Work for Welfare

! The issue has divided liberals and conservatives for decades. But lawmakers from both ends of California's political spectrum have joined forces to approve a new approach to the vexing problem of welfare. The beneficiary of this bipartisan harmony is Greater Avenues for Independence (GAIN), a program that would require many able-bodied welfare recipients to accept training and jobs along with their government checks. California's work-for-welfare, or workfare, bill won in the state senate by a vote of 32 to 2 and in the assembly by 60 to 9. Last week Republican Governor George Deukmejian signed the measure into law.

More than 20 states, most notably Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, have put some form of workfare in place. But California officials say that GAIN is the most far-reaching; it includes strict provisions for cutting off payments to those who do not participate, and a large-scale effort to make sure that those who do will get adequate training and job-placement services. Roughly one- third of California's 586,000 Aid to Families with Dependent Children cases will be affected. The handicapped will be exempt, as will single parents with children under the age of six. All other healthy AFDC recipients will be ordered to take any necessary training, ranging from remedial math and language classes to high school equivalency courses.

When the training is completed, the welfare client has three months to find work. A trainee whose search is unsuccessful is sent to a one-year pre- employment preparation program to work off the welfare grant in an assigned job. For instance, an AFDC mother trained as a day-care worker who could not find a job on her own might be assigned to work in a public child- care center to receive her monthly grant of $600 plus about $125 worth of food stamps.

GAIN is expected to cost $304 million a year when fully operational. Says David Swoap, secretary of California's health and welfare agency: "What GAIN is designed to do is stop the revolving door and enable people to leave the welfare system on a permanent basis and achieve self-sufficiency." Opponents of workfare have traditionally argued that it can be demeaning and unfair to force recipients to take make-work jobs, and critics in California say they doubt there will be enough meaningful work for the trainees. Says Democratic Assemblyman Tom Bates: "It's cruel to send people through a training program and not get them a job." Nevertheless, GAIN attracted broad support among Republicans who have long opposed traditional welfare plans, as well as among Democrats who want to support jobs programs yet avoid being pegged as big spenders hooked on giving handouts to the disadvantaged.