New Democrat Update - November 2001
COMPLETING WELFARE REFORM
From 1993 to 2000, more than eight million families - including four million kids - moved out of poverty, reducing the total poverty rate by 25 percent. African-American, Hispanic and single-mom families have registered their lowest levels of poverty in history.
Welfare reform has been, in part, responsible for this remarkable success. The number of people dependent on public assistance has dropped by more than half since 1996.
Precisely because of this success, much of the current focus is on the "hard-to-hire," with innovative programs focusing on mental or physical disabilities, childcare, transportation and health care. These efforts will become even more important as time limits kick in and the economy continues to decline.
Colorado should shift some of its federal welfare dollars to the challenges facing seriously disadvantaged recipients in the workforce. A major focus should be creating "transitional jobs," short-term, publicly subsidized employment that combines on-the-job work experience with critical skills and a first step onto the private-sector income ladder.
As outlined in the DLC's State and Local Playbook, a transitional jobs program may combine 20 hours of work per week with an additional 15 hours of substance abuse treatment, basic skills education, parenting skills classes, or financial education. In addition, participants receive a full array of work supports, such as childcare, transportation assistance, Medicaid and Food Stamps, and often obtain support from a "job coach" or on-site mentor to teach "soft skills" such as punctuality, dress, and other workplace expectations.
For example, Philadelphia@Work, a private-public partnership, places participants in six-month employment positions, working 25 hours a week and receiving 10 hours a week of professional development, English as a Second Language training, and literacy classes. Participants earn a wage per hours worked, as well as a bonus upon attaining and keeping an unsubsidized job. While in the program, participants receive one-on-one guidance from a career advisor and a "work partner" on the job. Participants have access to services such as childcare, transportation to and from work, and health assessments.
Unlike "workfare," in which recipients must perform public work in exchange for their benefit checks, transitional jobs are real jobs that pay real wages. Participants are paid for every hour worked, reinforcing the message that "work pays."
PROMOTING WORK
Making work pay is important for transitional, as well as all low-wage, jobs. Everyone, who works hard and full-time, should be able to lift his or her family out of poverty.
A recent Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute study estimates that a one-parent family with two children needs to earn at least $15 per hour to meet basic needs. Without additional support, a minimum-wage worker with a family of three is simply unable to lift herself over the poverty line.
Colorado should use its federal welfare dollars to help close that gap by increasing the state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a direct wage supplement for the working poor. Local governments can do their part by taking existing federal dollars now tangled up in bureaucracy to provide EITC local matches. The longer a wage-earner stays employed, the more likely he or she will move up to higher-paying positions that eventually will not require the subsidy.
To get the biggest bang for the taxpayer buck, state and local welfare bureaucracies must also be modernized. Case workers should be adequately trained to help people overcome employment barriers, find jobs and get the support they need to keep them. The welfare system and state employment agency should work together toward a seamless, integrated employment system that promotes lifelong learning and rapid re-employment for all dislocated and disadvantaged workers.
As part of that employment system, state and local governments can provide seed funding and facilities to foster creation of industry-led "Regional Skills Alliances" (RSA). RSAs pool the resources of employers, public agencies, schools, and labor unions to train workers for region-wide emerging job opportunities. By targeting entire regions and industries rather than just a single company, RSAs disperse the costs of training and ease concerns about cherry-picking among competitors.
For example, the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership (WRTP) was formed by business community members in conjunction with the AFL-CIO, local workforce development boards, and technical colleges. Instead of focusing on one field, WRTP offers training in many regional industries and sets up "career centers" for their patrons where in addition to job training, community members can find counseling, youth apprenticeship programs, and other services.
This pro-work agenda will go a long way toward reducing economic stress on Colorado families struggling to make ends meet. Better-fed poor children tend to be healthier kids and better students - to the taxpayers' eventual benefit.
BRIDGING THE MARRIAGE DIVIDE
Colorado candidates will be soon fighting it out in races for the US Senate, Governor, Attorney General, the state legislature and other critical local offices. While maintaining their advantage among unmarried voters, Democrats must start making deeper inroads among married couples, who make up almost two-thirds of the electorate.
When people get married and have children, they get a different outlook on life, often resulting in dissatisfaction with their political choices. Many are turned off by Democrats espousing the socially "libertine" dogma dictated by interest and advocacy groups on the far left. At the same time, the Christian right agenda of curbing women's rights, civil rights to gays, or abortion rights hardly resembles a moral renaissance to them.
Democrats can close the marriage gap in their favor by emphasizing the importance of parenting and its influence on progressive concerns like early childhood development, classroom discipline, character education, economic well-being, and children's health. In addition, more leaders should follow US Senator Joe Lieberman's (D-CT) lead and criticize the proliferation of sex and violence in the media. Voters will see that agenda - when combined with educational opportunities, health care, retirement security, and targeted tax relief - as a compelling pro-family message.
In the 1990s, the New Democratic Party recaptured voters' trust on fiscal responsibility and economic issues. The challenge now must be to earn back the public's confidence on matters of values and culture.