Note: This paper is still a draft. My presentation will focus on the
beginning and concluding sections of the paper -- conceptualizing the spectrum of
government work programs and developing an agenda in support of fair work
programs -- and will refer to the historical middle sections as part of this
broader discussion.
A critical component of welfare policy since the early 1980s has been
workfare, programs that require welfare recipients to work in jobs that would
normally pay wages in order to remain eligible for welfare payments. Workfare
and other "welfare-to-work" programs received a significant boost from the
1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA),
the highly touted reform that ended "welfare as we knew it." Although
workfare has been ubiquitous for the past two decades, the United States has a
history of another type of government work program as well. Fair work, or job
creation programs, have been implemented periodically since at least the early
1800s to provide jobs for people normally seen as employed. The best known of
these programs are the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the 1930s and
Public Service Employment (PSE) which was part of the Comprehensive Employment
and Training Administration (CETA) in the 1970s.
In this paper I investigate the range of government work programs. It
includes the following discussions: the differences between workfare and fair
work; brief histories of both types of programs; how work programs have been
implemented since 1996; and developing an agenda for fair work and related
programs, including responses to time-worn criticisms that inevitably emerge
when public sector job creation is raised as a possible policy.
The Differences between Workfare and Fair Work
Historically, there have been fundamental differences between workfare, also
known as worktests, and fair work programs, generally termed job creation or
public employment programs. Workfare, on one hand, and fair work, on the
other, can be conceptualized as two ends of a spectrum; increasingly, programs
have fallen between these two extremes. With this caveat in mind, the
differences between workfare and fair work can be described in the following
manner.
Workfare is shameful and stigmatized, mandatory programs for the "undeserving"
poor to make them prove that they are not "shirking work," and to
therefore end "welfare dependency"; fair work encompasses voluntary
programs for the "deserving" poor who become unemployed due to recessions,
depressions, automation, and natural disasters, i.e., "through no fault
of their own." Workfare ignores the value of caretaking work in the home
and requires relief recipients to work for wages or to "work off" their
payments; fair work creates jobs as well as education and training for the
unemployed, enticing participation by offering relatively decent wages and
developing often innovative projects. Workfare helps employers by providing
downward pressure on wages, both by directly channeling the poor into low-wage
labor markets and by serving as a deterrent so that people "choose"
low-wage jobs instead of welfare; fair work programs expose the inability of
capitalist economic systems to normally create jobs for everyone who wants
one. Workfare involves placements in the public, non-profit, and private
sectors; fair work creates jobs in the public and non-profit sectors. And,
although through the 1930s workfare targeted both women and men, since that
time the main focus of the programs, and of the debates about the
programs, has been women, primarily women of color; fair work programs have
predominantly been aimed at men, primarily white, male,
heads-of-household.
As a result of these differences, workfare has been politically popular,
supporting the view that the poor are "lazy" and will work only if forced to
do so, while fair work programs have evoked bitter criticisms for interfering
with labor markets and with the logic of production-for-profit itself. This
has sometimes led to regulations making fair work more like workfare and less
like "real jobs," i.e. wage-paying jobs obtained through normal labor market
channels. There are three general categories of these policies: determination
of eligibility; methods of setting pay rates; and regulations regarding
allowable work.
The first set of policies concerns eligibility for the programs. Fewer
requirements make the programs more like "real jobs." The most basic criteria
is simply a person’s status as unemployed or underemployed. Yet in most
programs additional requirements have been adopted as well. These have ranged
from general criteria, most commonly the unemployment rate in the region or
state, to individual criteria, e.g., a person’s poverty or welfare status.
Importantly, basing eligibility on a "means test," i.e. proving sufficient
need to qualify, marks participants as being on relief and reinforces the
"ideology of the dole." Additionally, preference has often been accorded
based on race, gender, class, marital status, and veteran status. White,
male, heads-of-household have historically been seen as most deserving of
positions in job creation programs, and special consideration has often been
accorded to veterans as well.
A second type of involves determination of payments. When payments are based
on market wages for similar work, the programs more closely resemble real
jobs. On the other hand, basing payments on the amount of income needed marks
the work as relief. Often, total payments are determined by need; hours of
work are then figured by dividing this amount by an hourly rate related to the
minimum wage or to market wage rates. Further, concerns about keeping payments
on work programs below the amount that could be earned through wage-labor have
led to regulations limiting the hours of work so that even when pay rates have
been based on wages, total payments would be less than the amount that could
be earned from market jobs. In other instances, there have been outright
limits on the amount people could earn in the programs.
