Welfare Reform Is Working, Clinton Says

ST. LOUIS — Declaring an end to the debate over the effectiveness of welfare reform, President Clinton released new figures Tuesday showing that state caseloads have declined significantly since federal reform legislation was enacted a year ago.

During the 3 1/2 years before Clinton signed the law into effect on Aug. 22, 1996, welfare caseloads shrank by 1.9 million. During the first nine months after its enactment, an additional 1.4 million people dropped off the rolls, Clinton said, reducing the nation’s welfare population to a 27-year low of 10.7 million.

“I think it’s fair to say the debate is over: We know now that welfare reform works,” Clinton told a group of business people and former welfare recipients in St. Louis. “We now have the smallest percentage of Americans living on public assistance we have had since 1970.”

Altogether, welfare rosters across the country have fallen 24% since Clinton took office in January 1993. Eleven states have seen their welfare populations drop by 40% or more.

But in California, where the economic recovery came later and where partisan wrangling delayed reform, the number of recipients is down only 1%, said Bruce Reed, the president’s assistant for domestic policy. The only states with worse records are Alaska and Hawaii.

In his speech at a factory here, Clinton also emphasized his administration’s efforts to soften the year-old federal welfare reform legislation, which largely reflected the vision of its GOP drafters.

But later in the day, Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala offered reporters a more sober view of the status of welfare reform, saying “the real test” hasn’t come yet. Getting people into jobs is “a piece of cake” compared to keeping them in work. “Ask me two or three years from now where people are,” she added. “This is very hard to do.”

In recent budget negotiations, the White House won congressional support for a $3-billion program to help move welfare recipients into jobs, a tax credit for employers who hire them, restoration of SSI and Medicaid benefits for legal immigrants living in the country when the welfare law was enacted, and restoration of food stamps for able-bodied adults without dependent children who are searching for work but can’t find it.

While hailing those accomplishments, Clinton stressed that Americans have a “moral obligation” to do much more to finish the job of providing every welfare recipient with an opportunity to earn his or her own way.

“Now, I want to challenge every employer in America to join this crusade,” said Clinton, who took off his jacket in the steamy factory and sweated through his white dress shirt.

Joking that he sounded like a television salesman hawking his wares, Clinton repeated a new toll-free number--1-888-USA-JOB1--that employers can call to get assistance in hiring welfare recipients.

So far, 800 companies have committed to hiring welfare recipients by joining a “Welfare to Work Partnership” created by the president as a resource for private employers.

While state initiatives and the new federal law are a factor in the decline in welfare caseloads, the robust economy and high employment rates have played a role as well.

A report by the president’s Council of Economic Advisers earlier this year estimated that 44% of the decline is attributable to the economic recovery, 31% to welfare reform efforts, and the rest unidentifiable.

The new federal law requires recipients to work after receiving help for two years, and limits cash assistance to five years in a lifetime. States have been given broad flexibility to design their own programs and set their own limits.

On Monday, Gov. Pete Wilson signed California’s new welfare plan, which imposes the two-year and five-year limit cutoffs. It promises community service positions for those who cannot find work, while penalizing those who refuse to accept job offers.

In most states, cutoff dates have not yet been determined. But they loom threateningly over those welfare recipients who have not yet found jobs.

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After 16 years of going off and on welfare, LaChance Townley, 36, stopped receiving most public assistance more than a year ago with the help of a welfare reform program in St. Louis.

But her 18-year-old daughter still relies solely on welfare. With two babies of her own--one 2 years old and the other 4 months--and no high school diploma, Townley’s daughter faces tremendous obstacles to self-sufficiency.

“I worry about her,” Townley said. “Heck, I worry about myself. . . . How would we eat if they were to cut us off welfare?”