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If you're on welfare, we think we know all about you,"
says Julie Kirksick, executive director of the New
Hope Project in Milwaukee, a nonprofit organization
that helps welfare-to-work participants and other
hard-to-place workers find jobs.
Welfare myths tend to have a long life. In the 1980s,
President Reagan told a story about a "welfare queen driving
her welfare Cadillac." According to the president, she was a
Chicago woman who had ripped off $150,000 from the government
using 80 aliases, 30 addresses, a dozen Social
Security cards and four fictional dead husbands. Whenreporters tried to find the woman, however, they discovered
that the story was apocryphal.
Decades later, this 1980s image still haunts the public
mind, says Deborah Schlick, executive director of the
Affirmative Options Coalition, a Minnesota policy advocacy
organization that promotes state and federal welfare policies
to help low-wage Minnesota workers.
Yet the U.S. welfare system has undergone significant
changes since President Reagan's time. The most dramatic
changes went into effect on Aug. 22, 1996, when President
Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work
Opportunity Reconciliation Act, the first major overhaul of
the welfare system since the New Deal era of the 1930s. The
lofty goal of bipartisan welfare reform was to "end welfare as
we know it" by requiring work in exchange for time-limited
assistance.
Moving off welfare proves to be a complex, erratic process,
but an increasing number of employers have discovered business
advantages in providing training, flexible work arrangements
and other assistance to such employees. Companies of
all sizes now work with federal, state and local employee placement
groups to identify and develop highly motivated
workers. Here are their stories.
Falling on Hard Times
Julia Doyle says she "fell on hard times" after overwhelming
life events.
In 1990, her mother was killed by a drunk driver. Doyle,
who had two children at the time, was working at Marquette
University in Milwaukee. Determined to bring the driver to
trial, Doyle began missing work. Eventually, she lost the job
she had held for 10 years.
 In 1991-92, Doyle gave birth to two more children. Her last
child was born prematurely on the day the driver who killed
her mother came to trial. With little financial help from the
children's fathers, Doyle wound up on welfare.
Doyle admits that she used drugs during this period. Then,
one day when she was buying "my week's stash," she discovered
that her son had witnessed the transaction. "I realized then
that children are videotaping your life," she says. It was the
wake-up call she needed to begin turning her life around.
A neighbor told Doyle about the New Hope Project's
welfare-to-work research program, and she applied. "I won the
lottery," she says, when she was randomly selected as a
participant.
Kirksick says the goal of the three-year program was to help
low-wage workers get out of poverty through work." 'If you
work, you should not be poor' was our guiding principle," she
says.
The New Hope Project was open to adults 18 or older in
Milwaukee's poorest neighborhoods. Following the program
model that continues today, participants were required to
work 30 or more hours each week; New Hope subsidized temporary
community-service jobs for those unable to find work
on their own after eight weeks. They received cash supplements
that raised their incomes above the poverty level while
they continued to search for permanent employment. New
Hope also subsidized child and health care.
Doyle credits the program with making it possible for her
to "get back on track." Today, she is a full-time administrator
and has worked for the same employer since 1997. She also
served on the New Hope board for several years.
With her youngest children doing well in private school and
her daughter a freshman at Marquette University, Doyle's back
in school, too, working toward a degree in leadership and
development at Marquette.
The 'Long-Term Detached'
Although Doyle went through some hard times, she was able
to care for her children and rejoin the workforce with help. For
some long-unemployed people, however, the situation can be
more intractable, says Toby Herr, founder and director of Project
Match in Chicago.
The nonprofit organization matches employers and
employees and has helped many of Chicago's poorest people
find jobs since 1985. Project Match began operations in the
notorious Cabrini-Green neighborhood, a public housing
complex where drugs and gangs flourished. In 2003, the
Chicago Housing Authority began tearing down the neighborhood's
Henry Horner Homes and building mixed-income
housing.
