Encouragement in Drop of Welfare Rolls:
An Interview with George Frasier

Aired April 1, 1999

David C. Barnett–Clevelander George Frasier has made a profitable career out of motivating people to achieve. He's a nationally recognized expert in economic development and entrepreneurship. He's the founder and Chairman of the Board of a company called Success Source, and his most recent book is called Race for Success:The Ten Best Business Opportunities for Blacks in America. I spoke with him this morning, and he says he's encouraged by the fact that the welfare rolls in Ohio are dropping rapidly.

George Frasier–I think, yes, absolutely, as an African-American I think it's a very good thing. I think welfare as we knew it was not working and that we needed to develop a new system that would not perpetuate generational welfare, and that we needed to develop a system that would encourage and promote work, and the respect for work and the respect for money, and I think that many of the people who have left the welfare rolls, about 500,000 in the last year-and-a-half according to all the reports that I've read, understand that it's time to call on the extended families, time to make some sacrifices, it's time to hunker down, to get trained, it's boot strap time, so I think in the long run welfare reform is good, but in the near term, it's just like new birth - it's painful and messy, and some people will be hurt by it.

DCB–There are many critics who are claiming that we don't know what's happening to these people. They're dropping off the rolls, but we don't know where they're going, and maybe it's temporary jobs, maybe it's low-paying jobs, that sort of thing.

GF–I think it is temporary jobs, I think it is low-paying jobs, I think a lot of them are getting entry-level jobs and I think some of them are going back to being cared for or more dependent upon extended families members. I think some of them are truly being, a small percentage, four, five, maybe ten percent, are truly being hurt by this reform and are falling through the cracks and some of them may even be on the streets, but I think it's a very tiny percentage.

DCB–So you think that most of them are doing okay, or are heading in the right direction.

GF–I think they're heading in the right direction, and they're doing better, I think, psychologically and psychically than they could have ever done by maintaining a life of entitlement, by maintaining a life of welfare. For someone to be on welfare for ten, fifteen, or twenty years, or to be a second or third generation welfare mother or father is not good. It's not good for anyone, and we know that it happens and we know that circumstances sometimes create those conditions, but it's not healthy, and we have the responsibility to each other to find ways to avoid that and to build a safety net and to ensure that people have, in this country, an opportunity to get trained and to learn basic skills, to be socialized into the workplace, and to fully maximize their human potential.

DCB–By some accounts there aren't enough of the right kinds of jobs for all of the people who are due to come off welfare. What do you think about that?

GF–I think unemployment, of course, is at an all-time low in this country and I think opportunities to work are at an all-time high. There are a huge number of entry-level positions-they may not be the most desirable positions-in the restaurant industry, in the hotel industry, small business clerical. These are sort of routine kind of jobs, but I think people who are going into the workplace for the first time must not see these jobs as menial or they being too good for these jobs or beneath them. They can't this kind of work as meaningless work.

DCB–What about some of those jobs keeping people on a level of just being working poor, because it doesn't give them quite enough to keep having that stepping stone, it turns into this vicious cycle that just enough to get by and then you're still trapped?

GF–Yeah, and we know that a lot of minimum wage-type jobs, and even jobs paying a dollar or two above minimum wage, $7 or $8 an hour, can keep people in the working poor category, especially if you have a family of two or three where there is day care and after-school care and there's health care that's needed, and of course that can be a vicious trap, and I think the government still has a role in this whole welfare reform initiative, and that role is to teach those who are coming off of welfare the socialization skills, providing them the training and the health care and the day care and the after-school care until a person can work themselves from the bottom rung of the ladder and a basic minimum wage income to something more substantial that will help them get out of the working poor.

DCB–Your main message seems to be aimed at African-Americans who want to start their own businesses. I wonder if there's been any effort to encourage these sorts of entrepreneurs to extend a hand to these former welfare recipients who are just looking for their own breaks?

GF–I think, absolutely, I think many small business people are, if they're smart, they're seeing this whole reform in welfare as a boom, really, because it is an opportunity to provide training, to provide basic socialization skills training. It is an opportunity to provide computerized administration of this whole new system, it's an opportunity for day care and after-care schools, it's an opportunity for small vehicle transportation. There are huge entrepreneurial opportunities in the reform of welfare and as we create work and jobs through entrepreneurship, there are a number of those who were on public assistance that can be hired to do some of this work as we reform the system. So I think that if we're creative and we're smart, we will see the opportunities in this reform because billions of dollars will be spent on all of the sectors of reform and we ought to be creating new businesses, thus creating new jobs, and some of those jobs ought to go to those people who are ready, willing, and able to work.

DCB–Thank you very much, Mr. Frasier.

DCB–I appreciate it.

DCB–George Frasier is a Cleveland-based entrepreneur and a nationally-recognized motivational speaker.