A third set of regulations involves the types of work allowed in the programs.
There exists a longstanding tension between the belief that the poor should
produce things of value in order to compensate society for providing relief,
and sometimes to directly contribute to their upkeep, on one hand, and fears
that production of useful goods and services would interfere with the logic of
capitalist production-for-profit, on the other. As a result, fair work
programs have generally been so constrained by often contradictory rules and
regulations that they have easily been seen as failures. It is important to
be aware of these contradictions, both because they inform our historical
analysis of fair work programs and because they underlie the time-worn
criticisms of these programs; indeed, the WPA and CETA continue to be seen as
inefficient and unnecessary "make-work" programs, captured during the 1930s in
the epithet, "boondoggle."
These contradictions followed from mandates to create as many jobs as possible
with allocated funds, but to do so in ways that did not replace "normal
government operations" or compete with private enterprise. It led to three
sets of problems. Requirements to put as many people to work as possible with
the available funds -- i.e., to make work -- meant that the work was often
inefficient by industry standards. A notable example concerns the "pick and
shovel" projects in the 1930s, as many more men were put to work (women were
not considered suitable for construction projects) building and repairing
roads than would have been the case if grading and paving machines were
routinely used. Directives to refrain from "normal government operations"
meant that projects were easily construed as unnecessary -- otherwise, it was
reasoned, the government would do them. And restrictions on competition with
the private sector mitigated against the production of useful goods.
The reality of fair work programs is often different from the widely-accepted
assessments. Contrary to claims of interference in "normal market
operations," when useful goods -- primarily food and clothing -- were produced, they
were kept out of the market and distributed only to others on relief or used
in public institutions such as hospitals. Condemnation of the WPA for
unnecessary work such as "leaf-raking" ignores the fact that maintenance
projects were prohibited from April 1934 onward. Yet maintenance is necessary
work, albeit work that must be done repeatedly. Indeed, it is similar to
housework -- underappreciated and only noticed when it is not done. The criticism
that has validity concerns inefficiency; however, this was virtually assured
by the mandate to create work for as many people as possible. Further, it is
telling that while criticisms of make-work and inefficiency have commonly been
made toward fair work programs, this has not been the case with workfare -- even
though workfare is often clearly inefficient and make-work.
Fears of interference with both the labor market and with the logic of
production-for-profit also led to overall restrictions on fair work programs.
They have always been temporary, often termed emergency programs and requiring
periodic reauthorization. Indeed, attempts to enact a permanent fair work
program have never been successful. Additionally, the overall size of the
programs has been constrained. Even during the massive programs of the 1930s,
no more than one-third of the unemployed were put to work at any one time.
Viewed from another perspective, at the height of the 1930s’ programs, 4.4
million people were on the work programs, thereby demonstrating that the
government has the capacity to create large-scale fair work programs.
A Brief History of Fair Work Programs in the U.S.
Although they have largely been ignored during the past two decades under the
deluge of workfare, fair work programs are part of United States’ history.
Since at least the early 1800s, they were established by some cities during
the recessions and depressions that periodically ravaged the country. General
agreement among relief officials that work was preferable to "charity,"
especially for white, male, heads-of-household, in conjunction with protest by
unemployed workers, led municipalities to increase their expenditures on
public works. The work involved normal government activities -- construction
(e.g., of culverts, sewers, and schoolhouses) and road repair were most
common, and was supplemented by other maintenance and repair work (e.g.,
whitewashing tenements, laying water mains, improving parks, repairing public
buildings, and clearing trees from land about to be flooded by dams, and
building culverts, sewers, and schoolhouses). In addition, some
"labor-intensive" workrooms, in which garments and rag rugs were sewn, and
cloth was spun were also established for women and for men who were unable to
labor outdoors. Several characteristics of these early programs place them
midway on the spectrum between workfare and fair work. Eligibility was
determined by a means-test, with preference given to family heads normally
seen as employed. And payments were usually relief, not based on market
wages; in fact, the monies were sometimes obtained from private donors. [The
following historical discussions draw on Rose 1994 and Rose
1995.]
These types of work programs continued through the early 1930s. As the Great
Depression led to measured unemployment rates of 25 percent of the total labor
force, and 38 percent of the industrial labor force, protests by the
unemployed demanding jobs and relief intensified, and local and state
governments in many areas of the country developed work programs. However,
the continuing economic collapse led to reduced tax revenues, and these early
Depression work programs, along with most other government functions, were
hampered by lack of funds.