Herr's clients include the "long-term detached." She says
"the work ethic is missing" for many. Some may have grown up
on welfare; others are unable to work because of serious disabilities,
including psychological problems. Project Match
operates today on Chicago's Near West Side in West Haven,and continues to act as an intermediary between employers
and clients attempting to make the often-difficult transition
into the full-time workforce.
Herr has tracked Project Match's efforts with hard data (see
the online sidebar "A Welfare-to-Work Track Record"). Dedicated to her work, she says
helping people progress toward full-time employment
requires "starting where they are and building gradually," and
measuring progress "by the distance traveled" rather than by
the final outcome.
Warrine Pace, director of services at the West Haven center,
is equally passionate about the value of this work and serenely
competent as she prepares clients for job interviews. In addition
to helping each candidate with resume preparation, interview
practice, and advice about appropriate clothing and
behavior, Pace and her staff conduct a complete background
check, including criminal convictions, on each participant.
'Do You Want to Change Your Life?'
Joyce Bailey, one of Project Match's first participants, was an
early success. She spotted a sign one day at her neighborhood
health center. The sign offered a question: "Do you want to
change your life?"
At the time--the mid-1980s--Bailey was on welfare. She
had dropped out of high school in 1976 when her first child
was born and then had a second child. Her husband was
unable to provide much financial support.
Bailey went to the Project Match service center to learn
more. "Toby and Warrine have been my friends ever since," she
says.
Pace takes a step-by-step, "crawl before you walk" approach
that breaks seemingly insurmountable tasks into manageable
chunks. "It's a process," she told Bailey as she guided her
through moving off welfare. First, finish high school, either by
going back to her old school or by passing the high-school
equivalency exam.
Bailey chose the exam, but was dismayed when she failed.
She tried again, though, and passed on the second try. That
hurdle cleared, she began volunteering at the health center,
and that led to part-time paid work. Ultimately, she moved
into a full-time job as a school health aide and case manager.
By then, Bailey had four children. With Pace's encouragement,
however, she went back to school part time while working
and caring for the children. "It was so hard," she says. "I
kept saying, 'I can't do this,' but Warrine and Toby kept saying,
'Yes. You can do it.' "
And she did--first earning an associate's degree and then a
bachelor's degree in sociology and criminal justice. Bailey says
the women at Project Match were so encouraging that she
didn't want to let them down. She's thinking about going back
to school for a master's degree.
Regina Allen came to Project Match in 2000. Her job history
was erratic. Like Bailey, Allen had dropped out of high
school. She gave birth to her first child at 19, followed quickly
by four more, and spent seven years on welfare before taking a
series of low-wage temporary jobs.
With help from Project Match, Allen became interested in
security work and completed a 20-hour security training course.
In October 2007, she was hired as a security officer. Now she's
looking ahead to weapons training that would prepare her for
more-lucrative positions as an armed security officer.
For CVS, a Recruiting Resource
In 1997, President Clinton created a public-private
Welfare to Work Partnership to encourage
employers to commit to hiring welfare-to-work
participants. Several large corporations,
including retail drug giant CVS/pharmacy, responded.
According to Steve Wing, director of
government programs, CVS has hired more than
60,000 low-wage and welfare-to-work participants
since that time.
One of its early hires was Deb Autry, a part-time
clerk at the Ohio pharmacy group Revco
when it was acquired by CVS in 1996. Autry saw
a sign in the store window one day about a
training class for employees who wanted to become
pharmacy technicians. With her supervisor's
encouragement, she applied and was
accepted, becoming one of six members of the
first CVS welfare-to-work training class.
Autry was a single mother of a daughter and
twin sons. With no financial help from their father,
she depended on welfare until her sons
reached 14.
At CVS, Autry moved into a full-time job after
she completed training. Today, she enjoys
her work as a certified lead technician at a store
in Akron, Ohio. She's one of four members of
that class still working for CVS.
The twins are 22 and her daughter 30, but
Autry still remembers the day she came home
with her first paycheck. The children greeted her
excitedly, eager to "go to the store with mom
and watch her pay with cash."
