The twilight of liberal welfare reform

Public Interest, Spring, 2000 by Lawrence M. Mead

In the work-based aid system that is emerging, however, the expectation is that clients "work first," and then get aid only if they remain needy. Now earnings are primary and welfare is the supplement. New Hope was the first program to achieve that end. At the close of each month, clients had to turn in wage stubs to indicate their earnings. The program calculated the government wage subsidies that they would receive, then added to this any New Hope supplement needed to reach the poverty line. New Hope also expected clients to help pay for their health and child care, like other workers, and these co-pays too were adjusted as earnings changed. Most important of all, administrators verified that clients had averaged the 30 hours a week needed to qualify for benefits.

The core of the New Hope organization was its case managers, each responsible for about 75 clients. These "project reps" introduced clients to the program, arranged their benefits, then adjusted them each month. In traditional welfare, clerks determine eligibility and benefits while higher-status case workers arrange services to move clients toward independence. New Hope's project reps performed both tasks in order to reduce welfare fraud and to serve their clients better. By calculating benefits, the project reps found out whether or not clients were working; by helping clients find work, they came to know much about the clients' lives, which deterred cheating.

The project reps' initial stance was to assist clients who came to them seeking benefits, but since take-up was low, they also sought the involvement of nonparticipating eligibles. That meant locating them, persuading them to work, helping them to meet the 30-hour work requirement, if necessary through a CSJ, and helping them to solve all the practical and family problems that might stop them from working. The staff were coaches and hand-holders, but they also believed in "work first." They told clients that it was best for them to take available jobs now, not hold out for better ones. The emphasis was on discharging expectations in order to get benefits. To get ahead, poor adults need help, but many also need structure--someone watching over them to be sure that they "do the right thing." New Hope fused the help with the hassle more seamlessly than any program has done.

Clients responded very positively. Many said that the encouragement they received from the project reps was the best thing about New Hope. They contrasted the skill and resourcefulness of their project reps with the deficiencies of the Milwaukee welfare department's case managers. Due to New Hope, families with children received markedly more practical assistance, counseling, and emotional support than families not in the program. The New Hope experiment clearly suggests that case managers with powers both to help and obligate the dependent poor might begin to reverse the defeatism that is the strongest deterrent to their advancement.

In the shadow of W-2

New Hope was a side show to the great drama going on in welfare. In a reform extending back to the mid 1980s, Wisconsin transformed its welfare system more radically than any other state. It gradually instituted work requirements of uncommon stringency. Along with a good economy, these drove the welfare rolls down to around 10 percent of their level when the reform began--the most drastic fall in the nation.