
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 16, 1995                   TAG: 9505160091
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

IOWA

THE DEBILITATING effects of welfare dependency are well-enough known for the development of broad support behind the idea of setting time limits on welfare benefits. Virginia is but one of many states embarking on a policy of such limits, in a variety of forms.

Less known is what happens to families actually thrown off the welfare rolls because time is up. Iowa is the only state where sufficiently strict limits have been in place sufficiently long for this to have happened.

According to a recent article in The Christian Science Monitor, many of the results so far have been good. Since October 1994, Iowa's new program, Project Jobs, has helped more than 1,400 people find jobs, at a monthly savings to the state of more than $1 million in welfare benefits. The program is based on the principle that each recipient signs a multistep contract, individually tailored, for getting off welfare.

Iowa currently is blessed with low (3 percent) unemployment. It has none of the big cities where unemployment rates are persistently huge. The state's Department of Human Services has the resources to follow through on the principle of individually tailored and monitored welfare contracts, which isn't the case in all states. One rule of the program is that nobody is required to accept employment that, after balancing wages and benefits, would actually decrease his or her income.

With the carrots, though, the stick: Some 900 families have been kicked off the rolls for failure to comply with the contracts. The state is trying to track them, but the fates of more than half are unknown. Some may now be on welfare in other states; others may have become homeless.

by CNB