By the time Franklin D. Roosevelt became President in March 1933, the need for
federal relief was apparent. Three major work programs were developed as part
of the New Deal. In May 1933, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration
(FERA) became the first federal unemployment relief program, providing aid to
1.4 to 2.4 million people each month. It was interrupted from November 1933
through March 1934 by the Civil Works Administration (CWA), quickly set up to
put another two million people to work and thereby head off another depression
winter of increased need and increased protest. In March 1934 the FERA was
resumed as the Emergency Work Relief Program (EWRP) for the unemployed in
urban areas and the Rural Rehabilitation Program for the rural jobless. In
the fall of 1935 the FERA was replaced by the Works Progress Administration
(WPA), which provided work for up to 3.3 million people each month. It
decreased during the early 1940s, ending in June 1943, as mobilization for
World War II substantially increased production and employment and finally
brought the depression to an end. In addition, the Public Works
Administration (PWA) was set up to provide construction jobs, all contracted
out through market channels, and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was
developed to get young unemployed men out of the cities and put them to work
in federal forests. While the PWA and CCC provoked little criticism, the same
was not true for the FERA, CWA, and WPA. Indeed, they were targets of a
seemingly endless barrage of complaints that sometimes led to significant
changes in program policy. Most contentious were policies regarding
determination of payments and the types of work done.
Several characteristics marked the FERA and WPA as midway between workfare and
fair work. Most importantly, eligibility was based on a "means test," and
payments were based, at least in part, on the amount that the family needed.
Reflecting class bias, this was determined by local relief departments for
"blue-collar" workers, but usually by organizations of their peers for
"white-collar" workers. Hours of work were determined by dividing the total
amount needed by an hourly rate based on market rates for similar work. [The
minimum wage was not enacted until 1938.] Yet there was a brief, but
significant, exception. Worries that extremely low agricultural wage rates
would do little to increase the "purchasing power of the masses" and help spur
recovery, led relief officials, in July, 1933, to set a minimum rate of 30
cents per hour. This provoked a barrage of complaints -- from employers and
others claiming that it caused shortages of agricultural and domestic service
workers -- until it was ended in November 1934.
The CWA embodied some fundamental differences compared to the FERA and the
WPA. Indeed, of all government work programs thus far, it most closely
adhered to principles of fair work. Wanting to counteract another Depression
winter of increased despair and increased protest, relief administrators
developed regulations to make the work similar to "real jobs." This was
accomplished by replacing FERA regulations with those of the PWA -- most
importantly, the "means test" was suspended and payments were based on local
rates for similar work. Workers clamoured for the jobs, and in some areas
relief administrators held lotteries to choose the participants. Not
surprisingly, the CWA was bitterly attacked by the business community for
being too large and too expensive, and paying wages that were too high. These
strident criticisms had an effect: the CWA was substantially cut two months
after it began and was ended entirely in another two months.
Criticisms were also leveled at some of the projects developed in the work
programs. There were three categories of projects: construction, service, and
production-for-use. Construction projects were the most common, absorbing
approximately ¾ of the program funds. Continuing along the lines of the
earlier programs established during recessions and depressions, they provided
work for men. The results are indeed impressive. They include construction
and repair of: more than one million miles of roads; approximately 200,000
buildings (e.g. schools, libraries, courthouses, firehouses, armories); tens
of thousands of recreational facilities (e.g. parks, stadiums, swimming and
wading pools); several thousand public utility plants; miles of sewers,
drainage ditches, and electric power lines; thousands of flood and erosion
control projects (e.g. firebreaks, retaining walls, levees); and several
hundred airports. Yet they were routinely attacked as inefficient -- more people
were put to work than would have been the case with more capital-intensive
production methods commonly used in the private sector.
Service projects provided another important source of work. Commonly known as
"white-collar" projects, since they developed work for white-collar workers
considered unsuitable for the blue-collar construction projects, they
increased in importance throughout the1930s. Projects were developed to reopen
schools that had been closed due to lack of tax revenues, and to provide work
for the unemployed and services for the public in public health, recreation,
libraries, museums, conducting research and surveys, and the arts. In fact,
the WPA Federal Arts project for artists, writers, musicians, and actors and
actresses is still one of the best known of all the 1930s' projects, with the
posters, paintings, murals, guidebooks, and plays remaining as examples of
federal support of the arts. These were the main projects criticized as
unnecessary.
