POLICY STATEMENT ON WELFARE "REFORM"
As adopted by the NJFAC's Interim Executive Committee on
January 10, 1997
The National Jobs for All Coalition deplores the Personal Responsibility
and Work opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PL 104-193) and
calls for its repeal and replacement with real reform. PL 104-193
poses as "reform" and as work opportunity but is in
reality neither. PL 104-193, which abolishes the nation's 61-year
entitlement for needy, dependent children, will increase unemployment,
lower wages, and raise levels of poverty and inequality that are
already unconscionably high.
The Coalition reaffirms its position that true reform requires:
- JOBS FOR ALL AT DECENT PAY; and
- Adequate income support for persons unable to work, caring
for very young children or infirm family members, or denied
opportunities to earn enough to support themselves and their
families.
In the absence of our preferred policy of jobs for all
and adequate income support, we recommend that Congress:
1. Determine Whether Jobs Are Available before Imposing Work
Requirements
It is unreasonable to expect welfare recipients to find work
when there are not enough jobs to go around. This is usually
the case where welfare recipients live and can be expected to
work. To determine job availability, Congress should initiate
a monthly job vacancy survey. If there are too few suitable
job openings to provide work for all unemployed persons, including
persons on welfare and involuntary part-time workers, then all
work requirements and time limits for the receipt of welfare
benefits should be suspended. Suitable jobs should be defined
as being reasonably accessible to the unemployed and roughly
matching their qualifications.
2. Guarantee Workfare Participants Full Protection of Labor
Laws, Other Entitlements, and Established Workplace Benefits:
- Guarantee workfare participants at least the federal and
state minimum wage;
- Guarantee that workfare participants are covered by such laws
as: the Social Security Act (permitting workers to earn social
security entitlements); anti-discrimination laws (especially
prohibitions against workplace harassment and discrimination
in assignments); workers' compensation laws (protecting workers
against the risk of workplace injuries or illnesses); occupational
safety and health laws (ensuring safe working conditions); and
unemployment compensation laws (protecting workers who are involuntarily
unemployed).
- Guarantee workfare participants entitlement to the Earned
Income Tax Credit (providing income supplements to low wage
workers).
- Guarantee workfare participants such established benefits
as sick leave and paid vacations.
- Guarantee workfare participants the right to organize and
bargain collectively.
3. Create Jobs for the Unemployed
Whenever there are fewer job vacancies than unemployed workers
(see #1 above), an employment program should be established
with federal or state funding to guarantee jobs for welfare
recipients and all other unemployed persons. Wages should be
comparable to those paid for similar work (at least the applicable
state or federal minimum wage). The mix of full and part-time
jobs should attempt to reflect the qualifications of the unemployed
and to provide useful services to the community. Participants
in the program should be eligible for the federal Earned Income
Tax Credit and enjoy the protection of all other laws designed
to protect workers (see # 2 above). The employment program should
last until the number of suitable jobs openings (as defined
in #1 above) equals or exceeds the number of unemployed persons.
Job Banks should be established by officials at all levels of
government or by groups surveying the needs of their communities.
4. Strengthen provisions to assure that workfare participants
do not displace other workers.
Threatened with the loss of benefits necessary to support their
children, welfare recipients could be forced to accept workfare
assignments or employment on virtually any terms offered. To
prevent their exploitation and the displacement of other workers,
welfare recipients must have the right to the same wages, benefits,
and working conditions as those who perform similar work, and
they must be protected against discrimination or discharge for
exercising that right.
5. Guarantee child care to all parents who need it in order
to remain employed, accept employment, or participate in education
and training.
PL 104-193 essentially eliminates this guarantee for recipients
of assistance. The Coalition believes that vital benefits such
as child care should be made available to all workers, including
welfare recipients.
6. Add post-secondary education to permissible activities
for fulfillment of work activities.
Under PL 104-193 permissible work activities include high school
or equivalent education but not post-secondary education. The
Coalition believes that access to post-secondary education and
allowances for living expenses should be made available to all
workers, including welfare
recipients.
Background Information on Welfare "Reform"
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation
Act of 1996 (PL 104-193)
On August 22, 1996, President Clinton signed PL 104-193 which:
- abolishes Title IV of the Social Security Act of 1935 (Aid
to Dependent Children), Emergency Assistance to Families, and
JOBS, the work and training program for welfare recipients;
- establishes block grants to the states for Temporary Assistance
for Needy Families (TANF) in place of Aid to Families with Dependent
Children;
- imposes strict work requirements for families receiving TANF
without providing funds to meet those requirements and sets
lifetime limits of five years for receipt of TANF benefits;
- requires Food Stamp recipients to work or participate in a
work program 20 hours a week and limits receipt of Food Stamps
by the unemployed to a single 3-month period in any 36-month
period;
- denies Food Stamps and Supplemental Security Income to legal
aliens, and also denies non-emergency Medicaid, TANF, and Title
XX social services to legal aliens unless states pass a law
providing such benefits to them;
- narrows the definition of childhood disability covered by
Supplemental Security Income and hence eligibility for the program;
- slashes federal funding for low income programs by some $55
billion from the time of passage until the year 2002;
- and makes other reductions in federally-aided public assistance
programs.
