EVERY year, the close of the legislative session in Al bany calls to mind Bis mark’s comment: “Laws are like sausages: It is best not to see them being made.” New York lawmakers vote on laws still warm from the copying machine, passing legislation they haven’t read into extraordinarily bad laws. One such clunker this year is the glowingly named “Sustainable Wage Bill,” which would seriously undermine welfare reform.
The measure would require local governments (counties and New York City) to change their welfare-to-work programs to emphasize education and training for “sustainable-wage jobs.” It defines such jobs as those paying 185 percent of the poverty level.
The bill’s sponsors decry the fact that many welfare recipients leaving the rolls for work wind up in low-wage jobs. Yet this is only part of the story.
Both the New York State Association of Counties and Mayor Bloomberg have urged Gov. Spitzer to veto the measure because it would clearly harm welfare recipients and taxpayers.
The simple reality is that most welfare recipients have no work history and lack the most work basic habits – such as showing up for work on time on a daily basis, getting along with co-workers, taking direction from a supervisor.
Until the ’90s, most “work” requirements in New York welfare programs simply had recipients do public service – leaf raking, snow shoveling, etc., “jobs” that taught few if any marketable skills.
But then New York City and the counties shifted to a new model, emphasizing placement far more likely to lead to upward economic mobility – in the private sector. Federal and state laws gave local governments the flexibility to consider each individual’s work history and skills – and it soon became clear that “work first” was the best course.
In other words: Get a job; show you can keep it; acquire skills – then find something better. Thanks to this approach, we’ve reduced the welfare rolls by more than 1 million since 1996.
In contrast, the bill passed by the Legislature insists we “emphasize” efforts to start a welfare mom with three kids at over $38,000 a year, even if she has no previous work experience. In practice, it will be a long time before any “sustainable-wage job” is available to this woman – if ever. Setting the bar so high for her first job simply traps her and her children in an endless cycle of welfare dependency and training without employment.
New York does not abandon public-assistance recipients who leave welfare for work to a life of working in poverty. Most recent “leavers” remain eligible for education and training programs, plus tax-paid child care and health care, as well as state and federal Earned Income Tax Credits. These benefits are evidence of our existing policy of rewarding work and aiding the low-wage worker to achieve economic mobility.
To oppose this bill is not to stigmatize welfare recipients, but to suggest that they should be accorded the dignity of being treated no better or worse than anyone else. Most of us took our first job as teenagers working at minimum wage at the local market or fast-food restaurant, and moved on from there.
Education plays a role in everyone’s advancement, but the first job always provides the foundation for securing the next and better job. Legislators need to consider that many of their constituents who’ve never been on welfare routinely juggle work, school, child care and other challenges.
If Gov. Spitzer signs this measure into law, count on endless litigation over whether a job pays a “sustainable wage,” whether recipients must accept offered jobs – and a sharp decline in work.
Federal law now requires states to have at least 50 percent of their welfare caseload working. Falling short of that goal means a cut in a federal funding – a $236 million hit to New York taxpayers, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Welfare reform has been successful because it emphasized work; this bill burdens taxpayers and traps recipients.
Governor, get out your veto pen. This is one reform you can easily rescue.
Raymond A. Meier served in the state Senate from 1997 to 2007, where he chaired the Senate Social Services Committee. He now practices law privately.