proposed changes to CA’s welfare program
as i’m sure y’all have heard, we’re in a small budget crisis meltdown over here and might find ourselves selling off our celebrities in order to survive. all kinds of wild proposals are flying around of how we can save enough money not to fall into the ocean under the weight of our debts.
recently, the LA county board of supervisors voted to propose specific cuts to the welfare program. (quick note: the county doesn’t actually make state welfare policy, but LA is proposing running its own federal welfare program if the state drops it, so it’s unclear exactly how relevant this proposal is. anyway.) currently, every parent on welfare is required to do 35 hours of “work activity” per week in order to maintain ongoing eligibility. in theory, work activities include things like education, training, domestic violence and/or mental health counseling, etc, but in practice, they often mean working a low-wage job with no possibility for career development or advancement. the welfare program pays for the education or training or counseling, as well as child care and transportation costs necessary to allow the parent to participate.
right now, parents with a child under the age of 1 are “exempt” from this requirement, which means they are not required to participate and will not be penalized if they do not, but can opt-in if they want. (again, in theory. in practice, people who opt-in often are not provided with the supportive child care and transportation services which are essential to participation.) the LA county proposal is to extend this period of exemption for all parents with one child under the age of 2 or two children under the age of 6.
the goal is to eliminate child care costs for that group by allowing them to stay home and care for their children instead of doing work activities with the welfare program paying for child care. estimated savings of $270 million per year because child care is hella expensive.
there are definite good and bad aspects to this proposal. i am always in favor of increasing flexibility in the welfare program, so an individual parent can select a path that works best for them and their individual circumstances. in that light, i like the proposal, because parents will have the option of staying home or doing work activities during an extended period.
the bad part of it is tied up part and parcel with our ideas about what the welfare program is for and what we expect of people on welfare. part of the big welfare overhaul in 1995 (thanks bill!) was to institute a 5 year lifetime limit on receipt of welfare for parents. the idea is that providing parents with training, education, and work experience would allow them to gain the skills and experience needed to become self-sufficient at the end of 5 years. in actuality, this is nearly impossible. overcoming the numerous barriers to self-sufficiency common in parents on welfare (domestic violence, physical or mental health issues, lack of education, training, and work experience, unstable housing, child care and transportation issues, english proficiency, etc, as well as the lack of entry level jobs with a career ladder, or really any job in this economic climate) is an incredibly difficult task that requires individualized, meaningful and intensive intervention, not following a standardized path through a bureaucratic program.
this means that currently, at the end of 5 years, welfare parents are rarely equipped for self-sufficiency. but because the welfare program theoretically and nominally offered access to services, their inability to become self-sufficient is blamed on the individual parent as a personal failing. this allows us not to feel bad when we cut off all money and services to this parent, because they had their chance to learn! so their failure is just because they’re lazy!
i’m worried this proposal means that when parents hit that 5 year mark, they’ll be even less prepared to survive on their own than they are now. and that affects not only the parents, but the children, who can often become homeless or live in unstable or doubled-up housing, lack adequate nutrition and child care, and are generally disadvantaged.
all this is primarily to say that it can be incredibly difficult to modify complicated regulatory programs like welfare, partly because pulling one string causes changes all throughout the web of the program, and partly because so much of how these programs work and are designed is based on moral judgments and assumptions about the people who use the programs.
