Children's Advocacy Institute

Executive Director

Robert C. Fellmeth

Council For Children

Thomas A. Papageorge

Council Chair

Martin D. Fern

Birt Harvey, M.D.

Louise Horvitz, M.S.W.,

Psy.D.

Hon. Leon S. Kaplan

Paul A. Peterson

Gary F. Redenbacher

Gary Richwald, M.D.,

M.P.H.

Blair L. Sadler

Gloria Perez Samson

Alan Shumacher, M.D.

Owen Smith

University of San Diego

School of Law

5998 Alcalá Park

San Diego, CA 92110

(619) 260-4806

(619) 260-4753 (Fax)

926 J Street

Suite 709

Sacramento, CA 95814

(916) 444-3875

(916) 444-6611 (Fax)

Reply to:

□ San Diego

□ Sacramento

www.sandiego.edu/childrensissues

THE BOTTOM LINE: THE GOVERNOR'S WELFARE REFORM PROPOSAL

It is time to look at the real bottom line in welfare reform: Almost 70 percent of California

welfare recipients are children. These children -- whose parents already are challenged providing

basic food, shelter and clothing -- face the real bottom line every single day of their lives. The

problem with Governor Pete Wilson's 1997-98 welfare reform proposal -- far more stringent than

federal law requires -- is that it perpetuates the stereotype of adult welfare recipients who would

rather watch television than work, while ignoring the fact that most California welfare recipients

are children.

Current California grant levels already have been reduced 25 percent from 1991-1995 for a

family of three, and now amount to less than 70 percent of the federal poverty line. The

Governor's plan reduces grants by an additional 15 percent after just six months on aid, if adults

in the family are not working. His proposal also limits new recipients of aid to one year of

assistance in any two-year period and current recipients of aid to two years in any three-year

period (both with a lifetime limit of five years). Yet there is no concrete plan for job creation for

those recipients, and California has consistently failed to apply for, and match, millions of federal

dollars available for job training programs.

California officials project 330,000 new jobs in 1997. Yet even if parents currently receiving

state aid captured every single one of those new jobs (an impossibility), less than one- half of

them would be employed next year. What will happen to the children in those families now

receiving a combined AFDC/food stamps grant of about $850 per month (for a family of three),

and left with nothing but $250 per month in food stamps benefits?

California's Director of Social Services Eloise Anderson has offered her answer: child abuse

authorities will place children facing malnourishment into foster care. This flies in the face of

current law, which states only "unfit" parents suffer child removal -- and it would take substantial

malnutrition to make that removal possible. With over 90,000 California children now in foster

care, in a system that by any standard is far from perfect -- are we now really willing to add over

a million more children? No wonder the Governor states that welfare recipients should be offered

every assistance in placing their children for adoption, giving them a "home and opportunity

which otherwise cannot be offered."

All because their parents cannot find work, even if they comply with all of the other new

requirements. Where does that leave the children, who through no fault of their own suddenly

face homelessness? There is an alternative which will realize many of the objectives of so- called

welfare reform, and without abandoning children. If parents receiving aid make a bona fide

attempt to find work, and if they are unable to secure a position by the end of the time limit, give

those families -- in addition to food stamps benefits -- rent vouchers at the median rent for an

apartment, until work is found or a public service job is provided.

The Governor's budget bill proposal exacts its toll on the most vulnerable among us, our

children. Unless we look at the real bottom line, and unless the public dialogue focuses where it

belongs -- on the children who will be denied even the most basic subsistence level now offered

on welfare -- we are all hypocrites.

Margaret A. Dalton, J. D.

Project Director, Information Clearinghouse on Children

Children's Advocacy Institute, University of San Diego School of Law

March 18, 1997