March 30, 1977

Massachusetts Plan Might Cut Welfare

Now that the fourth generation of some jobless Americans is moving onto the welfare rolls, it is worth while to examine the plan by Massachusetts to turn hand-outs into pay-checks.

The objective essentially is that of President Jimmy Carter to provide employment for blacks, the young, and other segments of the population having great difficulty finding gainful work.

The Massachusetts plan, however, would set up non-profit corporations to contract for work that otherwise would go undone because of the high costs involved.

These corporations would perform such.  useful projects as building renovation, energy-saving insulation of old houses, harvesting of state forests, day care facilities freeing welfare mothers for productive jobs, rehabilitation of railroad lines, lead paint removal, day care for institutionalized patients, and road construction.

Workers would be drawn from the welfare and unemployment rolls.  Gov. Michael Dukakis explains that any employable person who has been jobless for six months and is collecting government assistance payments would be required to go to work or lose public benefits.

"It isn't mean-spirited or reactionary to talk about a work requirement," says Howard N.  Smith, Massachusetts secretary of economic affairs.  "I consider it a positive, ethical concept."

In unemployment compensation in particular, he said, there is a group that "rides the system to the end."  These are primarily young females, second wage earners in their families, or workers who are actually retired.  Smith estimates that a work requirement would weed out this group of about 10 percent.

The state would continue to provide generous payments for persons who clearly are unable to work.

Massachusetts believes its plan is a better alternative to Carter's multi-billion-dollar make-work program of government employment.

Customers for these non-profit corporations would come from both the private and public sectors.

For example: a public housing agency with funds available for renovation might hire the service of the appropriate non-profit company which would provide employment for the jobless at lower prices for the customer.

Low-income families might foot the cost of insulation if workers on public assistance put it in.

Capital to buy tools and equipment would come from funds otherwise spent for dole.  Some subsidies might be necessary.  For the most part, however, the enterprises would be expected to pay their own way.

Of course there would be some obstacles.  Competent managers would be required to make sure real work was performed.  Training of unskilled employees in even the simple tasks required would be never-ending.  Motivating people to work for what used to be free won't be easy.

The biggest hurdle is the stiff restrictions placed on employment by the federal government.  The rules act to discourage gainful employment - minimum wages, job taxes, work hours.  These, applied to private employers, have created the four-generation welfare mess in the first place.  Yet, the federal bureaucrats are reluctant to waive them for fear such action will become a "precedent."

It is ironic that our government is afraid to create low-paying jobs.  Our paternalistic attitude of "if you can't get a lot for yourself we will get it for you" is now so deeply ingrained that we shudder at menial but necessary labor.

Massachusetts, for one, has discovered that welfare hand outs for healthy people are both self-defeating and financially, impossible.

In addition to welfare and unemployment, Massachusetts has found it is unable to finance Medicaid and other liberal social programs.  State credit is strained to the limit, and the tax load is driving industry and workers out of the state, resulting in declining revenues.

Governor Dukakis says his "Self-Start Job Program" is a "promising way to get people off public assistance and into meaningful jobs," and that it "could be a pilot for other states and the nation."

All the present national make-work programs, declares Dukakis, "are treating the symptoms of a lack of employment in the private sector.  They never really cure," he says.  "They are not self-regenerating.  The day the funding stops the job stops.

Dukakis is correct in his recognition of self-sustaining enterprises based on market need.

The problem is: can the government create and fill need without further hindering private enterprise?  Can any government - federal, state, or local -become a partner in private corporations without embracing socialism?

We can not be sure.

Yet, we must break the cycle of welfare dependency.

The Massachusetts plan, confined to one state, is a much safer place to experiment, than on the nation as a whole.  It is worth, trying.

Author: Lindsey Williams