The new shape of welfare

A Times Editorial

© St. Petersburg Times, published September 26, 1998

he dreaded two-year cutoff point for welfare recipients in Florida is Sept. 30. Early indications are that it has not be as painful as critics of welfare overhaul predicted. Payments will end for 1,982 families who have not moved off welfare rolls since reform began Oct. 1, 1996. That is an unsettling number. But it represents progress, considering those families were part of 220,292 families on the dole when reform began in Florida.

More important, a number of those who left welfare before the deadline, after receiving education, training and work experience, benefitted while still receiving benefits. Some were granted extensions on benefits to allow them to finish school or have time to look for jobs. This emerging new face of welfare is an encouraging one. Rather than hand out money for years and then stop payments cold, Florida appears to be using reason and some humanity to reduce its welfare rolls. The state ultimately will gain for every former recipient who leaves welfare for a job.

Florida started on welfare reform before it became a federal mandate. Pilot programs were opened in several areas, offering clients education or training and later placement in jobs. When the federal mandate began, clients were required to go to work and continue education or training if they could.

Before reform, as many as 70 percent of applicants in Florida became welfare beneficiaries, according to a recent Washington Post article. Now that the state is doing things such as offering one-time payments to people in need or requiring a job search before benefits begin, the number of applicants who wind up on the rolls is down to 50 percent. That is good news if it means truly needy people are not being turned away.

With a measure of success as welfare reform approaches the first milepost, the state's job is not finished. The nearly 2,000 families expected to be cut off Sept. 30 remain a concern. So, too, do those welfare recipients whose benefits run for three years. This group includes the most chronic and most disadvantaged clients. One state welfare official said that Sept. 30 of next year may be the more critical deadline if large number of this group remain. What has become of those who disappeared from the welfare rolls but are not among the working? Are they surviving without government payments by staying in abusive relationships or resorting to prostitution?

Welfare never should have been a lifestyle for so many. However, it is still needed as a safety net for some of our poorest and most disadvantaged citizens. They will always be among us.