================================================================ The BIRCH BARK BBS / 414-242-5070 ================================================================ America's Future, Inc., Behind The Headlines, May 1996 Change The Orientation Of Welfare --------------------------------- by F.R. Duplantier What is the real purpose of welfare? Is it meant to help the unfortunate get back on their feet, or was it designed from the beginning to create a permanent underclass? "The focus of Indiana's welfare policy should be to help families become self-sufficient," says Andrew Bush of the Hudson Institute in Indianapolis. "Gov-ernment can best achieve this goal by recognizing its own limitations and by drawing on the strengths of charities, community-based organizations, and other private service providers." In the April issue of Alternatives in Philanthropy, published by the Capital Research Center, Bush reports on the Indiana Independence Initiative, a graduated work-based plan that "would dramatically change the orientation of welfare." This Initiative would help "able-bodied parents find immediate work," says Bush. It also "would open public aid to a wide range of non-government service providers that would help families pursue self- sufficiency." In the same issue of Alternatives in Philanthropy, Michael Hartmann of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute in Milwaukee reports that the Badger State "has imposed stringent work requirements on welfare recipients and has successfully moved many able-bodied recipients into productive work." Wisconsin's welfare caseload fell nearly 25 percent during a period in which state caseloads across the country "increased by an average of 35 percent." In 1988, Wisconsin implemented the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills program, which, as Hartmann explains, "required caseworkers to closely monitor and motivate welfare recipients in their search for employment." In 1993, the state implemented a program called Work, Not Welfare, which "limits AFDC payments to two years and offers major job-training services." The state legislature recently approved a new program called Wisconsin Works, which provides "four graduated work options" for welfare recipients. "Recipients unable to perform self-sustaining work will engage in work activities, vocational rehabilitation, and counseling," says Hartmann of the first, transitional phase of the program. "Recipients will learn work habits and job skills necessary for employment in the private sector" by doing community-service jobs in the second phase. A period of subsidized employment follows, after which participants "will be guided to the best available immediate job in the private sector." Also in the April issue of Alternatives in Philanthropy, Tom Tancredo and Dwight Filley of the Independence Institute in Golden, Colorado point out that social pathologies such as juvenile delinquency, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, and welfare dependency have all been linked to "the absence of a married father in the household." Given this documented correlation, they ask, "why does government policy seem geared toward driving fathers away?" Despite the "oppressive burden of federal laws," Colorado still has "considerable latitude to end the perverse incen-tives that wreck families and contribute to our social ills," say Tancredo and Filley. "AFDC, for example, is a matching fund program. If the Colorado legis-lature refused to fund its share, AFDC would end in the state." America's Future, 7800 Bonhomme, St. Louis MO 63105 Phone: 314-725-6003 Fax: 314-721-3373