July 29, 2007
Omaha World-Herald
Erin Grace
 
Work requirements and time limits were the hallmark changes of the welfare overhaul Congress passed in 1996. Nebraska's version, Employment First, was enacted one year earlier as a pilot program.

The government pushed jobs and, in turn, promised to help able-bodied parents enter or return to the work force by providing supports. Welfare recipients automatically got food stamps and Medicaid. They also got child care subsidies, job training and help with transportation and utilities.

The goal: to move people to self-sufficiency.

But what happened over those 11 years often was a trade of one public assistance program for another.

Millions of Americans stopped getting cash payments; many more signed up for food stamps, Medicaid, state-subsidized child care and the Earned Income Tax Credit.

According to the National Poverty Center, spending on cash welfare has dropped while spending on other anti-poverty programs has risen dramatically. Overall, the University of Michigan-based center said, government spending on public assistance is up.

Advocates for the poor say continued reliance on government aid means welfare changes failed to help people become less dependent.

"When you have an economy full of $7-an-hour retail jobs, those are the kinds of jobs people coming off of welfare are going to get," said Elizabeth Lower-Basch, a senior policy analyst for the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Law and Social Policy. "If we have an economy full of jobs you can't live on, we're going to need supplemental programs."

Attorney Becky Gould, interim director of the Lincoln-based Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest, argues that the government too quickly cuts people off of public assistance before they're on their feet.

Those leaving welfare for work can receive the following transitional benefits: a fifth of their last Aid to Dependent Children check for up to five months, food stamps for five months, Medicaid for one year, and state-paid child care for up to two years for incomes up to 185% of the federal poverty line ($31,765 for a family of three). A single mother of two making the transition off welfare could earn up to $15 an hour, or $31,765 a year, and keep her state-paid child care.

But when the two years runs out, workers face lower income ceilings. A job paying less than $10 an hour, about $20,600 a year, disqualifies a single mother of two from child care assistance.

Shanta Metoyer, director of the Simple Simon's day care chain in north Omaha, describes workers who have reduced work hours or turned down raises to keep from losing benefits.

Daryl Wusk, a state administrator in the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, said the state provides a safety net for "the very needy."

"(Benefits) are not intended to be a lifestyle," he said. "They're intended to be a stopgap measure."