The third type of projects involved production of consumer goods. Commonly
known as production-for-use, or production-for-use and distribution, all goods
were kept out of normal market channels and given only to people on relief or
used in public facilities. Initially, production-for-use primarily continued
the "labor-intensive" sewing rooms that had also been set up during early
recessions and depressions, as well as woodyards and canning projects for
garden produce. These provoked little criticism. However, the same was not
true for the new production-for-use projects. Responding to criticisms of
early work projects as "boondoggles," production-for-use was expanded as the
CWA was replaced by the EWRP in the spring, 1934. Clearly useful goods were
produced: aid was provided aid to "self-help cooperatives" that were set up by
the unemployed during the Hoover years of the depression; in the
mattress-making project women sewed mattresses and comforters by hand using
some of the surplus cotton that had been taken off the market by the
Agricultural Adjustment Administration; centers were established to process
(slaughter and preserve) animals dying from the severe drought, and to produce
and repair goods, primarily shoes and wearing apparel, from the hides, pelts,
and wool; and projects were started in which relief recipients were put to
work in factories that had been partially or entirely shut down and rented
from their owners by state or local relief administrations. The latter was
the most contentious. Commonly known as the Ohio Plan since it was most
extensive in that state, relief workers produced clothing (e.g. long
underwear, coats, knitted goods), furniture (primarily wooden beds and
kitchen-type chairs), metal ware (stoves, heaters, and skillets), china, and
blankets. In fact, the Ohio Plan most vividly revealed the contradictions of
production-for-profit, as the government was combining idle workers with idle
factories to produce consumer goods since capitalists were failing to do so.
The new production-for-use projects quickly came under fire. Capitalists
complained that the projects were inefficient and, most importantly, that they
competed unfairly with private enterprise. Production-for-use was condemned in
the Report from a December 1934 conference of 90 business leaders, as they
indignantly declared that "(g)overnment competition with private business
leads toward socialism." This was simply their worst fear--that production
based on capitalist's profits would be replaced by production based on
people's needs. As a result, throughout the rest of the 1930s
production-for-use was largely confined to sewing rooms.
Opportunities to establish a permanent government work program during this era
met with failure. The Social Security Act, passed in 1935 amid great fanfare,
provided the first opening. Although the initial version included an
Employment Assurance program, establishing the government as "employer of last
resort" committed to provide jobs after people’s Unemployment Insurance
benefits expired, the controversy surrounding the FERA and CWA led to cutting
Employment Assurance during committee deliberations. Instead, work programs
were continued in the temporary WPA, while the permanent Social Security Act
included social security, UI, Aid to Dependent Children (ADC, which was
changed to Aid to Families with Dependent Children, or AFDC) and other
categorical assistance relief programs for the poor, and programs for maternal
and child health.
As World War II brought the economy out of the Depression in the early 1940s,
a permanent work program with the government as "employer of last resort" was
again considered. This recommendation came from the National Resources
Planning Board (NRPB), a high-level federal commission established early in
the New Deal and charged, in part, with developing overall economic plans for
the post-World War II period. The NRPB called for a "new bill of rights" that
would ensure the basic necessities of life, including the right to a job
provided by the government if the private sector failed to do so, and
advocated the "(f)ormal acceptance by the Federal Government of
responsibility (emphasis theirs) for insuring jobs at decent pay to all
those able to work regardless of whether or not they can pass a means test."
This implied a program similar to the CWA, and would have been accomplished
through a permanent "Work Administration" to provide "socially useful
work (emphasis theirs) other than construction...for the otherwise
unemployed." These ideas were embodied in the Full Employment Bill introduced
in 1945. However, in place of a large-scale work program and other policies
to increase economic security, Congress passed the watered-down Employment Act
of 1946, relying heavily on the market mechanism, and promising only to
provide maximum opportunities for employment balanced with a commitment
to low inflation.
There was a break in fair work programs during the post World War II era
through the early 1960s when increasing real wages accompanying the expanding
economy gave credence to the view that there would be a chicken in every pot
and two cars in every garage -- that is, if you were white -- and anticommunism
mitigated against social welfare programs that were the least bit progressive.
Yet the idea of a voluntary work program was kept alive through the 1940s and
1950s by organizations such as the National Manpower Council and the Upjohn
Institute, which published books and reports discussing job creation, training
and education. These ideas came to fruition in the 1960s. Growing concern
about long-term unemployment caused by changing requirements for workers'
skills led to the 1962 Manpower Development and Training Administration
(MDTA), which provided training along with a stipend for unemployed workers.
Following historical precedent, it initially targeted white male
heads-of-household, although its focus shifted to African-American youths as
the War On Poverty got underway in the middle of the decade. The MDTA was
soon surpassed by the Neighborhood Youth Corps and other War On Poverty
programs, which provided work, education, training, and support services to
pull people considered to be on the margins of society into the mainstream.
