How do you go about reforming welfare benefits?

It is not often that the story is told but the process which took place in Wisconsin was carefully examined in Government Matters by Lawrence Mead (Princeton University Press, 2004).

Here are few observations extracted from the first two chapters:

“The states with good-government traditions like Wisconsin were the most able to fuse generous benefits with strong work requirement. That is the combination that seems to work best and that the public supports.” (p12)

“Administrative work tests – where work effort is demanded as an eligibility condition for aid – avoided the fairness problem of incentives. They turned out to be more effective as well.” (p20)

“Work enforcement emerged as a middle ground between the old policy of entitlement and the more extreme conservative proposal of simply eliminating welfare.” (p20)

“While fraud and abuse were indeed rampant when welfare expanded in the 1960s and 1970s, states moved speedily under federal pressure to clean up, and the rolls remained largely unchanged.” (p20)

“However, deciding and enforcing the required work standards makes serious demands on government. The potential for political conflict or administrative breakdown is great. The dilemmas of traditional welfare are traded for institutional challenges that may prove just as difficult.” (p20)

Between 1994 and 2000, the real value of welfare benefits in Wisconsin rose a little. So the dramatic fall in caseload between those two dates clearly had nothing to do with the level of benefits. It appears to have been entirely due to the amount of conditionality. (Statistics on p22)

Prior to 1994, “Normally when applicants approached local welfare agencies, they were immediately processed to determine their eligibility. Under Work First, they were first counselled against unnecessary dependency and invited to pursue other options, including immediate participation in JOBS.” [JOBS = Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training Programme.]….Self Sufficiency First (SSF) was a tougher version of the same thing…they had to attend work orientation sessions and put in 60 hours looking for work for 30 days prior to going on aid – or their applications would be denied.”(p30)

“SSF’s companion was Pay for Performance. PFP toughened the sanction for noncooperation with work requirements….hours of assigned activities that a client missed without good cause were docked from the grant at a rate of $4.25 an hour…” (p31)

“SSF and PFP were implemented in March 1996 for the entire state. They were thus the first reform programs to impact Milwaukee seriously. They produced little short of a revolution….huge numbers simply left the rolls, with the majority apparently taking jobs…”(p31)

“There is no point in considering options to solve a problem that will be rejected by the legislature or the voters.” (p35)

“Tommy Thompson [the Governor of Wisconsin] realized it was more important to begin a process of change than to know precisely where it was headed. By proposing one initiative after another, he got people thinking about change, and he kept his opponents off balance. He legitimised the idea that welfare, which had been sacrosanct, could be changed without the roof falling in.” (p35)

Early ‘inconsequential’ legislation “…changed the discourse surrounding welfare and thus prepared the way for the later and more radical programs…Policymaking is a process as much as a decision.” (p36)

Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Reform • Welfare benefits

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