New Welfare Reforms

“In a real-world context, you can’t go to your prospective employer and say, ‘I need 24 hours of work and they can’t conflict with my class schedule’,” explains Julie Strawn, senior policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP). States will only be able to create so many work-study programs allowing a flexible work schedule, she says. 

The House legislation would mean the end of extended full-time vocational training for single mothers while on welfare and a much-reduced chance of completing part-time studies or job training. The bill that would implement these changes, HR 240, has a good chance of becoming law, Strawn and other experts believe, because earlier versions of it have passed in the House in 2002 and 2003. Also, the bill is in sync with the Bush administration’s welfare policies. 

The Senate has not made comparable progress on its own legislation, leaving Congress little option but to extend the 1996 welfare provisions under Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF), which first expired in 2002 and has been living off extensions. But the issue of work first versus training and education can’t be avoided forever. 

For the welfare-dependent single mothers who would be affected, college is a means to long-term economic self-sufficiency—a way out of $7-an-hour jobs with no health benefits for the rest of their lives. But they also see the achievement of skills and education as the chance to set a powerful example of empowerment for their children. As documented in the recent book of essays, Shut Out: Low Income Mothers and Higher Education in Post-Welfare America , higher education is the path to self-respect, a zealously guarded goal for many welfare recipients enrolled in college or occupational training programs. 

Lovida Bondoc, a single mother of three in Irvine, California is a case in point. After an abusive marriage in her late teens and early 20s, “My self esteem was destroyed,” she remembers. “I felt I was crushed and I had nothing to show for it…. I felt school was my only hope.” 

In five years, education has helped Bondoc transform her life from a high school dropout to a college senior majoring in political science. She couldn’t have done it, she says, without receiving welfare during the early part of her education. (Her ex-husband was eventually forced to pay $800 month child support which covers less than half of her rent and family expenses.) 

But welfare is only one part of the story as it doesn’t explain the considerable drive and courage it took for Bondoc to flee her marriage, earn her GED, care for her kids, take college classes, and squeeze in odd jobs like cleaning houses, temping, and babysitting. Bondoc, who will graduate from the University of California, Irvine in June, is pursuing a teaching credential. She hopes to find a job in a school serving disadvantaged students. “I came from a poor neighborhood,” says Bondoc. “I know what it’s like to be an immigrant.” 

In some ways, Bondoc’s situation is atypical. For one, her children’s father can now be counted on to pay child support. In addition, low-income single mothers more often seek vocational training than a four-year degree. This is because states allowing long-term higher education define it to mean a program with a focus on job skills. 

“In this context, post-secondary education is not typically art history, but one or two years toward an occupational certificate,” Strawn says. “Long-term training means occupational studies at the community college level. We’re talking about LPNs, health, and office work.”

These professions, while they may not open as many doors as a bachelor’s degree, still represent a step up for low-wage earners. Research proves the economic payoff of a two-year program (www. centerwomenpolicy.org). Meanwhile, a four-year degree is practically an antidote to welfare dependency, research shows. 

It has been a hard slog for educationally ambitious single mothers receiving public assistance since welfare was reformed in 1996. Even though states have preserved access to job training or college in varying degrees, it’s gotten much more difficult for women in these programs. Confusion over the new rules ushered in by the 1996 reforms, the aggressively work-first attitude of welfare caseworkers, and stricter work-hour minimums have taken a toll. 

A recent study reported a 46 percent drop in enrollment of welfare recipients in 15 Massachusetts community colleges between 1995 and 1997, for example. The enrollment of welfare recipients in the City University of New York dropped 77 percent, according to a 2001 study (www.centerwomen policy.org). 

Besides chronicling the uphill battle of welfare recipients fighting to stay enrolled in college or community colleges, Shut Out offers some forward-looking recommendations. Colleges need to make it easier for time-crunched single parents by offering compressed semesters and providing more classes at nontraditional times, the book argues. In addition, financial aid should be restructured so that it doesn’t favor enrollment on a full-time basis, which is increasingly not an option for welfare recipients. 

Meanwhile, work-first advocates in the House hope this most recent extension of current welfare policy will be the last and they have plenty of time, will, and support to press their agenda. Opponents are hoping that states will want to avoid the proposed law’s new demands and that the Senate will favor less harsh measures. “The House is so conservative that the Senate is where we’re going to put our time,” says Tucker.