While Washington talks, Vermont goes to work

0 Comments | Insight on the News, March 27, 1995 | by Sally Johnson

As Congress debates welfare, the Green Mountain State is putting a reform program to the test. Early reaction has been positive, but the mandatory-employment deadline remains a long way off.

As most states grapple with the how-to's of redoing their welfare systems, Vermont is six months into its first-in-the-nation statewide welfare reform.

Passed by the Legislature in the 1994 session, Vermont's reform took effect on July 1. "Our very preliminary results -- and I emphasize `very preliminary' -- indicate that 16 percent more people are working and that they have brought in 22 percent more wages," says Cornelius Hogan, Vermont's secretary of human services and a principal architect of the reform. "It's too early to crow, but it's a good first signal."

Essentially, the state's welfare population -- 9,800 families -- was divided into three groups: 20 percent continue to receive benefits under the old system, a control group required in order to qualify for a federal waiver; 20 percent function under an incentive-only reform system; and 60 percent receive incentives to work but with a time limit imposed. Newcomers to the system are assigned to groups in the same proportion.

Single parents have 30 months to find at least a part-time job, while at least one parent in two-parent households must find work within 15 months. After that, the state finds them jobs and turns their benefits into wages.

There has been little if any controversy about the desirability of the work incentives that have been built into the new program. Welfare recipients now may work more hours without having their benefits penalized, and they are allowed to accumulate savings from what they earn. They also may own cars of higher value than they could before -- which is to say reliable cars.

The disagreements, predictably, revolve around the time limits and whether the threat of a deadline 30 months away (most of Vermont's welfare clients are single parents) is pushing people to change their behavior now. Both Hogan and Social Welfare Commissioner Jane Kitchel, as well as many frontline welfare workers, believe it is. "Apparently people are starting to behave differently," says Hogan. "Under the old system, the emphasis was on how to maintain eligibility, how to stay on welfare. Now, there's a strong value around work. The message is: `If you can't get the job you want, start somewhere, anywhere, and move up.' It's a very different attitude."

But Howard Berhn, a supervisor of the state's Reach Up Program, which offers services ranging from child care to job training, contends that most of his clients are ignoring the far-off deadline: "My general sense is that there has been no real impact yet, no significant change in behavior. So far, the increased availability of jobs has had a bigger impact than anything else. The reality of the time limits isn't kicking in yet."

Joanie Litch, a single mother with a 19-year-old son in the Marine Corps and two preschoolers, ages 4 and 5, is one of those in the group required to work, which is no hardship for her. A welfare recipient for two years, she now works 20 hours a week for an antipoverty group in the western part of the state and volunteers another 20 hours for the same organization. She also attends a community college, hoping eventually to earn a degree in counseling.

For Litch, the incentives are an important plus. "I get to keep more of what I earn, which means more money in my pocket each month," she says. "If I could afford to trade in my car, I could get a better car and not be penalized. This reform has only bettered my situation."

But she knows many people -- welfare recipients like herself -- who are afraid of the future. "The ones who are complaining the most are the ones who aren't trying," she says bluntly. "You're seeing second- and third-generation welfare people who don't know any other way of life, and a lot of them are panicking. They know the gravy train is going to stop, and they don't know what's going to happen when it does."

What remains to be seen, of course, is whether the state can find or create enough jobs to employ those who don't find work before their time is up. And for the more immediate future, Hogan worries whether the current rush to reform in Washington will, like some raging hurricane, devastate everything in its path, flattening the good and bad alike.

"My fear is that our best efforts will get overrun by the current national steamroller," says Hogan. "There's a bidding war going on in Washington to see who can be toughest. Vermont has worked very hard to find the center and avoid the extremes."