Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 11, 1992 TAG: 9202110385
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
EARLEY BILL ENDING WELFARE DEPENDENCY
NEW JERSEY is trying a modest welfare reform. Sen. Mark Earley, R-Chesapeake, says Virginia should do likewise. We agree.Earley has introduced legislation that draws a line for women receiving Aid to Dependent Children benefits. It says if you have another baby you will not, as now, get an automatic increase in your welfare check. But at the same time it promises mothers that if they find jobs to help support their children, the state will not punish them, as now, by cutting off their benefits.
Earley is not a wild-eyed welfare-basher who believes ADC mothers have babies just to get more of the public dole. Neither is he a Scrooge who would punish poor children by freezing benefits to their mothers. His goal is to break the debilitating cycle that traps both mothers and children.
His legislation implies what many people believe: Parents who can't support their children should not be having more kids while they are on welfare.
Earley's proposal - like the law championed in New Jersey by Democrat Wayne Bryant, who represents that state's poorest district - gives ADC recipients the same kind of choice that those not on welfare have. That is: to choose to have more children and work to pay the added costs of a larger family, or to choose against having more children. His proposal would not rob poor women of dignity and respect; it assumes they can make responsible child-bearing decisions. It says they should be responsible for the consequences of those decisions.
But it also says society will not reward irresponsible decisions - and why should it? No one in the work world gets an automatic raise for having a baby. Why should mothers on welfare? Society has a duty to help the poor, but the poor are not helped by staying on welfare.
But don't stop here. Earley's proposal is acceptable - and rendered non-punitive - only in combination with incentives for work. And here is where his plan needs adjusting. Earley's bill would ensure that the ADC check won't stop coming if a recipient is able to earn up to 25 percent of the monthly welfare benefit. That's not sufficient. The concept has merit, but the incentive needs to be greater.
By some estimates, a woman would need a job paying $8 or $10 an hour to match what she can "earn" in welfare benefits, including subsidized housing, food stamps, health care and ADC payments. Few welfare mothers are likely to find jobs paying such wages. At least Earley understands that if they can't earn enough to pay for child care, health care and other necessities, ADC recipients need continuing help from the welfare system.
They also need better support services - job-training, case-worker counseling, child-care facilities, health care - while they strive for self-sufficiency. Most states, Virginia included, do far too little in this regard. The federal government needs to increase funding for measures easing work-force entry for welfare recipients - without tying it to state matching funds.
Clearly, Earley's carrot-and-stick proposal is not the be-all, end-all solution for the welfare system's myriad problems. It is a small step - but it aims at the right goal: not just to support the poor on welfare, but to help them escape it.