Questioning the Progress of Welfare Reform:

An Interview with Claudia Colton

Aired September 15, 1999

David C. Barnett–Claudia Colton is one of our area's preeminent experts in the ways that welfare is changing its face. She is a professor of Urban Research and Social Change at Case Western Reserve University, a nationally respected scholar, and she joins us on the phone. Good morning, Dr. Colton.

Claudia Colton–Good morning.

DCB–We're two years now into the three-year grace period for the first round of welfare recipients to work their way off the system. Do you have a sense of where we stand? Do you think welfare reform is working?

CC–I see more people leaving welfare now and in the last several years and had been leaving welfare before, but a lot of it has to do with the good economy. Studies have shown that in a very tight economy, such as we have right now, even people who have difficulty at other times getting employment are able to find employment.

DCB–So how close are we to the line if the economy takes a downturn?

CC–I think that the number of people we've seen leaving welfare on their own recently would shrink if the economy took a downturn and the local agencies would have to do more and do it for more people, in terms of helping people to raise their skills and move out of this, really, part of the labor market that is very vulnerable to recession, which is the low-skill labor market.

DCB–Are the time limits an issue with you, are we allowing enough time for adequate job training, you think?

CC–I think it's a matter of whether we're allowing adequate time, but it's also a matter of whether we're able to get sufficient numbers of people into job training and make it effective job training, and I think right now, we're just beginning to beef up those numbers. The positive thing about welfare reform is that the community is increasing its capacity to train more people, to give more people the kind of support they need to get better jobs, and that capacity just now is taking off.

DCB–You and your colleagues have demonstrated the distance between new jobs and where the people are actually living. Do you have any sense that that is changing at all, or will change in, say, the next five or ten years?

CC–I think getting people better access to all the jobs of our region will be an important part of sustaining the progress that has been made in welfare reform. The community is addressing the transportation issue through van pools, through some changes in regular transportation routes, and the other issue we haven't addressed yet that we need to is having more affordable housing near the areas of employment growth. Right now, it's difficult for a low-income family to move to the outskirts where employment is growing.

DCB–Now you're someone who's dealing with numbers all the time and interpreting statistics. Are attempts being made to measure some of those trends that are harder to measure, like the issue of kinship care that we're finding out about now, that not everyone is part of a stable system, but they're relying on family and that sort of thing?

CC–Well, that's a very good point. We are doing a study where we are tracking people who leave welfare and we're talking to them at six months after leaving and at twelve months after leaving, and we're finding a large proportion of people do depend on other family members for their source of income. Even if they are able to work part-time or at low wages, that's insufficient, and it's family groups that include multiple adults that seem to be making a difference. This is a good thing in many ways, but our systems often treat people as if they're not part of those larger groups and we don't always have the support for grandparents and others who are very important to supporting families.

DCB–What about the whole issue of tracking and finding out what really happens to the people, after they get off welfare and into a job? I know you folks have been tracking that as well.

CC–Yes, well, Cuyahoga County is tracking through our research to see what's happening to people, and the commissioners and the directors of welfare are very serious about wanting to know both what's good and what's bad about what's happening. Ohio is doing some tracking and other states are doing tracking, so I think there is a responsibility on the part of government to see what's really happening to people.

DCB–Do you have a sense of how we in Ohio are faring in relationship to the rest of the country?

CC–I think that our welfare caseloads are falling similarly to other parts of the country. The welfare caseloads in large cities like Cleveland, though, have been falling more slowly than the balance of either Ohio or the rest of the nation, and I think with respect to tracking and trying to find out what's happening, we're doing well here in Northeast Ohio.

DCB–Claudia Colton is the Lillian Harris Professor of Urban Research and Social Change at Case Western Reserve University. Thanks for joining us this morning.

CC–Thank you.