinois. Other portions cut the food stamp program and deny a variety of federal benefits to legal immigrants.

While few people would defend the welfare status quo, the new law has its troubling aspects, particularly its repudiation of the nation's 61-year-old commitment to provide financial help to poor mothers and their children. From now on, it's up to each of the 50 states to decide whether and to what extent they wish to renew that guarantee.

Welfare advocates and other opponents warned the new law threatens to plunge more than a million children into poverty. Its underlying premise, said U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat from New York, was the "fearsome assumption" that "the behavior of certain adults can be changed by making the lives of their children as wretched as possible."

Whether these dire predictions are true won't be clear for some time; Illinois welfare officials predict it will be weeks, if not months, before federal administrators and state officials decide together exactly what the legislation requires. And states have until next July to file plans showing how they will comply with the federal changes.

While the bureaucrats agonize over the legalities, the rest of us ought to ponder some broader issues. If welfare-to-work is to be more than an election-year slogan, we must be willing to recognize the obstacles that prevent willing welfare recipients from entering the job market.

On a personal level, many recipients have neither the education nor the skills needed for even a minimum-wage job; in Illinois, for example, about half of the adults in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program do not have a high school education, according to Public Aid studies. Moreover, recipients frequently face personal problems as well, including substance abuse, domestic violence and psychological difficulties.

If we're serious about preparing recipients for the workplace, we must provide the educational opportunities, job training and social services needed to overcome those hurdles.

About 70 percent of the approximately 650,000 persons in the AFDC program are children, and more than 90 percent of the adults are women, most of them single mothers. Child care and medical coverage for children are critical, if we expect these moms to work outside the home.

To its credit, Illinois has recognized this truism. For example, the current budget allocates more than $200 million for day care so parents can take jobs. Moreover, AFDC recipients entering the workplace remain eligible for child care and Medicaid benefits for a year after leaving the welfare rolls. Advocates contend the state needs to do more; a year may not be long enough for a person to move from an entry-level job, often at minimum wage with no fringe benefits, to one that pays enough to cover child care costs and offers health insurance.

42 ¦ September 1996 Illinois Issues

A key premise underlying the public call for welfare reform is the conviction that jobs are available for persons who are willing to work. Experts say that's not always the case.

Thus, the state will be challenged to ensure that support services such as day care and medical benefits are funded adequately and available long enough to meet the demand as more recipients seek to move into the workforce.

A key premise underlying the public call for welfare reform is the conviction that jobs are available for persons who are willing to work. Welfare experts say that is not always the case, however. If the new law is to work as its backers envision, employer support will be needed to make job opportunities available to candidates who may not have traditional qualifications. Welfare officials want to enlist local business leaders around the state in job placement efforts. One would hope that any employer who has complained about welfare costs would be eager to cooperate.

Perhaps the most disturbing question is one for which advocates have no good answer: What is to become of a child whose parent is cut off from benefits?

The question is not hypothetical; inevitably, there will be persons who refuse to accept the get-a-job mandate, and others who run afoul of the time limits through circumstances beyond their control. The law's spirit seems clear — those folks will have to fend for themselves. But should that social Darwinism apply to their children?

Like the Chicago newspaper reader, we may be tired of supporting other people's kids. And as a nation, we are no longer legally obligated to do so. If we deny any moral duty to these vulnerable members of society, however, we will have sullied the American dream far more grievously than any welfare cheat. 

Charles N. Wheeler III is director of the Public Affairs Reporting program at the University of Illinois at Springfield.

Illinois Issues September 1996 ¦ 43