getajob

WELFARE'S NEW ORDER: GET A JOB

HELP OFFERED, BUT ONLY SO FAR

ST. PAUL -- For the sake of comparison, imagine that joining the welfare rolls in Minnesota is like falling back on your relatives in rough times.
   The state's current welfare system could be a doting grandmother.
   She has limited means, so her generosity is slender, but it's bottomless. She feeds you meat loaf as long as you want, whether you mow her lawn faithfully or pass your days in front of the TV.
   The overhauled welfare system that will replace it over the next year is more like a stern father.
   He wants you to get a job -- now. He'll give you plenty of help for a while, but will insist your choices for your future are pragmatic. And he'll cut your allowance if you get out of line.
   The new welfare system being designed in the Minnesota Legislature emphasizes work -- with some public help. Versions of the plan passed the Senate last month and the House on Thursday. But the House has tougher penalties and quicker kickouts in mind than the Senate.
   Key legislators from both chambers will form a conference committee Monday to settle those issues in the coming week to 10 days.

Through one Minnesotan's eyes

   To compare how the current system differs from the one proposed in the Legislature, consider the experience of a typical Minnesota wel fare recipient: a single mother who has a high-school degree and one child of preschool age. Last year, 90 percent of Minnesota's 59,000 families on welfare were headed by a single parent, and most of them were women.
   The woman decides she and her son need help from the government to pay the bills and goes to the county welfare office to apply.
   Under the current system, she's eligible for regular financial aid as long as she's caring for a dependent child and her income remains less than 85 percent of the poverty level -- $9,018 a year, in her case.
   The government will start sending her checks for $596 a month, which includes a $437 Aid to Families with Dependent Children grant (AFDC) and, on average, $159 in food stamps.
   For administrative efficiency, Minnesota plans to merge food stamps with AFDC, with the combined program named the Minnesota Families Investment Program-Statewide or MFIP-S. New rules will take effect in January.
   The House wants to keep the grant at the same level, $596 in her case. The bill passed by the Senate would raise it to $612 for the first year and a half, then study whether to reduce it.
   Under the current system, that's it. Most single parents on welfare are not expected to try to get a job or otherwise work toward employment.

Work

   Federal law now requires a job training and placement program for welfare recipients, called STRIDE in Minnesota. For two-parent families, one of the parents must participate in STRIDE in most cases; or both parents if their children are school-age. Participation is often mandatory for teen-aged parents. But not for adult single parents.
   If a single parent is deemed at risk of being on assistance for a long time or lacks a high-school degree, the person would be allowed to join the program voluntarily. The parent would receive some help with child care expenses for joining. Other single parents are not affected.
   A single parent like this woman would be required to attend an orientation session to hear about job-location and education programs in her area. She might be motivated to look for a job by the small size of the welfare grants or by a sense of pride. But in terms of hard cash, there's no policy forcing her to get a job.
   That is one of the biggest changes under welfare reform. Most participants would be required to be in a work activity -- employment, training, short-term education or community service -- within two years or else get welfare checks cut to zero.
   People 60 or older would be exempt, along with any mother with a baby under a year old. So would people who are ill or care for someone who is ill or incapacitated. Counties could exempt people in the midst of a personal or family crisis, a term not explained in the bills.

Take the first job

   Soon after the woman in this example applied for benefits under the new system, a county vocational counselor would assess her work-readiness. If she's already in post secondary education, she could stay in for another year if the studies are aimed at a specific and attainable job. People coping with homelessness, chemical dependency or domestic violence would be moved into treatment programs. The rest would have to write out a plan for finding a job.
   The mother would find a day care provider to watch her son while she job hunts. The county would pay the bill. Some legislators want to require a symbolic $5 a month copayment by the parent.
   The Senate bill gives a recipient eight weeks to hunt for a job. The House says four weeks.
   If the woman is offered a ''suitable'' job, the expected state law will require her to accept it. That's as long as it meets the minimal definition of a decent job -- pays minimum wage, meets health, safety and anti-discrimination regulations and doesn't exceed the woman's physical or mental ability.
   If she doesn't accept the job, her check will be reduced each month for three months. Under the Senate plan, the cash grant would go down 35 percent by the third month; in the House plan, 50 percent. The same penalties would be imposed on people who refuse to write a job-search plan, stopped hunting during the search period or otherwise failed to cooperate with the county worker. So the cuts wouldn't force homelessness, the county would start sending a portion of the check directly to the recipients' landlords and utilities when they're penalized.

Round 2

   If at the end of the search period, the woman has had no luck, her county worker considers whether she needs training, education, or a new job-search tactic. If they settle on post secondary education, she'll be steered toward a one-year vocational or technical course. Counties can allow a two-year program if it points her toward a job she can reasonably obtain, and the recipient would have to repay non-tuition costs for the second year. Studies of four years or longer are not supported. She'd have to maintain good grades -- the House says a ''C'' average; the Senate says ''satisfactory progress'' -- or else be bumped back into the immediate job search.
   Critics of the overhaul note that a person like this mother might aspire to be a licensed practical nurse. With a year of state-supported training, she could earn $11 to $12 an hour. But under the reform plan, if she's offered a $4.75-an-hour job at a fast-food restaurant during her initial job search, she'd probably have to take it.
   ''That's a real legitimate concern,'' said Chuck Johnson of the state Department of Human Services. He's overseen the welfare-to-work pilot project on which the welfare reform legislation is based.
   ''There isn't explicitly that kind of flexibility to take the person who might really work in a position like that and get them moving right away in that direction. On the other hand, there's nothing that prohibits (a recipient) from making efforts to improve themselves while they're working at McDonald's, going to school at night, for instance.''
   Another big change in the new system is that welfare recipients can keep more of their wages without seeing a reduction in their public check. When reductions come, they'll be smaller than the increase in wages, so total income will rise.
   The Senate bill wouldn't cut off this woman's check until she reached $12,732 a year, or 120 percent of the poverty level. The House sets a lower maximum, $12,307 or 116 percent.

Then what?

   The new system won't forget the woman immediately. She'll get a year of child-care subsidies and a good chance of getting into a long-term subsidy program afterward. She'll get medical assistance for six months to a year. Afterward she can seek Medicaid or MinnesotaCare, a state co-pay health program. Her child will probably remain Medicaid-eligible. As proposed, she could call on the county vocational counselor for advice for six months after losing grant eligibility.
   If she stumbles again, she can return to the same process as long as the child is still her dependent. But she can only be on the program for five years total in her lifetime, with the clock starting to tick this July. After that, she's on her own.
   What would happen to her? She'd still be eligible for state subsidies for child care. She could probably get health care through Medicaid. There's no lifetime eligibility limit for food stamps. But other costs of living would be difficult.
   ''She's now in a position where she has to figure out how to cobble together those benefits into some way she can support her family,'' Johnson said. Will it be enough?
   ''That's the question that everyone is waiting to see the answer to.''