Wing says these training programs have
been highly successful for CVS. It partners with
several agencies working directly with welfare-to-work clients. These organizations function "like an arm of the HR department," he says,
and they recruit for 6,200 CVS stores in 38 states.
Wing and members of his department plan
and administer employee training, including a
two-year pharmacy apprenticeship that prepares
employees to enter a college pharmacy
program. Participants also qualify for tuition reimbursement.
The "Pathways to Pharmacy" program is
staffed by retired pharmacists who visit primary
and secondary schools to encourage students
to consider pharmacy as a career. More than 2,000 students completed internships in all
kinds of jobs at CVS stores during summer
2007.
Programs that help employees advance are
a boon for the company, says Wing. Along with
other drug retailers, CVS faces stiff competition
from "big box" stores such as Wal-Mart and Target
for a dwindling supply of qualified pharmacists
and technicians.
"For CVS, these programs are a good business
decision," he says.
--Ann Pomeroy |
Employers Count on Pace
Pace has developed strong relationships with Chicago area employers,
including Silverhawk Security where Elaine Crossman
handles human resource functions.
"Warrine sends me all good people," says Crossman, who
hires about a dozen Project Match clients each year. Many of
these employees receive some government assistance.
Crossman knows that Project Match-trained candidates
have passed criminal background checks--essential for security
jobs. She knows, too, that they will have up-to-date resumes
and be well-prepared for their interviews.
Crossman understands the difficulties faced by single
mothers with few job skills and little money, because she was
in that situation. Crossman had two children while still in her
teens and received food stamps when they were young. Like
Allen, she started as a security officer at Silverhawk; she points
out that Silverhawk's beginning security officers have the same
opportunities to advance as she did.
Nathan Thomas, a branch manager at Andy Services, tells
a similar story. His company is one of an increasing number of
security firms in Chicago since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks. Like Crossman, Thomas began as a security officer
and relies on Project Match for qualified candidates. Today, he
mulls the possibility of starting his own business.
The End of Welfare as We Know It?
Schlick assesses the results of welfare reform this way: "We did
not really end welfare as we know it. We took the basic architecture
of the program and redecorated it." She points out that
the federal Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF)
program of cash assistance for very poor mothers with children--
the replacement for Aid to Families with Dependent
Children (AFDC)--is still delivered through county or state welfare offices. As a result, "All the stigma the public associate
with the AFDC program, it continued to associate with the
welfare-to-work programs that replaced it."
But Schlick says valuable lessons were learned from reform.
First, the general economic climate has a major impact on welfare reform's success. People will work if jobs are available. If
the jobs don't pay well, however, work won't get them out of
poverty, she says. For example, the parent of a family of three
working 37 hours a week for the minimum wage earns well
below the Minnesota poverty level of $16,000 each year; nevertheless,
that parent loses all cash welfare assistance.
The size of welfare cash grants matters, Schlick continues.
That same family of three receives $532 a month as a TANF
payment in Minnesota, an amount that has not increased since
1986. That's well below the rent for a two-bedroom apartment
in a metropolitan area, she adds, thereby refuting the myth of
living high on welfare.
Discouragingly, "We have not figured out how to help those
who most inspired welfare reform--the relatively few
families who use welfare for long periods of time," Schlick
adds. "We thought we were dealing with character and
motivation issues. Instead, we are dealing primarily with
disabilities [often psychological ones]."
Ellen S. Alberding, president of the nonprofit Joyce
Foundation, a funding source for research by groups in
the Great Lakes area such as Project Match and the New
Hope Project, says Congress' reauthorization of the welfare
reform law in 2006 "largely sidesteps" these concerns.
Nevertheless, says Douglas Besharov, a professor at
the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy, "it's
great news that a lot of people have left welfare since
1996. The big surprise of the last 10 or 15 years is how
many low-skilled, low-income women have been able to enter
the workforce." Besharov directs the Welfare Reform Academy,
helping managers and planners decipher the intricacies of the
federal block grant system for states.
