THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 15, 1996 TAG: 9602150356
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 202 lines
Picture the ideal citizen, and you might see someone like Phyllis A. Gibson.
She works full time. Pays her debts. Keeps up her home. Strives to be a good mother to her two daughters.
Then picture a welfare mother. That's Gibson, too.
Her job doesn't pay enough for her to adequately feed and care for her girls. So she gets government help in the form of food stamps, Medicaid health coverage and day-care subsidies. There are few frills.
``Chips do not exist in my house,'' Gibson said. ``Cookies don't exist in my house, unless they're the cheap 99-cent kind. No Oreos.''
Gibson's family is like millions of others across the country, and thousands in the region.
At the last census in 1990, 3,328 poor families in the five cities of South Hampton Roads and Isle of Wight County had someone working full time, year-round, according to the nonprofit Planning Council in Norfolk. Not included in that statistic were the many other families supported by someone working temporarily or part time.
The heads of these households work, just as society and the government say they should. They have learned, though, that hard work alone isn't always enough.
A major premise of welfare reform is that getting people to work will get them off welfare. What isn't usually discussed is the reality that, because there are so many low-paying jobs, many people work full-time or more and still need public assistance.
The welfare reform debate in Virginia - and in Congress - has centered on establishing cutoff times for benefits and requiring recipients to find jobs. By many measures, the American economy is healthy, so the requirements may not sound so tough. But the economy's been changing in recent decades.
There are fewer entry-level manufacturing jobs and more service-related ones. This means lower wages, fewer benefits and less job security. Steadier, higher-paying jobs require technological skills that many poor workers lack. More separated and never-married parents mean more poor families depending on one wage earner.
Overall, studies show, more workers are slipping into poverty. The Census Bureau reported in 1994 that, between 1979 and 1992, the number of full-time workers with incomes below the poverty level increased 50 percent, from 12 percent to 18 percent of the workforce.
Congressional Quarterly reported in November that 38 million Americans were poor as defined by the government, and therefore eligible for public assistance. Though some may exist idly on the dole, a majority - 22 million - work or live in households where someone works.
These are America's working poor. One of them is Phyllis Gibson.
Raised in a Navy family, Gibson already was waitressing full time when she dropped out of Norfolk's Norview High School near the end of the 10th grade. She wanted to be able to afford nice things, such as designer jeans.
``They didn't ask me for my age,'' she said of her early employers. ``They didn't ask for a work permit. So I worked.''
She married her boyfriend - who had dropped out before her - in a civil ceremony in 1983 at age 17. She had her two girls by the time she was 24.
Gibson later earned her high-school equivalency certificate, taking night classes without her disapproving husband's knowledge. Another four months of business school followed. She worked the whole time.
Then things fell apart.
There were troubles at home and, in 1993, after almost 10 years of marriage, Gibson and her husband separated.
A judge awarded her custody of the girls and $65 a month in child support. She said she's had little contact with her husband since, and the child-support payments have been sporadic.
Her parents helped watch the girls while she worked two jobs - data-entry clerk at a furniture store during the day, waitress at a restaurant at night - to pay the rent and other bills.
But continued run-ins with her estranged husband eventually cost Gibson one job, she said. Her hours were reduced on other jobs. Eventually, her parents couldn't help as much, and Gibson moved in with a friend. With her day-care bills, it began to cost Gibson more to work than not to.
Her last job before going on welfare ended the week before Christmas 1994. Gibson spent her remaining dollars on gas, driving around Virginia Beach each day, applying for work at restaurants, stores, offices. Her despair grew with each rejection.
``I found myself for the first time in my life with no sense of direction,'' she said. ``I was told at some jobs that I was overqualified. At some jobs I was told I was under-qualified.''
In January 1995, Gibson's only income was about $25 a week she earned from neighbors for baby sitting, yard work and other odd jobs. Most went to gas up the 15-year-old Buick sedan she used to hunt jobs. She considered leaving her children with her parents so they'd have enough food and a roof.
``I thought, `What will I do?' '' Gibson said. `` `My children and I will be homeless.'
``That's what brought me to the system. There was no other way. . . . You have to do something, to feed them. You start thinking, `What are my options here?' ''
Welfare. She hated the idea.
``It was really hard for me,'' she said. ``I was always an independent person, and able to take care of myself.''
Gibson registered with Social Services in January 1995 and began receiving about $250 a month in Aid to Families with Dependent Children payments, plus food stamps and health care for her children.