Fair work programs similar to those of the Great Depression finally returned
in the 1970s. The recession of 1969-1970 ended the economic boom of the 1960s
and led to the Public Employment Program (PEP) in 1971. Three years later the
Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) replaced the PEP, the MDTA,
and the War On Poverty work and training programs with an all-inclusive
program. The PEP’s job creation program became Public Service Employment
(PSE) in CETA.
While PEP and PSE marked the return of job creation, they were far more
constrained than their 1930s' predecessors. Most importantly, they were only
allowed to develop work in services; the construction and production-for-use
projects that were such critical components of the earlier programs were
absent. And PEP and PSE were small in comparison to the earlier programs,
reaching a high point of 742,000 people in March 1978. Yet this was only
one-sixth of the 1930s maximum -- even though the labor force had doubled in the
intervening years. While the 1930s' programs created work for one-third of
the jobless at their high point, PSE provided jobs for only 12 percent of the
unemployed at its maximum. In spite of these overall constraints, PEP and PSE
were the targets of many of the same criticisms that had earlier plagued the
FERA, CWA, and WPA. Most common were charges that wage rates were too high
which attracted people from private sector employment, the work was
inefficient and unnecessary "make-work," and the entire programs were too
expensive and were riddled with fraud and abuse. Unlike the earlier programs,
CETA was also criticized for substituting federal CETA funds for local tax
revenues and displacing normal government workers with CETA workers. And, as
in the 1930s, contradictory mandates meant that these criticisms were often
accurate.
Regulations determining eligibility and payments placed PEP and PSE closer to
the fair work end of the spectrum of government work programs than was true of
the 1930s-era programs. Although a strict "means test" was not required for
participation, there was a mandated focus on providing work for the long-term,
low-income unemployed. Eligibility was based on the length of time a person
was jobless, family income, and status with respect to UI or AFDC;
additionally, preferences for veterans became an increasing concern. These
criteria were initially quite loose, but became increasingly strict throughout
the 1970s. Payments for program participants proved a continual source of
controversy, as public sector unions fought to maintain high payments, in
order to prevent replacing public sector workers with CETA workers, and
capitalists tried to keep rates down, in order to help maintain a preference
for private sector jobs. Payments were supposed to be based on "prevailing
rates" for similar work in the local area, with ceilings on the annual amount
that participants could be paid. Although local agencies could supplement PSE
payments out of their own funds, the ceilings constrained the program’s
ability to create jobs in high-wage areas of the country.
In spite of the restriction to services, a wide variety of socially useful
work was accomplished in the PEP and PSE. Public works projects included:
maintenance and repair of buildings, equipment, streets, sidewalks, and
sewers; cleaning streets and alleys; collecting garbage; flood and erosion
control; and conservation, including weatherization and repair of low-income
homes. Parks and recreation projects included the development and maintenance
of facilities, as well as operating recreational programs. Educational
services, too, involved maintenance of school buildings and grounds, as well
as instruction-related projects for teacher's assistants. New programs and
services were set up, such as low-cost "meals on wheels" delivered to the
elderly in their homes, community arts programs, and conducting surveys of
community needs for social services. Additional workers were provided to
expand services in existing agencies, including day care centers, shelters for
battered women and their children, legal aid, hospitals (e.g. setting up
hypertension screening programs and treatment programs for alcoholics), and
law enforcement agencies. In fact, many institutions developed during the
1970s, such as food cooperatives and women's health clinics, ran on shoestring
budgets and depended on CETA workers to remain in
operation.
Confinement to the provision of services was problematic, as it fueled
criticisms that the programs were inefficient and unnecessary. This followed
in large part from the dominance of ideology extolling the virtues of the
market. According to this logic, the private sector is efficient because
decisions are based on profits; conversely, the government by its very nature
is inefficient because its decisions are based on other criteria,
theoretically what the society needs.
Some changes were made in CETA as part of the 1978 reauthorization. It was
subjected to increased restrictions regarding targeting and determination of
payments. Some of these were beneficial, most importantly, the directive to
set up projects for women who had only worked in the home (for no wages),
generally called displaced homemakers (DHs), and for women in male-dominated
(labeled nontraditional) occupations. Also, in response to charges of
inefficiency, a new program was started. The Private Sector Initiative
Program (PSIP) established Private Industry Councils (PICs) to develop
training programs designed to meet the needs of local employers.
During this era, another attempt to pass legislation mandating that the
government serve as "employer of last resort" again met with failure. As
originally proposed in 1974, the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment and Balanced
Growth Act would have included a public service employment program that would
go into effect when the unemployment rate fell below 3 percent. However, it
met a fate similar to that of the 1945 Full Employment Bill, and was finally
passed in an eviscerated form in 1978.
