Thursday, January 22, 1998

Welfare reform takes steps on long journey

Gov. George W. Bush does well to be getting out in front of Texas' drive to move people from welfare to work, as he did at a press conference in Abilene on Tuesday. Not merely an altruistic impulse to help those who are losing benefits through federal welfare reform, this effort is essential to maintain a healthy state economy.

If welfare recipients do not have paychecks to spend in the place of millions of dollars in benefit checks, then Texas businesses -- grocery and clothing stores, for example -- will see big drops in their income. Such adverse effects would reverberate throughout the economy. Thus, the self-interest of a productive society requires finding a way for those on welfare to move into the economic mainstream of self-sufficiency.

Progress is being made in Texas. After months of less-than-stellar advances -- falling short of the first deadline for having a certain percentage of welfare recipients in jobs or job training and therefore coming under threat of a $25 million federal fine -- Texas is finding its way, guided by the example of businessmen like Abilene restaurateur Ron English.

Last year, English began a concerted effort to hire welfare recipients at his Burger Kings and went further to encourage other local businesses to do the same, leading to a monthly welfare-to-work job fair joined by some 15 Abilene employers. In recognition, English was honored with the state's first Texas Works Partnership Award in December. Texas Department of Human Services Commissioner Eric Bost presented identical certificates to Tom Perini of Perini Ranch Steak House in Buffalo Gap and Jeff Andrews of Zapata's Cafe & Cantina on Tuesday.

Similar projects have sprung up statewide as employers begin to see that the goals of helping others and helping themselves mesh and that the responsibility for reforming welfare can't be simply pushed off onto DHS workers. Officials in the Texas Workforce Commission report major corporations across the state are wanting to know how they can get involved in the welfare-to-work movement. Those officials also say that after the progress of the past few months, the $25 million fine will likely be reduced to around $1.5 million.

Not an accomplished fact

Such positive steps in Abilene and in Texas lead in the right direction, but solving the welfare problem is far from being accomplished. In fact, as long as time limits remain on welfare benefits, it will be the continuing responsibility of a thriving economy to find employment for all its able-bodied citizens.

Even former welfare recipients who have gone to work face more challenges. Clearly, a single mother of three cannot provide for her family on a minimum-wage job with no medical insurance. Child care and transportation are huge barriers to self-sufficiency. As Bost says, helping people get a job is not the end of the road. After that, the goal is for a better job and, ultimately, for a career.

Abilene and Texas are waking up to the reality that welfare reform is not just a challenge for those who are losing welfare benefits. Nor is it a problem with an easy, one-time fix. Rather, it is now a perpetual concern that touches us all and calls for new cultural attitudes toward the broad range of lives that make up our interconnected, interdependent society.