Welfare Reform Done Right and Wrong
For the past six years, AFSCME members have seen the many faces of welfare reform. Now that it's up for reauthorization, Public Employee looks at what works and what doesn't.
By Susan Ellen Holleran
In 1996, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) ended "welfare as we knew it." The new program called for a massive restructuring of the system. Aided by four years of a robust economy, many welfare recipients have found jobs; however, most welfare "leavers" go to jobs that provide low wages and no benefits. The Center for Law and Social Policy also found that only one-half of leavers have earnings in all four quarters of their first year off assistance.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services statistics show that TANF caseloads have been cut in half since 1996. AFSCME members who work in public assistance programs reject that finding, however. Charles Ensley, president of New York City Local 371 (DC 37), estimates a hidden caseload of 300,000, bringing the city's total to 800,000 rather than the publicized 500,000.
In addition, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says, "A very conservative estimate based on the limited data available from most states is that more than one million working families receive TANF-funded services without being counted in the caseload." According to the Urban Institute, "Among those who left welfare between 1997 and 1999, 22 percent were back on the rolls when they were interviewed in 1999."
Welfare reform poses an additional problem: Where it involves "workfare," it has resulted in the loss of AFSCME jobs.
Different models
Some jurisdictions, stretching TANF regulations to the limit, have developed creative approaches for moving welfare recipients into actual jobs with decent wages. They have found solutions to special problems like addiction and language barriers.
But others have used the program to dump struggling families deeper into poverty. Instead of helping clients find jobs with benefits and a future, these jurisdictions have forced them onto "workfare" where they often work off their grants side by side with AFSCME members — as second-class workers. AFSCME and its allies have waged uphill battles to win those in workfare positions some rights, like the minimum wage.
In New York City, for instance, then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was determined that welfare recipients work off their grants — even if that meant simulated work experience with no future. He refused to seek millions in federal money that was available for job training.
Now the Bush administration, influenced by those who designed New York City's disastrous response to welfare reform (see Doing It Wrong: Client Frustration Points Up Failed System), is advancing draconian changes to TANF — imposing workfare-type programs on every state and county welfare system with unrealistic extensions of the mandatory workweek. "Bush's plan provides no additional funding for child care," says New York DC 1707 Exec. Director Raglan George, who represents city child care workers. "How can our government tell a mother she has to leave her children without supervision so she can feed them and keep a roof over their heads?"
As the reauthorization debate continues, AFSCME is fighting the Bush plan, which Pres. Gerald W. McEntee recently labeled "unworkable." We are also trying to achieve the following:
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