Think back to 1996, the year six decades of federal welfare entitlements officially ended by the stroke of a pen. That was a year when many peered into the future and saw bright sunshine while others saw grim, dark clouds.
“Disaster!” predicted Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.).
“The biggest betrayal of children and the poor,” warned Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund.
“A war on the poor,” thundered Rev. Jesse Jackson.
The doomsayers looked ahead to 2002 and saw legions of destitute families wandering without shelter or food after being kicked off the welfare rolls, having used up their 60-month lifetime limit on guaranteed cash benefits. Visions of shantytowns born of the Depression era danced in their heads.
Doomsday, at least in Illinois, comes Monday. That is when the first able-bodied people who have used up their five years will be dropped from the rolls.
The imagined legions turn out to be eight.
That’s right. Eight people.
The final number, in fact, may turn out to be six. That’s because two of the recipients have children with disabilities–one has autism and the other attention-deficit disorder–which may allow the parents to qualify for an exception, though neither has yet applied for it.
A third recipient cares for foster children and notes that the $372 monthly check she gets from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is chump change compared to the foster care grants she receives from the state, and not worth the trouble.
A single father of one child is described by Karen Maxson, who oversees the TANF program for the Illinois Department of Human Services, as “cooperative, articulate, well-groomed, musical and very talented.” But he has a bad back and for some reason hasn’t found employment.
One mother of six, who also cares for four young brothers, will lose her $545 monthly cash grant, but will keep the $319 that comes for her brothers each month. She has requested no exceptions even though she might qualify. Officials suspect she may have other sources of income.
Three other cases also have no other source of income that the state knows about, although they will continue to qualify for Medicaid and food stamps. In two cases, the recipients have substance abuse problems that they refuse to acknowledge, according to DHS Secretary Linda Renee Baker.
This past year, Baker created additional, sensible exceptions to the cutoff. Those exceptions cover individuals who stay at home caring for a disabled child or spouse, those who have medical barriers that prevent them from working full-time, those with pending disability applications, those involved in an intensive treatment program of some kind or in an approved education program that will conclude within six months. It is this kind of policy flexibility accorded by the federal government that has allowed states like Illinois and Wisconsin to create, tinker with and perfect such successful welfare-to-work programs.
Though these numbers will now continue every month, still they defy the misconceptions about welfare recipients. One is that free handouts are preferred to independence and work. Illinois’ 73 percent caseload reduction since welfare reform officially kicked in on July 1, 1997 (from 188,000 recipients to 51,000 today) suggests otherwise. Research shows, too, that many who leave or get sanctioned off the rolls for administrative reasons aren’t coming back because they would just as soon avoid the hassle, or they’re avoiding seeking aid in the first place.
So given what we now know, why does the Bush administration want to suddenly start micromanaging states’ welfare programs by imposing tougher work requirements and diminishing state flexibility? The administration certainly comes from a different ideological perspective than Jesse Jackson and Marian Wright Edelman, but its welfare reauthorization proposal appears informed by the same wrong-headed cynicism that fueled the debate six years ago.
States have plenty of work ahead, not only in helping those with the most intractable barriers to pull their lives together and find work, but also in supporting those who leave welfare but are having a hard time climbing out of poverty.
Congress and the president would be wise to simply get out of the way and let them do it.
