The paper reported the other day that President Bill Clinton's "Welfare to Work" initiative is making very little headway. Should anyone be surprised?
First, a little recent history.
Last year, in the run-up to his re-election, Clinton was presented with a welfare reform bill that was draconian in its sweep-but political dynamite to veto. So, following his standard 1996 campaign strategy, Clinton acted to deny his opponents an angle of attack: He signed the bill into law. Nonetheless, hoping to keep moderate and leftist Democrats on board, Clinton overtly criticized the bill even as he signed it. He sighed-"this bill is not perfect"-whined -"this is not what I asked Congress for"-promised- "I will call for legislation next year to fix this"-and signed on the dotted line. To his credit, Clinton did get a few fixes enacted. The spectre of thousands of the poor turned out of their homes when their benefits expire, while heartening to social Darwinists (and home security-system salesmen), still seems to be a net negative to the president. It's nice to know he still has a soul, even if it may be highly mortgaged.
But little more legislation can be coaxed through a Congress still led by Republicans, who pretty much consider welfare reform to be a done deal: The bill is signed, the pressing flaws have been addressed and there's no public outcry over impending social unrest. And thus on to the "Welfare to Work" initiative. Just a few months ago, the President signed an executive order to encourage hiring welfare recipients into federal jobs. But as Clinton himself said, "We can't possibly meet the hiring targets of the welfare reform law unless we can organize the private sector."
It's certainly a positive idea. The problems, however, are becoming increasingly obvious.
The federal hiring effort will not really take that many folks off the rolls. For one thing, government is in an era of down-sizing. For another, the costs of training people will add to that expense still further. Meanwhile, while some in the private sector are trying, they just can't take on the task alone. To illustrate, you'll have to forgive a few numbers: Of the largest 100 U.S. firms (companies with the most ability and incentive to hire welfare folks), 77 of the top 100don't even have a welfare-to-work program. Fifteen are "thinking about it." Only eight do.
Of those eight, the single most aggressive company in mentoring people from welfare to work is United Airlines. UA plans to hire 2,000 welfare recipients by the year 2000, which is pretty impressive. But if all 100 of those top corporations did just as well as UA hopes to do, that would provide only 200,000 jobs, right?
The Labor Department estimates that the current number of "chronically unemployed" welfare recipients is five percent of the population. That's 11 million people-at least 1 to 2 million of whom are estimated to be kicked off the rolls in the next couple of years. You read that right. At best, a wholly theoretical maximum improvement of 200,000 jobs would be 5 to 10 times less than what is needed.
And private industry can't be faulted: While low-skill employers have some explaining to do, high-skill (and high-wage) employers rightly note that the years of training a computer programmer or manager has endured are too long, too involved and too expensive for any one company to bear the full cost, especially before the employee can even begin to make the investment worth the company's while.
The fundamental problem is that welfare reform has been pitched as, and predicated to be, a money-saving program. And getting people into jobs takes money-especially the long-term unemployed, who may not have sophisticated skills, or may have physical disabilities or drug problems. If you really want to do it, its going to cost you.
After witnessing the social chaos that seems inevitable from this reform, we may choose to reinstitute some form of welfare, to "pay off" the lowest classes, to keep their suffering from afflicting our consciences or their desperation from invading our homes. Perhaps, as the Bible says, "The poor you always have with you." There may be no way out of that. But then the same speaker also said, "As you do unto the least of my brethren, you do unto me."
And on that point, the verdict on us is far from certain.
Edward Benson is a Medical Center employee.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.