(Archived document, may contain errors)
2/13/87 149
TWO CHEERS FOR THE KENNEDY WELFARE PLAN
The new job training legislation, "Jobs for Employable Dependent
Individuals" or JEDI, introdu ced last week by Senator Edward
Kennedy, deserves cautious support. At last the Massachusetts
liberal recognizes that, on many welfare matters, the most
effective federal action is to provide incentives for the states to
take the lead. JEDI would give fin a ncial incentives to states
that target their job training efforts toward those in greatest
need of help--hard core welfare mothers who are most likely to
become nearly permanent welfare recipients. But although Kennedy's
JEDI plan heads in the right direc tion and desgrves two cheers,,
it has shortcomings that need to be corrected by including tougher
standards for measuring success as well as work requirements for
welfare recipients.
Almost four million U.S. families now receive assistance under
the Aid to Famil7ies with Dependent Children program (AFDC); a
majority of these families will spend most of the next decade.on
relief-. JEDI seeks to tackle this long-term dependency in a marked
departure from the traditional liberal approach.. JEDI does not
simpl y pile yet another layer of federal funding atop the $140
billion taxpayer tab for-low-income assistance. Instead, JEDI links
federal support to reductions in costly state welfare rolls.
Under the Kennedy proposal,, states would be encouraged to focus
thei r training efforts on mothers who had only limited work
experience before enrolling in AFDC and who have been in the
program at least two years. Another target group would be women in
their early twenties without a high school diploma (largely young,
unma r ried mothers). A state would receive a bonus from federal
Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) funds if it could show that a
potential long-term welfare recipient had been successfully trained
and continuously employed for over one year. Smaller bonuses wo uld
be provided for the second and third years of employment. If JEDI
proved successful in stimulating creative state action, the long
run welfare savings could be considerable.
The Kennedy proposal strikes a chord with many of the themes in
Ronald Reagan's new welfare reform strategy, released by the
White
N,
H ouse this week. As in the Reagan recommendations, JEDI proposes
to fight dependency rather than make it more bearable; it enco
urages innovation at the state level; and it redirects existing
resources rather than pouring more dollars into traditional, but
disappointing, "war on poverty" strategies. JEDI implicitly
recognizes the failure. of America's current "top down" approach t
o welfare. As the President's welfare reform plan recognizes, the
correct federal role is not to take over state functions, but to
"create the proper climate for innovation by giving states the
broadest latitude to design and implement experiments in welfa r e
policy." Inspired by training programs in Massachusetts and other
states, JEDI is a good example of the Reagan Administration's call
for a "bottom up" strategy in which policy makers learn gradually
from the successes and failures of state and local ini tiatives.
One problem with JEDI,, however, is that its provisions for
"revenue neutrality" are far from airtight. The criteria for
measuring successful training are not tied to an actual reduction
in the number of AFDC families. Thus federal bonuses could be paid
even without a cut in AFDC costs. This is important because some of
the states applauded by Kennedy in reality have not reduced their
AFDC rolls in recent years and have increased their AFDC expenses
dramatically. The provisions of the bill should be strengthened to
ensure that the JEDI bonuses are triggered by real, measurable
savings in welfare costs, not just savings on paper.
A-second drawback to the Kennedy plan is that it is all carrot and
no stick.' Voluntary training programs alone are unli kely to
reduce dependency significantly. In Kennedy's home state of
Massachusetts, for instance, a typical AFDC-mother needs a job
paying $9.00 per hour in order receive a post-tax income equal to
what she receives from AFDC, food stamps, medicaid, and ot h er
subsidies. Even the most successful training program will find it
difficult to provide a financial incentive for individuals to leave
welfare under such conditions. Serious work requirements for
able-bodied AFDC recipients, when combined with training, can alter
the underlying incentive structure that promotes dependency. These
requirements are not punitive; they are part of the mutual
obligation of welfare recipients to the society which supports
them. Such work requirements are included in the Reagan A
dministration's Greater Opportunity Through Work -(GROW) proposal,
which would require work programs for at least a certain percentage
of welfare beneficiaries. A balanced approach, joining training
with serious work requirements, would effectively combin e a carrot
with a stick.
There are no easy solutions to the morass of problems with the
contemporary welfare "system." But Senator Kennedy is making a
serious and important contribution to the debate.
Robert Rector Policy Analyst
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