April 18, 2000

Special Report:

Changing welfare roles in Iowa
cut caseloads, not social problems

Madelaine Jerousek
digital iowa staff reporter
Drake University

DES MOINES, Iowa — Jessica Godfroy has a job. That may not be saying much for some, but for her, it's life changing. For Godfroy, 28, a divorced mother of three young children, working is the difference between supporting her family on her own and relying on government assistance.

Godfroy is one of thousands of Iowans who have moved off of welfare and into full-time employment since sweeping reforms changed the state of welfare in the late 1990s.

Welfare reform changed dramatically in 1996, when the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act made moving people from welfare to work a primary goal of federal welfare policy in the late 1990s.

The 1997 federal Balanced Budget Act authorized $3 billion in grants to states and communities to develop programs that would help welfare recipients find jobs and get off welfare, and states began developing their own programs.

It has been one big experiment all over the country. The grants came with few instructions: find people jobs, help them succeed and get them off of welfare.

Iowa has received about $7.5 million each year since 1998 to support state-sponsored welfare-to-work programs. The funds are used by the Iowa Department of Human Services' Family Investment Program and its related work component, PROMISE JOBS. The funds are divided into 15 regions, and each has established its own welfare-to-work program.

The Des Moines-based program, called Work to Win, includes FIP recipients in eight counties. The programs are highly individualized, focusing on each person's obstacles.

"When we first start working with people, we try to tackle the most basic barriers to finding a job: lack of education, lack of work history, lack of reliable day care and lack of transportation," said Darrell Jensen, coordinator of the Des Moines-based program.

Counselors work with job-seekers through every step of the process, from teaching interview skills to finding clothes to wear to a job interview to how to use an alarm clock. They help their clients find transportation — whether that means teaching them how to use public transportation or fixing up their car — and help pay for reliable child care while they're at work.

The hardest part, Jensen said, is teaching peole the skills they need to stay on the job.

"We work a lot on retention. We visit them on the job site and talk to their employers. We train them how to deal with co-workers and how to deal with problems on the job."

For the most part, Jensen said, employers are satisfied with their welfare hires. When the program first started, Jensen said it was harder to find employers to hire people on welfare. "We tell them, they're just like anyone else that walks in off the street. The chance that they'll succeed is about as good as any other person," he said.

The Des Moines center doesn't keep data on how long clients remain in their jobs, but Rita Shudak, coordinator of the Council Bluffs program, said of 23 people enrolled in their program, just three have left their jobs in the last year. "We have a pretty high retention rate because people feel good about what they're doing," she said. "Their self-esteem is rising because they feel like they’re doing something important for their families."

No case is ever easy, program coordinators agreed. John Williams, the state’s PROMISE JOBS director, said welfare counselors are seeing more and more people with multiple barriers, such as drug abuse, mental illness or learning disabilities coming into the program. "The key is identifying those things right away and getting them the appropriate help," he said. Charles Palmer, director of the Iowa Department of Human Services, said the next step in state welfare-to-work programs must be helping people find higher paying jobs. "Having a job doesn't mean a whole lot if you don't make enough to support your family," he said. "We can't think we're done once a person leaves welfare. We have to continue to help them move ahead."

The success of the job programs depends as much on the welfare recipients as it does on the actual programs, Jensen said.

"Some people will take longer than others to find and keep a job. The only thing we can offer is opportunity. It's their responsibility to succeed."

Hopeful Statistics; Sad Realities

Some say it is the greatest achievement in welfare reform since the New Deal. Others say the success rates are deceptive.

Whatever can be said about the changes in welfare since 1996's sweeping reforms, one thing is certain. It has largely achieved its goals: more people are working, and fewer people are on welfare.

Nearly 7 million fewer people are receiving welfare in the United States now than in 1993, a 50 percent decline. Although some say the decline reflects a strong job market, a study by the Council of Economic Advisers found that welfare reform accounts for at least one-third of that reduction since 1996.

The Welfare to Work Partnership's 1999 national survey showed that programs that move people from welfare into jobs helped nearly 650,000 welfare recipients find work since 1997. Businesses hired 239,000 former welfare recipients last year, up nearly 10 percent from 1998, when 218,000 were hired.

In Iowa, the initiative has been highly successful, based on its own statistics. The state has consistently had some of the highest rates of moving welfare recipients into jobs. Since 1993, Iowa's welfare caseloads have been cut by more than 40 percent. Nearly 60 percent of welfare recipients were working at least 20 hours per week last year, the Iowa Department of Human Services reports.

But while many families are moving from welfare to work, little is known about what this transition really means for a group of people plagued by much greater social problems that a full-time job can’t solve.

Critics of the reform say moving people from welfare to work doesn't necessarily solve the biggest problems of poverty. Socially and economically, many obstacles still remain. People have jobs, but they are not necessarily out of poverty. Many are single parents who are still struggling to support four or five person households on minimum wage incomes. They often live in violent neighborhoods and are tempted to use drugs.

Families have moved from welfare to the lowest rungs of poverty, and they continue to struggle just as much — sometimes more — even after they've found jobs. Many families do not receive benefits like food stamps and Medicaid when they move from welfare to work, things that are still needed to supplement their low wages, critics say. Nearly 40 percent reported problems paying rent and utility bills last year, a study by the Urban Institute revealed.

Godfroy is among them. Despite having a full-time job, she still gets food stamps and some household goods from a local welfare agency. She can pay only a small portion of the rent on her federally subsidized apartment. And her paycheck doesn't take her out of poverty, which the federal government defines as those making less than $16,700 for a family of four.

All the statistics agree on one thing: children are the ones most negatively affected by growing numbers of working parents. The Children's Defense Fund has reported that 3.7 million families with children were living in poverty last year — the highest number in 23 years — despite being headed by someone who worked all or part of the year.

A study released in February by Yale University researchers found that children suffer most when their single mothers move from welfare to the workforce. Their development is affected by poor child care, as children often spending hours watching television with little exposure to reading.

The Future of Welfare Reform

State welfare-to-work administrators are hopeful that the program will improve when last fall's federal Work Investment Act goes into effect July 1, expanding the eligibility requirements of welfare-to-work programs.

"Hardly anyone qualified in the past," said Dianne Milobar, Iowa's director of welfare-to-work programs, "We're hoping that it will really increase the potential of the program."

But critics say no one will really know just how effective welfare-to-work programs are until later, when the strong economy weakens, when the easy cases have left the system and the harder ones remain, when time limits have kicked in. It could be years before the value of welfare-to-work programs are known, they say.

For now, the only indication of the value of welfare-to-work programs is encouraging statistics and growing group of hopeful people who are trying to make their lives better.