Welfare Reform and Individual Responsibility

Aired September 15, 1999

This is INFOhio After Nine, I am David C. Barnett, welcoming you to Wednesday, the 15th day of September, 1999. A little over a year to go before a big deadline for many of Ohio's welfare recipients. That's when they'll have to either be off the welfare rolls or in some sort of job training program, and on this morning's program, we're going to peer a little further into the future, consider how much the face of welfare, how much change there will be in that face, say five, ten years from now. Case Western Reserve University researcher Claudia Colton will share some of her prognostications after hearing what others are saying. "Welfare-to-work" has become a part of our lexicon here in Ohio as people move off the dole. In 2002, Congress will debate reauthorization of the Welfare Reform Act. It's not guaranteed that it will pass again, but many predict it will, and as 90.3's Lorna Jordan reports, welfare reform may not look much different than it does today.

Lorna Jordan–Edith Weiner is president of a consulting company that considers future trends. She predicts welfare reform will still be a major issue in the United States over the next decade. During that time, Weiner predicts people will need to strive for more individual responsibility.

Edith Weiner–The future of welfare is that welfare, I believe, in a sane world, will have to move back into the environment of Christian charity. We're going to have to strengthen the concept of individual responsibility, and in order to do that, we're going to have to mentor, we're going to have to better educate, we're going to have to inculcate people with an idea of how to rapidly change in a world of rapid change. We're going to have to get people off promises, off long-term dependencies, and that's the doctor as well the person who is on welfare.

LJ–Weiner says those people who were dependent upon the dole for a long period of time will have to come to terms with will have to come to terms with a new sense of self-reliance. She adds the definition of welfare will have to change as well our definition of family. Peering into a metaphorical crystal ball, Weiner says changes in marital status could mean life-long marriage to one partner will be viewed as an alternative lifestyle.

EW–The system that we've developed of welfare and many of our other government and social and economic support systems, whether they come privately through our financial institutions or corporately through our employment contracts, had been predicated on something that is an alternative lifestyle, and when we understand the reality of that, we may be able to reform all of our financial and "welfare," whether they're private, public, financial, or about health and well-being systems, to take into account what "household" really means in the 21st century, not what family meant in the 19th century, or nuclear family meant in the 20th century.

LJ–Weiner says we have to think about poverty very differently in the 21st century. Usually, it's the very young that are caught in the safety net, but she insists that as the population ages, we're spending more and more money on the older generation. Consequently what suffers are the programs like Head Start and Aid to Dependent Children. She insists we must take care of our future capital of our nation and not neglect the children. Jean Lawrence is now the director of the Ohio Department of Aging, but when she was in the Ohio House, she helped craft the reform legislation. She predicts no differences in some spheres of welfare reform.

Jean Lawrence–There will always be some folks, I'm sure, whose handicaps are so great that they will have trouble staying in the work world, but every time I say that, I think in terms of all the people with physical and mental disabilities whom society really helps to get employment and supports in that employment, so if we can do it for those folks, why not for people who are basically poor, and perhaps undereducated.

LJ–Once federal welfare reform was passed in 1996, the money was given to the states to decide how to allocate it. The Ohio Legislature decided to hand most of the money and the responsibility to counties. Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jane Campbell has been on the front line of welfare reform. She's hoping that over the next five to ten years, the support will continue in a number of ways to help sustain working families.

Jane Campbell–More child care for families for a longer period of time, where our child care support is related to how much money the families earn rather than how long they've been off welfare. Secondly, that we're going to have health care benefits for families that are working but can't afford health care benefits, and I think the third part, which is one that really is evolving that we're working on now, is that we invest in training to upgrade the scales of people who are already in the workforce.

LJ–Overall, Campbell says she's hoping the money traditionally used for cash benefits to welfare recipients will be used to continue job training, even after the recipient has found employment. Despite the move off of welfare by many people, it appears as if five to ten years from now, we'll still be debating just how much to give to some of the poorest of the poor, who continue to need public assistance. For INFOhio, this is Lorna Jordan in Cleveland.