mirror of
https://github.com/nhammer514/textfiles-politics.git
synced 2024-10-01 01:15:38 -04:00
82 lines
4.2 KiB
Plaintext
82 lines
4.2 KiB
Plaintext
================================================================
|
||
The BIRCH BARK BBS / 414-242-5070
|
||
================================================================
|
||
America's Future, Inc., Behind The Headlines, May 1996
|
||
|
||
|
||
Change The Orientation Of Welfare
|
||
---------------------------------
|
||
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."
|
||
|
||
America's Future, 7800 Bonhomme, St. Louis MO 63105
|
||
|
||
Phone: 314-725-6003 Fax: 314-721-3373
|
||
|