In fact, the welfare rolls have been cut in half since the
reform act went into effect. In its TANF Seventh Annual
Report to Congress in December 2006, the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services' Office of Family Assistance
reported a decrease of 54.4 percentage points in families
receiving AFDC or TANF aid from August 1996 to September
2003 (see line graph, and table).
However, many former TANF recipients have moved off
welfare and into the ranks of the working poor whose incomes
remain below the poverty level. According to the U.S. Census
Bureau, 12.2 percent of all U.S. families were living below the
poverty level in 1996; by 2002, the latest year for which figures
are available, that percentage had decreased by less than 2 percentage
points, to 10.4 percent.
 The percentages are much higher for families
headed by single females. In 1996,
35.8 percent of these families lived in poverty;
in 2002, the figure was 28.8 percent.
Elizabeth Lower-Basch, a senior policy
analyst at the Center for Law and Social
Policy in Washington, D.C., agrees that there
has been a "huge increase" in single moms
working now that cash assistance is less available.
But "about 40 percent of low-wage
workers have no sick leave or family leave,"
she points out. "The question we should be
asking now is what do [these workers] need
to succeed?"
She maintains that health insurance, education,
training and child care remain most
pressing. Recent changes to the Deficit
Reduction Act of 2005 that make the requirements
for receiving cash assistance increasingly
restrictive are "a step in the wrong direction,"
she says. For example, as of Oct. 1, 2006, state welfare-to-work programs are required to meet a minimum of 50 percent
work participation by single-parent TANF families.
That creates a "vicious cycle" that puts even greater pressure
on single parents to participate in welfare-to-work programs
without providing them with the basic tools to make
success possible, says Lower-Basch.
"The middle class has work/life problems, too, but their situations
are usually not as fragile as those of low-wage workers."
A Step in the Right Direction
There are "two worldviews" about what causes people to stay
on welfare, says Kirksick: Some blame the person, while others
blame structural problems within the welfare system. "I
think it's some of both," she says.
Kirksick agrees with Schlick that the lack of affordable
health care and child care represent stumbling blocks for
many, who "cycle in and out of jobs without finding traction."
She also agrees that the Deficit Reduction Act's stringent
requirements push single parents to participate in welfare-to-work
programs, while the low-wage jobs they qualify for seldom
provide the essential benefits that would allow them to
succeed. But she has high praise for the earned income tax
credit (EITC) that reduces tax payments for low-wage workers.
"It's the U.S government's greatest single anti-poverty program,"
according to Kirksick.
That sentiment was echoed recently by members of the
American Economic Association. In a survey released in July
2007, 70 percent of these labor economists responded that
expanding the EITC would be the most effective tool for fighting
poverty; 64 percent said it would lead to gains in employment.
Overall, many sources agree with Herr's assessment of the
1996 overhaul as "one of the government's most successful
public welfare programs."
Writing in Beyond Barriers to Work:
A Workforce Attachment Approach That Addresses
Unpredictability, Halting Progress and Human Nature (Project Match-Families in Transition Association, February
2007), Herr notes that critics of the 1996 reform "have called
the legislation a failure, since … many of the families that left
welfare for work are still poor. But what were these families'
earnings before welfare reform? For many, zero."
From a human-development perspective, the progress of
clients like hers is dramatic, says Herr. "Considering where
these families started and where they are now, their progress
as workers is significant, and not just in terms of changes in
earnings." The changes in "attitudes, behaviors, self-identity,
relationships with friends and family, and status in the community"
are even more impressive and heartening, she notes.
Steve Wing, director of government programs for retail
drug company CVS/pharmacy, concurs. He regards the
welfare-to-work participants CVS hires as a "pot of gold, a
valuable untapped resource." (See "For CVS, a Recruiting
Resource" on page 37.) Although the 1996 reform hasn't solved
all problems, it's a step in the right direction, he says. "Welfare
reform has made a major difference, and the story needs to get
out."
Ann Pomeroy is senior writer for HR Magazine.
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