When Reagan became president in 1981 he quickly eliminated the much maligned
PSE, and allowed CETA to expire the following year. It was replaced by the
far narrower Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), which continued the PSIP and
was designed to provide usually short-term training to meet the needs of local
employers. The JTPA lasted until 1998, when it, in turn, was replaced by the
Workforce Investment Act (WIA).
A Brief History of Workfare Programs in the U.S.
Historically, workfare has been by far the more common type of government work
program. From the colonial era through the early 1930s the poor were typically
put to work in workhouses or on "poor farms" in order to prove that they were
"deserving" of aid. Sometimes, the work they did was clearly punitive
"make-work" -- e.g., moving rocks or digging ditches and filling them up again.
Although things of value were sometimes produced, most commonly, food on the
"poor farms," the proscription against interfering with the private sector
limited the production of useful goods. Additionally, paupers were commonly
"auctioned out" to the highest bidder, providing extremely low-cost labor.
[The discussion in this section is based on Rose 1995.]
As the Great Depression of the 1930s brought massive unemployment, there was a
break in the focus on formal workfare programs. Yet coercive work policies
remained, primarily in the practice of closing relief rolls in response to
increased demand for low-wage labor. Often carried out during planting and
harvesting seasons and in response to complaints of a lack of domestic service
workers, it was particularly common in localities with large populations of
African-Americans. This practice of routinely closing relief rolls to provide
a more than adequate supply of low-wage agricultural labor continued through
the mid-1960s, and was finally ended when hearings accompanying the War on
Poverty brought it to the attention of the public.
While less common than usual, worktests were not eliminated during the 1930s.
They continued in the Transient Program from 1933 through 1935, as
participants were required to work in exchange for relief. Additionally, many
local relief administrations revived the worktest, as recipients performed
maintenance work, primarily cutting grass, collecting garbage, and cleaning
sewage disposal plants.
The post World War II era saw the termination of the progressive programs of
the New Deal and the expansion of punitive relief policies. As growing
numbers of African-American women received Aid to Dependent children (ADC),
"suitable home" and "man-in-the-house" policies were applied to restrict their
participation -- homes were sometimes judged "unsuitable" if the mother was not
married and if a man was suspected of living in her house. Coercive work
policies continued through periodically closing relief rolls to force women
into (typically extremely) low-wage labor, and were formalized by "employable
mother" rules which decreed that ADC recipients could be denied aid at times
when additional labor was needed in the fields.
The 1960s was another era of relatively progressive welfare policies.
However, it also saw the return of a formal work program that became
increasingly punitive through the 1970s. The Work Incentive (WIN) Program,
enacted in 1967, required registration for eligible recipients of AFDC [Aid to
Families with Dependent Children, which ADC was changed to in 1962].
Reflecting the overall tenor of the 1960s poverty programs, it initially
relied heavily on incentives to encourage participation. Most important was
the "income disregard," or "work incentive bonus," as the first $30 plus
one-third of the remaining earned income was not counted in the computation of
welfare payments, and work-related expenses (WREs) were reimbursed.
Importantly, WIN included an emphasis on education and training to increase
participants’ skills in order to help them obtain and keep jobs.
The 1970s witnessed the development of more punitive work programs. In 1971,
the Talmadge amendments ushered in the more restrictive phase II of the WIN
program, requiring registration of AFDC recipients with children over age six,
and sanctioning noncompliance with the loss of the offending person’s portion
of the family’s welfare payment. The 1970s also saw the development of
experimental work programs. One such program was the Supported Work
Demonstration (SWD) project, which was aimed at long-term AFDC recipients who
faced severe barriers to employment -- primarily little job experience, training,
or education. Providing time-limited (generally twelve to eighteen months)
employment in closely supervised and supportive work settings, the goal was to
help participants acquire skills, habits, and credentials that would enable
them to find and retain jobs. Careful studies of the SWD project found that it
was quite successful, both for the individuals involved and for the program as
a whole. Compared to those in control groups, participants had higher rates
of employment, hours of work, and earnings (although their wages were still
low), results that were sustained over several years. Further, the program
proved cost-effective, as the benefits outweighed the costs for welfare
agencies.
