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The BIRCH BARK BBS / 414-242-5070
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America's Future, Inc., Behind The Headlines, May 1996


                 Change The Orientation Of Welfare
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                         by F.R. Duplantier

     What is the real purpose of welfare? Is it meant to help the
     unfortunate get back on their feet, or was it designed from the
     beginning to create a permanent underclass?

          "The focus of Indiana's welfare policy should be to
          help families become self-sufficient," says Andrew Bush
          of the Hudson Institute in Indianapolis. "Gov-ernment
          can best achieve this goal by recognizing its own
          limitations and by drawing on the strengths of
          charities, community-based organizations, and other
          private service providers." In the April issue of
          Alternatives in Philanthropy, published by the Capital
          Research Center, Bush reports on the Indiana
          Independence Initiative, a graduated work-based plan
          that "would dramatically change the orientation of
          welfare." This Initiative would help "able-bodied
          parents find immediate work," says Bush. It also "would
          open public aid to a wide range of non-government
          service providers that would help families pursue self-
          sufficiency."

          In the same issue of Alternatives in Philanthropy,
          Michael Hartmann of the Wisconsin Policy Research
          Institute in Milwaukee reports that the Badger State
          "has imposed stringent work requirements on welfare
          recipients and has successfully moved many able-bodied
          recipients into productive work." Wisconsin's welfare
          caseload fell nearly 25 percent during a period in
          which state caseloads across the country "increased by
          an average of 35 percent." In 1988, Wisconsin
          implemented the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills
          program, which, as Hartmann explains, "required
          caseworkers to closely monitor and motivate welfare
          recipients in their search for employment." In 1993,
          the state implemented a program called Work, Not
          Welfare, which "limits AFDC payments to two years and
          offers major job-training services."

          The state legislature recently approved a new program
          called Wisconsin Works, which provides "four graduated
          work options" for welfare recipients. "Recipients
          unable to perform self-sustaining work will engage in
          work activities, vocational rehabilitation, and
          counseling," says Hartmann of the first, transitional
          phase of the program. "Recipients will learn work
          habits and job skills necessary for employment in the
          private sector" by doing community-service jobs in the
          second phase. A period of subsidized employment
          follows, after which participants "will be guided to
          the best available immediate job in the private
          sector."

          Also in the April issue of Alternatives in
          Philanthropy, Tom Tancredo and Dwight Filley of the
          Independence Institute in Golden, Colorado point out
          that social pathologies such as juvenile delinquency,
          drug abuse, teen pregnancy, and welfare dependency have
          all been linked to "the absence of a married father in
          the household." Given this documented correlation, they
          ask, "why does government policy seem geared toward
          driving fathers away?" Despite the "oppressive burden
          of federal laws," Colorado still has "considerable
          latitude to end the perverse incen-tives that wreck
          families and contribute to our social ills," say
          Tancredo and Filley. "AFDC, for example, is a matching
          fund program. If the Colorado legis-lature refused to
          fund its share, AFDC would end in the state."

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