Welfare-Plus In Washington

By Howard G. Chua-Eoan

The cruel Catch-22 of welfare is that it often punishes recipients who try to work their way out of poverty. By taking away benefits from the poor when their income starts to climb, welfare discourages incentive. A novel program in Washington State proposes to turn that problem on its head by offering bonuses as well as benefits to welfare recipients who work or undergo job training. In effect, Washington wants to tell the poor: Whatever you earn (up to a point), you can keep -- and we'll add to it.

Under the Family Independence Program proposed last November by Governor Booth Gardner, the incentives for working are substantial. A woman with two children earning close to minimum wage might take home as much as $10,464 a year: $7,752 in salary and government benefits, plus an additional $2,712 in bonuses. That is 15% above the current poverty level for a family of three. As the wages of a participant increase, the bonuses and benefits gradually decrease. The enrollee loses the assistance only when her pay exceeds the $10,464 benchmark.

FIP's sponsors must first guide it through a vote in the state legislature, then ask the U.S. Congress for permission to replace such long-standard outlays as Aid to Families with Dependent Children, food stamps and Medicaid. The federal money earmarked for those programs would be matched with state grants and poured into new benefits, bonuses, job training and family-planning courses, as well as subsidies for the private employers who are expected to absorb two-thirds of the FIP graduates.

Olympia's approach may well find support in Congress. Last week a study by the Joint Economic Committee of the House and Senate recommended that federal officials consider replacing traditional benefits with so-called workfare subsidies that pay welfare recipients to undergo job training. The report proposes that states be allowed to experiment more freely with welfare.

If approved, the Family Independence Program will be stringently applied. All families on welfare, including women with infants as young as six months, would be enrolled within two years. Other states' workfare programs exempt mothers of preschool children. In Washington, mothers unable to work due to disability or who must care for an infirm family member will continue to receive regular benefits. Those who can work yet refuse to do so will have their grants cut by 20%.

Critics are apprehensive about the program's goal of full employment for the indigent. Says Phil Kaplan, a Washington State welfare-rights advocate: "The pressure on women to leave their children and go to work could increase the chances of abuse or neglect. The program puts infants and toddlers on the firing line." Some members of the legislature also doubt that the state economy can create the 72,000 jobs required to absorb FIP trainees and others entering the market by 1990.

Gardner replies that the state can solve both the employment and infant-care problems by putting welfare mothers to work in day-care centers, which are expected to grow through state subsidies from an $8 million-a-year business to $116 million a year. FIP, he says, "won't cost more than the current welfare program, and it won't save money either. But it will save lives and self- esteem, careers and families."

With reporting by Meg Grant/Seattle