In spite of these beneficial results, SWD remained a small program. Instead,
another experimental program, workfare, became the dominant work program for
welfare recipients. Commonly called Community Work Experience programs
(CWEPs), workfare was initially developed in states as diverse as California,
Massachusetts, and Utah. These were traditional workfare programs, as work
was required simply in exchange for welfare payments -- not for wages. Hours of
work were typically calculated by dividing the family’s AFDC payment (minus
any earned income) by the minimum wage. And sanctions were critical, as
noncompliance could result in the diversion of payments to a third party, or
in suspension or termination of the offender’s portion. One of the most avid
proponents of CWEPs was then governor of California, Ronald Reagan, who
ignored the consistent findings that the program’s costs outweighed its
benefits, and extolled the virtues of the purported decline in "welfare
dependency," both as governor and in his later capacity as President.
The experimental workfare programs of the 1970s proved to be precursors of the
"workfare explosion" of the 1980s. Eschewing analyses that recognized the
structural, systemic causes of poverty and bolstered by "poverty-by-choice"
arguments -- that millions of women had chosen to go on welfare since it was so
generous -- the Reagan administration proposed, and Congress enacted, policies
designed to end "welfare dependency" by pushing women into the (usually
low-wage) labor market. As part of the steady devolution of control from the
federal government, individual states were given wide discretion in designing
and implementing policies. Under the 1981 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act,
states were encouraged to develop WIN demonstration programs, alternatives to
WIN. Yet the federal government made some changes as well, as incentives under
the WIN program were gutted (e.g., the earned income disregard was reduced and
reimbursements for WREs were limited), participation was generally mandated
for women whose youngest child was three or older, and sanctions were
intensified. The focus on punitive policies was further reflected in the
emphasis on job placement, as education and training became increasingly
restricted.
From 1981 through 1996, government work programs were characterized by
punitive workfare and workfare-like programs. The experimental WIN
demonstration programs were institutionalized through the JOBS (Job
Opportunities and Basic Skill training) that was part of the 1988 Family
Support Act. Although the legislation included options for an array of
education and training, as well as support services, funding for these
activities was minimal. Instead, the focus remained on immediate job
placement -- as well as on collecting child support payments from "deadbeat
dads" -- and "job search" became a favored activity of welfare departments. There
were some helpful programs, most importantly, programs for women to obtain
college degrees. However, although studies consistently showed that a college
education was the surest route out of poverty for women, these programs were
typically limited and required participants to go through many hoops in order
to remain in them.
Government Work Programs since 1996
The PRWORA was an almost logical extension of the policies between 1981 and
1996; yet it went beyond what could have been imagined when the onslaught
began. There are two main concerns. First, the PRWORA ended the federally
guaranteed entitlement to welfare that had been enacted through the 1935
Social Security Act, and replaced it with a block grant. Thus far, due to the
economic expansion, this has not been a problem. However, business cycles are
an integral component of capitalist economic systems, and when the next one
occurs, it is quite likely that states will use up their block grant funds.
What will ensue remains to be seen. The second, and best known, feature of
the PRWORA is time limits: families can receive welfare for a maximum of 24
months in any welfare "spell" with a lifetime limit of 60 months. Indeed, the
name of the program was changed to reflect this, as AFDC became TANF -- Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families. Although up to 20 percent of families on the
rolls can be exempted from participation in work activities, as the rolls
decline the numbers of people with severe barriers to employment become a
larger percentage of those remaining on welfare. Time limits were intended to
push welfare recipients into jobs, thought to be the key to ending "welfare
dependency"; the other option is marriage.
While the PRWORA is generally a reactionary, repressive piece of legislation,
a positive feature was eliminating the prohibition on the use of welfare funds
for wage-paying, publicly funded job creation. In conjunction with two
additional recent pieces of legislation that concern employment programs and
policies, there are consequently new opportunities for job creation. In 1997
the Welfare-to-Work (WtW) program was enacted to set up work activities for
hard-to-employ TANF recipients and noncustodial parents of children in TANF
households. And in 1998, the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) replaced the Job
Training Partnership Act (JTPA) with a new structure of programs for job
training and information. Under this act, job training is very broadly
construed, so that one of the options includes job creation programs [Johnson
and Savner 1999].
Not surprisingly, a variety of programs ranging from workfare to fair work
have been implemented. Some are clearly workfare, also called "community
service" or Community Work Experience. For example, the Transitional
Opportunity Program (TOP) in Hawaii and Wisconsin Works (W2) require work in
exchange for welfare payments, with hours of work determined by dividing the
grant by the minimum wage. More closely resembling fair work are Community
Service Employment (CSE) or Community Service Jobs (CSJ). These include
Oregon Jobs Plus, in which employers are subsidized up to the minimum wage and
participants are paid labor market wages, and Vermont’s Reach Up, in which
participants’ TANF payments are diverted and considered as earned income. All
of these programs provide only temporary placement -- the objective is always to
channel people into unsubsidized employment.
