State Gets More Time for Welfare Provision

California will have more time than anticipated to comply with one of the stiffest provisions of the landmark federal welfare overhaul that calls for assessing financial penalties on states that do not quickly get large numbers of welfare recipients off the dole and into jobs.

Although state officials voiced satisfaction at the news this week, they spoke of frustration at the lack of details to emerge from Washington governing key details of the massive welfare change.

Officials said they learned of the new deadline through a reporter’s questions and had been getting mixed signals from federal officials about the timelines for various requirements.

The federal law, which ends more than 60 years of entitlements, says that in 25% of all families receiving public aid and in 75% of two-parent households, at least one parent must be working or in a work-related activity.

California officials had assumed they had until July 1 to meet those requirements. That is the deadline for states to enact a plan to revamp welfare programs and to comply with many other provisions of the federal welfare law--including imposing a maximum two-year time limit on cash assistance and a lifetime cap of five years on aid.

But federal officials now say that all states will have until the end of the federal fiscal year--Sept. 30--to comply with the work participation rules.

The states then have one month in which to submit a report to the federal government on how they are faring and the reasons they did or did not meet the requirements. If they fail to meet the requirements, a decision will be made about whether there was good cause. Penalties, therefore, would not be assessed until November at the earliest, said Michael Kharfen, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“We want to make this law succeed and we want to support the states in these efforts, but we also want to hold them accountable,” Kharfen said.

The timing is important because states could lose up to 5% of annual federal welfare funds--as much as $187 million for the first year in California, with penalties increasing each subsequent year of noncompliance.

California, with the nation’s largest welfare caseload, is expected to meet the work participation rate for all families. But it is nowhere close to meeting the rate for the category of two-parent households.

“It is a more realistic way of doing it and certainly better than if they had tried to squeeze out something earlier,” said Bruce Wagstaff, chief of welfare programs for the state Department of Social Services.

Wagstaff said state officials had relied on a section of the federal welfare law that seems to suggest that states must comply with the work participation rule within six months after submitting a state plan--which would fall on July 1 in California.

The Sept. 30 deadline provides breathing room, but still may not offer enough time: Now, only about 20% of two-parent households meet the requirement. Exactly how much the state would lose is uncertain.

State officials say they are frustrated at the slow pace of information coming from federal officials on questions that could affect thousands of welfare recipients and result in the loss of millions of dollars.

Kharfen conceded that the federal government has not yet developed guidelines on how penalties will work--whether, for example, the full penalty will be imposed if a state meets the requirement for one set of welfare recipients but not the other--or what qualifies as good cause for failing to comply.

Federal authorities expect to publish a draft of proposed regulations next month, he said.

California is faced with the monumental task of moving large numbers of its 800,000 adult welfare recipients into jobs. Of the state’s 900,000 welfare cases, about 162,000 are comprised of households that include a mother and father where one of the parents is unemployed or earns so little as to qualify for cash assistance.

Under the federal law, in 25% of all households, parents must be participating in a work activity for at least 20 hours a week. The rate rises to 50% by 2002. In 75% of the two-parent households, one parent must be working at least 35 hours a week by October. The rate increases to 90% by 1999. Work activities include employment, on-the-job training, community service and vocational training.

Parents with newborn children, older caretakers such as grandparents and those caring for disabled children are among the recipients who would be exempt from the requirements.

In California, GAIN--Greater Avenues for Independent Living--is the primary welfare-to-work program. The Wilson administration has pumped an additional $88 million into the project this year to try to speed up job placements.

Individual counties, however, have been left on their own to set goals and devise ways to meet them.

Los Angeles County officials are giving two-parent households a priority in GAIN, reserving the first 3,000 openings in the program for them, said John Martinelli, director of the program for the county Department of Public Social Services. The Los Angeles County caseload includes 239,807 single-parent families and 48,364 two-parent households.

The two-parent households present a unique set of characteristics and challenges. The father is usually identified as the primary wage earner, the adults tend to be older than single parents, and more of them speak a language other than English. Most have minimal skills and have spent years in and out of the work force.

On the other hand, it is generally easier for a man with limited skills to find employment than it is for a woman with similar skills, and there are fewer child care needs in two-parent households.

“Right now we seem to be having equal success finding jobs with both groups of recipients,” said GAIN manager Patricia Knauss. “Welfare reform is a learning experience for welfare departments as well as for people receiving public assistance and we are trying to learn from what we see happening.”