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About Griffin daily news. (Griffin, Ga.) 1924-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 15, 1977)
Welfare Jobs plan is problem area SEATTLE (AP) — Out here, in a day care center 2,700 miles from the White House, welfare expert Willie Williams sees a wild card in President Carter’s complicated welfare package. A seven-year welfare veteran who took a job as a day-care counselor and worked her way off the dole, Mrs. Williams says, “The jobs program will be a big help. But the pay is so low, people will need welfare anyways. So what’s the point?” The point, say Carter aides, is to hold down costs and to provide an incentive for public workers to seek jobs elsewhere. In hearing that are scheduled to begin this month, administration officials will try to convince Congress that his jobs approach will work. Subpoverty wages are just one of the of problems that make the jobs plan the most troublesome element of Carter's package of expanded welfare coverage, ax refunds and work. —Carter wants to move poor people out of the welfare system and into private jobs, but his program offers almost nothing to aid the transition. And in many areas, the private jobs just don’t exist. Labor Secretary Ray Marshall says this is the most serious weakness of the jobs plan. —A huge welfare work force could hold down salaries for regular public employes doing similar work at higher wages. For this reason labor unions vigorously oppose minimum wage welfare jobs. —There is a serious danger that some government officials will replace regular employes, paid from local tax receipts, with “bargain basement” public service workers paid from the welfare fund. The process, Marshall’s No. 2 worry, is called “substitution.” San Francisco manpower boss Eunice Elton says: “If welfare workers are of any use at all, there will be a tendency to rely on them.” —As Mrs. Williams points out, the minimum wage won’t allow the welfare work force to escape poverty without also drawing cash welfare benefits — especially in expensive costof-living areas like New York or California. Dependency on welfare will continue. Typically, a mother or father heading a family of four would receive benefits of $1,444 to supplement the miiymum wage of $5,512. These are the key problem areas that surfaced in discussions with public officials, manpower experts, union leaders and welfare recipients from Seattle to Baltimore, San Francisco to New York. Carter’s “program for Better Jobs and Income” would put 2%-million poor people to work in 1.4-million public service jobs, either full or part time. Federal welfare money would pay the salaries. But the political opposition and built in pitfalls threaten chances for success as the program begins its journey through Congress. In an interview, Secretary Marshall acknowledged the problems and said administration leaders already are workinc to correct them. The work requirement would force “employable” recipients to accept a job if one is available. But where other mandatory work plans failed, Carter’s could succeed because he offers more than ultimatums — he also offers jobs. And there is a wage incentives for people to keep them. Says George Washington University manpower expert Sar Levitan: “You can’t create jobs without spending money. You can’t do it without dollar signs and zeroes.” Carter’s plan has plenty of those: 8,800,000,000 dollars (SB.B billion) earmarked to pay for the public service jobs. The number of current public service jobs would be doubled at only a 49 per cent increase in cost because the current program for 725,000 jobs pays prevailing wages, usually much higher than the minimum. Carter’s plan would require an estimated seven million people who are elibible for welfare to work. Some will find low-paying, nongovernment jobs and will receive income aid from the government. But the economy doesn’t absorb everyone who wants to work, and the public service jobs are planned to take up the slack. Work requirements are attractive to many taxpayers who support the costly welfare system, but experts agree that jobs —not required participation — are what’s needed to make the work plan succeed. Study after study indicates that poor Americans want to work as much as the rest of us. Most recently the 10-year University of Michigan survey — “5,000 American families: A study in Economic Progress” — said poor Americans usually take work whenever they can find it. It is hoped that the welfare work force will use public service jobs as a stepping stone to private employment. Public jobs lapse after 12 months and jobholders go on reduced welfare benefits for eight weeks in which they are supposed to seek a regular job. If they come up empty, they are again eligible for a public service job. If one isn’t available there is a safety net, a guaranteed income of $4,200 for a family of four. “The safety net is critical here, ” says Arnold Packer, an assistant secretary of labor. The income net is especially important in areas of high unemployment where private jobs just don’t exist. Some poor people — “We don’t know how many, exactly,” says Marshall — will get help from state or local man power officials in finding private employment. Public service workers would be required to accept any private sector job that is offered, but the only dollar and-cents incentive to find private employment is a tax refund of $54 a month. Even Labor Department ex perts say that might not have much impact. Carter did not propose tax credits for companies that hire welfare workers. A credit now exists under the Work Incentive Program and Senate Finance Chairman Russell Long probably will want to retain it. The welfare work force will be working at a wide variety of low-skill jobs such as cleaning up public parks, emptying hospital bedpans and tending daycare centers. Unions will seek assurances that regular workers, punching the timeclock at prevailing wages of $4 to $8 an hour in some cities, will not be re placed by low-paid members of the welfare work force. The AFL-CIO says it will use its clout in Congress to defeat the low-pay provision and replace it with a prevailing-wage scale. And Jerry Wurf, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employes, says: “We stand together on this.” However, Baltimore manpower chief Marian Pines notes, “It would be next to impossible to move people out of public service jobs if we paid the pre vailing wage. And it would cost a for tune." The manpower officials believe one way around the thorny wage and substitution questions is to have welfare workers divide their time between public service jobs and training or job-search programs. Another troublesome problem is that the Carter plan would phase out the current public service jobs, paying prevailing wages, established under Title VI of the Comprehensive Em ployment and Training Act. Mrs. Pines warns, “We’ve got big trouble if we lose this aid. A lot of cities would be totally screwed up.” In some troubled cities — San Jose, Calif., Hartford, Conn., and Newark, N.J., for example — one of every five city workers is paid with CETA money. New York City will count 28,000 city- CETA workers by the end of this year. These workers are paid the prevailing wages; many do regular jobs and they are eligible to join a union. Some of the biggest welfare states actually lose money in the switch from Title VI to the welfare jobs program, and Jerry Wurf warns, “If Carter’s program doesn’t work in the big cities and the big states, it doesn’t work at all.” The nine states that lose CETA money in the transition are New York, California, Massachusetts, New Jer sey, Conneticut, Oregon, Hawaii, Ne vada, Alaska and the District of Columbia. Marshall is seeking an antirecession public service jobs program that would protect hardship areas independent of the welfare package, but the ultimate decision on that rests with the White House and Congress. Local manpower officials will im plement the jobs program, and they are worried about dozens of technical problems. Their biggest fear is the spectre of two classes of employes working side by side at differing wages. Mrs. Pines says: “Our labor staff and personnel people are shivering in fright of this thing.” “It’s unbelievably complicated,” says Robert McPherson, manpower director in the Seattle area. He predicts nothing but trouble with the city’s 39 separate public employe unions. H ■ ■ H 1 I V II I V V I I I I I I ajUPi I 3 •«*•*«, kc M lyjwx Celebrate the advent Eg | " f b^|^^ WHh * M | wm. iMi ni ■w'MnoUN Vta* une Mr ,-A l *!.l * ■, i .1 ,v * j&L, today's casualliving mood. Thick padded seat cushions K'ICCPff (J ill . and "EASY CARE" family proof HERCUION* Combine , V? comfort and durability. An unbelievable sale price! " u IM Entertain with flail l Set the mood romantic Mediterranean' Begin with the magnificent “Cameio” dining loom AT s suite from that famous fuinituremaker Bassetts. 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