By April, she was in a mandatory Work Experience Program, which boosted her sagging self-confidence and showed her she wasn't alone in her quandry. Social workers helped her write her first resume and present her best side in job interviews.
Within months, two bulging manila envelopes provided ready measures of Gibson's job-hunting frustration.
Both were several inches thick. They contained records of more than 240 calls or visits she made about possible employment. Of almost 100 applications she filed. Of another 100 resumes she mailed or delivered.
Gibson's high was 30 job-seeking ``contacts'' in a single day.
Still, no job.
Bank teller. Billing clerk. Data-entry clerk. Sales clerk. Car saleswoman. Insurance saleswoman. Tax preparer.
She applied for everything, and got nothing.
Gibson kept the records as much for herself as for any government official who might question her willingness to work, her willingness to move herself and her daughters off the welfare rolls.
Welfare. A big irony for the 29-year-old mother was that she had always worked, since she was 15, sometimes two jobs at a time. Hadn't she married, had two children, earned her high-school equivalency diploma and taken some business-college courses, all while working?
Her sowing of applications led to a few work offers, but they conflicted with her daughters' day care, so she couldn't accept them. Meanwhile, she volunteered at the day-care unit at Social Services, took additional clerical training and registered with a temporary-employment agency.
And she kept applying. Some days she had to miss class because she had so many interviews scheduled.
About September, the temp agency came through.
Gibson was offered a few weeks' office work right there at Social Services. From there, she won an open-ended temporary job as a desk clerk in the agency's emergency-screening program, interviewing people seeking aid.
Then came a second irony. The welfare system's network of training and employment programs had helped Gibson get a job, but not get off welfare. Not entirely.
``I never expected after 10 years of marriage to be separated, have two children and be on my own - absolutely on my own,'' Gibson said recently.
``It's certainly not easy out here for anyone, at all.''
Gibson's performance was evaluated in January, which she hopes might lead to a permanent position with Social Services. She hopes it also would mean a raise, and an end to her time on welfare.
While Gibson is highly motivated, she's not unique, said Kathy A. Lowe, a senior social worker who has worked with Gibson.
Most of Lowe's welfare clients make it out of the system within two years, she said. They just need help to get past their fear and bottomed-out self-esteem, and to take advantage of the agency's training in job-search skills, like Gibson did.
``The good news for us was, she was in the right place at the right time and it clicked,'' Lowe said. ``I think that kind of gave her that click that, `Hey, I'm worth something. I can do this.'
``She used every opportunity to show what she could do. And it worked.''
Partly worked. So far.
So Gibson's still job-hunting, her manila folders growing fatter.
She loves working at Social Services, but she's learned to have Plans B and C lined up in case Plan A fails.
``I can't complain, because I'm able to pay for my necessities,'' she said.
``I can't do what I want, but a lot of people can't.''
Gibson recently moved to a smaller apartment because it had a yard for her girls, and because she could get a break on the rent by doing repair work for the landlord. One of the first things she wants to do once she's stopped receiving public assistance is to buy curtains for her windows and a new outfit for herself from Kmart or Montgomery Ward without having to wait for a sale.
Someday she'd like to be a probation or truant officer. As Lowe said, Gibson now has hope.
But the young mother's also angry.
She's angry that even though she's working, she still needs help. That she has to think twice before buying chicken for her girls, and they have to eat Hamburger Helper three days in a row. That they can't go to the movies. That they're forced to make recreation out of household chores, or of singing and dancing to the radio.
It's been tough on the children, especially Gibson's older daughter, who was used to them being able to buy things.
``It's always disappointing when a child asks if she can have a piece of candy and you have to say, `No, I do not have it,' '' Gibson said.
So she keeps looking for jobs. And takes the kids on free walks on the beach. And uses scraps of old material to sew clothes for their Barbie dolls, and aluminum foil to fashion angel wings for their homemade Halloween costumes.
And accepts the public assistance she's entitled to - and still needs.
``If it wasn't there, I don't know what I'd do - I don't know,'' Gibson said.
``And that makes me angry, to say you can't make it without someone else's help.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
JAMES WALKER/The Virginian-Pilot
MICHAEL AND MARION MENDES
When minimum-wage jobs didn't pay the bills, they started their own
cleaning company. They still need welfare for five children. Story
on A6.
PHYLLIS A. GIBSON
Mother of two works full time for Social Services, but still needs
help from food stamps, Medicaid health coverage and day-care
subsidies.
by CNB