SBA to help small firms hire welfare recipients

Nation's Business, Oct, 1997 by David Warner

The U.S. Small Business Administration has pledged to use its nationwide network of business advisers and information centers to help small-business owners tap the pool of workers available as a result of the nation's 1996 welfare-reform law.

The law requires most able-bodied adults to find work within two years after they begin receiving welfare benefits, and it limits lifetime benefits to five years.

SBA Administrator Aida Alvarez said the agency will take a leading role in the Clinton administration's welfare-to-work initiative, which is designed to encourage businesses to hire welfare recipients. Alvarez spoke at a recent conference on welfare-to-work at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington.

Alvarez said that the agency will use its more than 100 regional and district offices and its 950 small-business-development centers nationwide to inform small companies that people on public assistance are ready and willing to work.

The SBA will conduct regional conferences with representatives of small businesses, state and local governments, and nonprofit organizations to develop strategies for identifying and employing qualified welfare recipients, Alvarez said. Owners of small firms interested in participating in the conferences should contact their local SBA office.

The agency also plans to post information about the welfare-to-work initiative -- including information on how small businesses can locate welfare recipients who are looking for jobs -- on its Internet home page at www.sba.gov.

There is plenty of interest among businesses in hiring people off welfare, Alvarez said. In the past few months alone, she noted, the SBA has received through its small-business-development centers commitments from 640 small firms to hire at least one welfare recipient.

A recent survey of 444 companies conducted by accounting and consulting firm Coopers & Lybrand found that more than 60 percent of the firms were interested in helping welfare recipients join the work force, while 26 percent had already hired at least one former welfare recipient.

Alvarez also said that she would like to see some welfare recipients become entrepreneurs, and she cited as sources of assistance the SBA's microloan and other programs.