Welfare Exploding Despite Congressional Overhauls

Is the real problem welfare, or low-paying jobs? Welfare Exploding Despite Congressional OverhaulsBy Cliff Montgomery – Feb. 26th, 2007The welfare state is bigger than ever despite a decade of conservative policies designed to wean poor people from public aid, according to an Associated Press (AP) analysis of government figures.Not all numbers are bad: families receiving cash benefits from welfare has plummeted since the government imposed time limits on the payments a decade ago. But other welfare programs– including Medicaid, food stamps and disability benefits–are bursting with new enrollees.The result, according to the AP analysis, is that nearly one in six Americans rely on some form of public aid–the biggest share since the government began measuring two decades ago.Proponents of the changes in welfare claim programs which once “discouraged work” now offer support to people in low-paying jobs. They point to expanded eligibility rules for food stamps and Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor, that enable people to keep getting benefits even after they start working.”I don’t have any problems with those programs growing, and indeed, they were intended to grow,” spins Ron Haskins, a former adviser to President Bush on welfare policy.”We’ve taken the step of getting way more people into the labor force and they have taken a huge step toward self-sufficiency. What is the other choice?” he asked.The other choice, answer critics of the welfare overhaul, is to help those who most need assistance actually become self-sufficient. They point to the numbers as proof that the vast majority have instead been forced into low-paying jobs which fail to keep pace with inflation, without benefits and few opportunities for advancement.”If the goal of welfare reform was to get people off the welfare rolls, bravo,” Vivyan Adair, a former welfare recipient who is now an assistant professor of women’s studies at Hamilton College in upstate New York, told AP. “[But] if the goal was to reduce poverty and give people economic and job stability, it was not a success.”In the early 1990s, welfare critics claimed the system somehow encouraged unemployment and promoted single-parent families. They claimed welfare recipients, mostly single mothers, could lose benefits if they earned too much money or lived with the father of their children.What of course was left out of these neo-conservative arguments was the obvious: Welfare often paid them better than the jobs they were being offered. Those working at the bottom of the economic scale are paid so little for their labor that any hope of self-sufficiency becomes an unattainable fantasy.A ‘welfare overhaul’ was enacted by Congress in 1996, requiring most recipients to work but allowing them to continue certain benefits after they started jobs. The law imposed a five-year limit on cash payments for most people in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF). Some states have shorter time limits.Nia Foster fits the pattern of the normal welfare recipient. She stopped getting cash welfare payments in the late 1990s and has floated from one clerical job to another. None provided medical benefits.The 32-year-old hard-working mother of two from Cincinnati says flatly that the low-wage jobs aren’t enough. Though working, she can only support her family with help from food stamps and Medicaid.Foster told AP she did not get any job training when she left welfare.”If you want to get educated or want to succeed, the welfare office don’t care,” Foster said. “I don’t think they really care what you do once the benefits are gone.”Foster earned her high-school equivalency last year at a community college, and now works in a tax office–a seasonal job that will end after April 15th. She hopes to enroll at the University of Cincinnati this spring and would like to study accounting. Foster is hoping to qualify for enough financial aid to cover tuition.”I like data processing, something where it’s a bunch of invoices and you have to key them in,” she said. “I want to be an accountant so bad.”About 44 million people–nearly one in six Americans–relied on government services for the poor in 2003, according to the most recent statistics compiled by the Census Bureau. That compares with about 39 million in 1996.Medicaid recipients alone topped 45 million people in 2005, pushed up at least in part by rising health care costs and more employers ending job benefits. Nearly 26 million people a month received food stamps that year.Some in Congress are now saying the poor should be offered more opportunities for training and education, so they are not chained to low-paying jobs that keep them dependent on government programs.”We said get a job, any job,” said Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees welfare issues.”And now we expect them to be making it on these minimum-wage jobs.”