Welfare: The cuts will be devastating to families

by Les Bayless

This article was reprinted from the December 9, 1995 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

WASHINGTON - For the Republican extremists in Congress, Welfare reform was the "crown jewel" of their Contract on America. Enough House and Senate Democrats caved in that a so-called "welfare reform " bill was passed that would "end welfare as we know it," as President Clinton puts it.

It is contained in the Conference Agreement. on a balanced budget but was also delivered to the White House as a free standing bill. Children's Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman denounced it in an open letter to Clinton in which she demanded that he veto it. She warned that the veto is a "litmus test of your Presidency."

"Savings" from the proposed changes in Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC) would net $111 billion, about one- quarter of what will be "saved" if the Republicans succeed in their plan for slashing Medicare and Medicaid.

And in fact, the changes proposed in the Conference Agreement are most profound: the Federal government's role in fighting poverty is reduced from an entitlement open to all with proven need to a series of lump sum block grants to the states at spending levels so meager that the impact of the cuts will be felt by the poor from day one.

In a recent interview, Alvin Collins, Maryland's Human Resources Secretary, said, "the first wave" of federal budget cuts would force the state to cut cash assistance to poor women by 10 to 30 percent on Jan. 1. In Maryland, a family of three currently receives around $370 a month.

Combined with a decrease in public housing subsidies, which will raise rent for federal housing residents from 30 percent to 38 percent of income, elimination of energy assistance and cuts in food stamps, a welfare mother in public housing may lose as much as $200 a month in combined benefits.

The block grants which replace AFDC benefits, a program originating in the Great Depression when millions of men left home looking for work, come with strings attached: a two-year "get a job or else" requirement, a five-year lifetime benefit eligibility and a "family cap." The economic rationale behind the proposal is that jobs exist for all or most of the five million AFDC recipients and that if forced into the job market, they will pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

Recent employment data contradicts that assumption. While the official unemployment rate has declined slightly to 5.5 percent, the real picture is much bleaker, according to AFL- CIO chief economist Rudy Oswald. In a recent interview in AFL-CIO News, Oswald noted that while 7.2 million workers were officially unemployed, "another 1.6 million workers wanted work but couldn't find it, and another 4.4 million workers wanted full-time jobs but could only find part-time jobs," making the real number of unemployed or underemployed 13.2 million, or double the official rate.

Welfare mothers forced to work will most likely swell the ranks of the jobless, which grows with every new announcement of plant closings, "downsizing" and layoffs.U.S. firms "terminated" over 41,000 jobs in October, according to the outplacement firm of Challenger, Gray and Christmas.

Former AFDC recipients, many who lack training or job experience, will have to compete with these workers for available jobs. But rather than increasing job training and education in anticipation of a influx of new entrants into the job market, proposed cuts in discretionary spending bills do the opposite. Major cuts made in various appropriation bills include:

* Summer Youth jobs -- eliminated

* Vocational Education -- cut 31 percent

* Bilingual and Immigrant Education -- cut 55 percent

* Title 1 Education Grants (for the disadvantaged) -- cut 17 percent

* Dislocated Workers -- cut 34 percent

In addition to what has already been mentioned, there are a number of "adjustments" in the Conference Agreement that save the federal government very little money but target particularly visible populations. One such group are recovering alcoholics and drug addicts who will be denied Supplemental Security Income (SSI) which, in most cases, provides housing and food for people who are one check away from the streets. Another targeted group are children "with less severe disabilities," who will be dropped from SSI programs or face reduced benefits. The Conference Report also denies any benefits, including Earned Income Tax Credit, to undocumented immigrant workers. While the denial of benefits to immigrants will surely be challenged in the courts, as was Proposition 187, state executives like Gov. Pete Wilson of California are pushing enactment of the legislation to satisfy right-wing political constituencies.

Welfare mothers are not taking the cuts sitting down. In Baltimore's O'Donnell Heights public housing neighborhood, Virginia Almony, mother of two young children, was part of a team that went door-to-door last weekend with a leaflet urging residents to contact President Clinton and Rep. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) to demand that they fight the cuts. "We need to organize a picketline," Almony told her neighbors.

(This is the first in a series of articles by Les Bayless on the budget fight. Look for his articles in upcoming issues.)