Federal Entitlement Abolished: According to Section 401(b),
"NO INDIVIDUAL ENTITLEMENT": "This part shall not
be interpreted to entitle any individual or family to assistance
under any State program funded under this part."
JOBS FOR ALL and Public Welfare Policy
The goal of the National Jobs for All Coalition, full employment
at decent wages for all women and men who want to work, would
reduce the need for some income support programs, especially those
that compensate individuals for unemployment, underemployment
and low wages. Nonetheless, the Mission Statement of the National
Jobs for All Coalition, adopted June 1994, also calls for strengthening
public income-support programs, especially in the absence of a
guarantee of jobs with decent wages. The Coalition, moreover,
favors the enactment of social policies available in other nations
with comparable resources--programs such as family allowances,
paid parental leaves, universal health insurance, and quality,
affordable child care.
Interdependence of Public Income Support Programs and Full
Employment: On the one hand, full employment increases tax
revenues at all levels of government and makes it easier to finance
social programs. On the other hand, such programs contribute to
job expansion by increasing purchasing power, especially during
economic downturns, and by directly employing individuals in the
provision and administration of government benefits and services.
Public income support and social services have played an important
role in preventing an economic depression in the United States
for over 50 years. In a nation where serious economic downturns
were
frequent facts of life for over a century, this economic function
of social welfare should not be overlooked. Yet, in addition to
making substantial cuts in low income programs, Congress has failed
to make adequate financial provision for future recessions.
TANF Will Increase Poverty and Inequality
Poverty and inequality already abound in the United States.
According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census (1996), there were
36 million poor people in the United States in 1995, a year of
economic recovery. In the world's richest nation, one of every
five children lives in poverty--many with less than half of an
official poverty standard that substantially underestimates need
and the size of the poverty population. Cross national comparisons
reveal that U.S. families with children, despite our greater total
resources per capita, have much higher poverty rates than their
European counterparts (e.g., twice and three times, respectively,
those of Germany and France). The Census Bureau also reports that
the share of total family income of the highest-income 20 percent
of families is 13 times the share of the lowest 20 percent. By
the estimate of the Federal government itself, PL 104-193 will
increase the poverty and inequality of millions of people, many
of them children. Benefits to families with dependent children,
it should be emphasized, have already fallen on average nearly
40 percent in constant dollars in the last 20 years. The combined
value of food stamps and cash benefits for families with children
falls below the official government poverty standard in all 50
states. Benefits for families, already meager, are expected to
decline further under TANF.
Work Requirements Will Increase Unemployment and Lower Wages
Primarily concerned with reducing poverty and inequality through
full employment at decent wages, the National Jobs for All Coalition
deplores the work requirements of PL 104-193. TANF and the amended
Food Stamp program are imposing work requirements and time limits
on the receipt of benefits despite substantial evidence of unemployment
and job shortages, particularly where recipients live and can
be expected to work. Because it increases the number of job seekers
without increasing the number of jobs, PL 104-193 will further
depress wages and employment security for millions of workers
and will weaken the trade union movement. Conspicuously absent
from work experience provisions of PL 104-193 are requirements
for: payment of the minimum wage, health and safety rights, unemployment
and workers' compensation, and collective bargaining rights--in
short the protections of the nation's labor laws and of entitlements
guaranteed to other workers. As the Coalition has been warning
for some time, there are insufficient safeguards against the substitution
of workfare slots for regular jobs.
Welfare "reform," as enacted in PL 104-193, purports
to offer "work opportunity." The new law forces welfare
recipients to work but, in an economy with a chronic shortage
of jobs, does nothing to increase employment opportunities. Welfare
"reform," as enacted in PL 104-193, is the very antithesis
of the program of the National Jobs for All Coalition which seeks
to eliminate unemployment and to achieve full employment at decent
wages.
NOTE: For additional background on welfare "reform,"
work requirements, job creation, workfare, job vacancy surveys,
community needs assessments for the purposes of creating useful
jobs, and the effect of unemployment on the financing of income
support programs, see the Coalition's Welfare "Reform"
Packet. For further elaboration see its book, Jobs for All:
A Plan for the Revitalization of America (New York: Apex Press,
1994).
The Policy Statement on Welfare "Reform"
was prepared for the Coalition by Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg,
NJFAC Chair, and Philip Harvey, NJFAC Advisory Board member. The
Coalition would like to thank Maurice Emsellem, Staff Attorney,
National Employment Law Project, Inc., and Henry A. Freedman,
Executive Director of the Center on Social Welfare Policy &
Law, for carefully reviewing and commenting on the statement.
The National Jobs for All Coalition is a project
of the Council on International and Public Affairs.
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