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NEW YORK STATE
Advocates back added job training
Backers call bill missing step in welfare reform
BY SARA FOSS Gazette Reporter

   In 1996, a landmark welfare reform bill forced welfare recipients to find jobs. The idea was to move people into work and, eventually, self-sufficiency.
   And people did find work. In the past decade, the country’s welfare rolls have dropped dramatically, even as the country’s poverty rate has remained relatively fl at.
   But advocates for the poor have long argued that more opportunities for education and job training are needed; otherwise, they say, the majority of welfare recipients end up in lowpaying, low-skill jobs with little room for advancement.
   A bill that quietly passed the state Assembly and Senate would require the state’s social service agencies to do more to provide welfare recipients with education and training for jobs that pay a living wage. The legislation suggests that women, in particular, need to be enrolled in training programs for jobs typically held by men, such as carpentry and construction.
   Last week, supporters of the bill gathered on the steps of New York City Hall to urge Gov. Eliot Spitzer to sign the bill.
   “We do not know if the governor will sign it into law,” said Mark Dunlea, associate director of the Hunger Action Network of New York State, one of the groups backing the bill. He said the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the state’s social service offices are opposed to the bill. “We’re trying aggressively to get people to write to the governor to support the bill,” he said. “We do not think it’s going to cause the counties any major problems.”
   A spokeswoman for Spitzer said the bill had been delivered to the governor's offi ce on Friday and is under review; he has a 10-day window in which to sign it.
UNFULFILLED PROMISE
   When welfare reform was enacted, counties said they would offer education and training to people once they were employed. The thinking was that once a person was working, they would be more receptive to enrolling in a program that could help them get a better job, Dunlea said. But he said that hasn’t happened. Instead, recipients of what is now called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families have received little in the way of post-employment training or education.
   “Welfare to work needs to do a better job of getting people out of poverty,” Dunlea said. “We’re pushing people out the door into minimum-wage jobs, and they’re ending up back at food pantries and soup kitchens. … We need to be more focused on the outcomes of people. Programs that combine work and education are better.”
   There are job training programs throughout New York. Many counties have “onestop career centers” where anybody, not just welfare recipients, can go to receive assistance in finding a job. In Schenectady County, the Schenectady Job Training Agency provides this service; welfare recipients are sent there to develop a plan for becoming employed.
   Nonprofit organizations such as the Schenectady Community Action Program provide similar help. SCAP sponsors a career readiness program that prepares people to enter the work force, where participants learn skills such as resume writing and job interviewing techniques. “If you really want to get people to be self-reliant and employed in a way where they can support themselves, they can’t be working in minimum-wage jobs 15 hours a week,” said Keith Houghton, deputy director of SCAP. “They need some sort of skill.”
   The work requirements of welfare reform are “in a sense a good thing,” Houghton said. “Working is a good thing. But if you’re still poor, it’s not a solution. Education is really the only sure-fire way of getting people to a place where they can support their families.”
   He said the Schenectady Job Training Agency has computers for public use, sponsors a few classes and occasionally invites employers in for open houses. “Does it cover all needs?” he said. “No.”
   Dunlea said many welfare recipients dislike being on welfare and are unlikely to visit a career center once they are off welfare. “You have to have a mechanism to get people in there,” he said.
   Welfare reform de-emphasized education; the goal was to get people who often had a spotty work history used to showing up at a job site on time and earning a steady income. “New York is a jobs first state when it comes to welfare,” Dunlea said. “Any job is a good job.”
   Schenectady County Commissioner of Social Services Dennis Packard did not return calls for comment.
GENDER INEQUITY
   Advocates for the poor say that most of the people who remain on county welfare rolls have long-term barriers to employment; some of them are simply not employable.
   According to the welfare legislation, a 2001 study of job training for low-income people, particularly women leaving welfare, found a pattern of gender segregation in job training referrals and placements. Program training for jobs such as bank tellers and nail technicians had 100 percent female enrollment, while programs for higher-paying jobs such as appliance technician and automotive technician were dominated by men.
   In the bill, the term non-traditional employment refers to occupations or fields in which one gender comprises less than 25 percent of the individuals in those fields, according to the federal Department of Labor Statistics. A sustainable wage is defi ned as a wage that is at least 185 percent above the poverty line.
   In past years, Hunger Action has lobbied in support of the welfare bill. This year, “we ignored the bill and it passed,” Dunlea said.
   The old welfare system, called Aid to Families with Dependent Children, did not have a work requirement.  

  
  
  

Hey, where's my free state mandated and funded training?  Or do I have to quit my job first?

I knew a girl who not only quit her job, but claimed she was an alcoholic (which she wasn't)....and the state sent  her to college, paid for her gas money, food stamps, child care and her rent!

Ahhhhhhh.....I love paying taxes!