Differences between these current workfare and fair work programs focus on the
degree to which the work resembles "real jobs." In those closer to the fair
work end of the spectrum, payments are determined by the number of hours
worked, and are connected to government programs for wage work, most
importantly, eligibility for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and
contributions into the social security system. Therefore, as wage-paying
jobs, they stop the time-limit "clock" for assistance through TANF. Further,
treating participants as "real workers" improves the "soft skills" of general
job readiness and orientation imparted through work programs. On the other
end of the spectrum, since workfare programs pay only welfare, not wages, they
do not make workers eligible for the EITC or affect future social security
payments. However, they usually keep the TANF time-limit "clock" running,
thereby constraining future aid.
An Agenda for Fair Work and Related Programs
Finally, we should develop an agenda for fair work and related programs as
well as supporting arguments. Since work has been integral to welfare reform,
this also involves welfare policies. In doing this, it is helpful to look at
both short-range and longer-range goals. This allows us to look at what is
possible in the current political climate separately from a more comprehensive
vision of what is needed, and thereby maintain a sense of hopefulness about
the project.
Short-term goals would focus on turning the lemon of welfare reform into
lemonade -- to the degree that this is possible. This includes arguing for job
creation at living wages through TANF, as well as through the WIA and the WtW
programs. With respect to welfare per se, as Frances Fox Piven [2000]
declared in a recent talk, we should push to make welfare administrations
interpret ambiguities in TANF in the interests of poor people. Of primary
concern is ending the diversion of applicants and reversing the frightening
increase in rejection rates of those applying for aid, making sure that those
cut off welfare receive transitional benefits, and giving work credit for
attending school. Further, punitive policies should be reversed. Most
important is to end lifetime limits, stringent work requirements, and the
excessive use of sanctions.
There are important issues to note about the focus on wage work as a cure for
"welfare dependency." While this may indeed end the dreaded "welfare
dependency," it does nothing to reduce poverty. Indeed, it flies in the face
of the reality of the low-wage labor market, as these jobs keep people poor,
not to mention fail to provide health benefits. Furthermore, low-wage jobs
typically entail "flexibility," as hours of work are generally variable to
meet the needs of employers. However, this is the antithesis of what mothers
need -- predictable hours of work in order to arrange for childcare. As Randy
Albelda [2000] recently noted, it is not a case of mothers not being
"job-ready" -- rather the jobs are not "mother-ready." Further, if the mandate to
work for wages is accepted, then women should be able to earn enough to
support themselves and their children. However, this has rarely been
feasible. The majority of women are still employed in low-wage clerical work,
and in 1998 the female/male wage gap for full-time, year-round workers was 73
percent [Council of Economic Advisors, table B-31].
It is telling that discussions about ending "welfare dependency" have focused
on wage work while the other option -- marriage -- has been ignored. This has been
the case in spite of the fact that marriage was a focus of the original
legislation. In fact, the PRWORA begins with the declaration that: "1)
Marriage is the foundation of a successful society." The fact that this
age-old method of survival -- economic dependence on a man -- has been largely
ignored in the public debates does not diminish its importance in reality.
Longer-range goals promoting fair work and related programs would provide
supports for all types of families so that children will be protected and both
women and men will have choices about combining wage-work with work in the
home. This could be done through an "economic bill of rights" in conjunction
with a redefinition of what constitutes work in our society.
The definition of what constitutes work is of critical importance in the
current era. There is general agreement that paid labor -- no matter how menial
or degrading -- is "real work." However, this is not true of caretaking work in
the home -- or of volunteer work in the community. Indeed, poor women typically
function as a type of "social glue," providing vital support services for
low-income neighborhoods. This unpaid work in the home and in the community
needs to be recognized as the critically important, socially necessary labor
that it is. And given the consumerist, commodified nature of society, women,
and men, should be compensated for this work. A relatively easy way to
accomplish this would be to broaden widow’s pensions -- one of the survivor’s
social security benefits -- to cover all caregivers. Another way to do this
would be implementation of a Caregiver’s Protection Act.
An "economic bill of rights" could draw on the "new bill of rights" initially
proposed by the National Resources Planning Board in the early 1940s as well
as other proposals from the past -- Employment Assurance from the original
version of the Social Security Act, the 1945 Full Employment Bill, and the
original Humphrey-Hawkins bill in the mid-1970s. Their visions -- that everyone
has the right to socially useful work and freedom from poverty -- should be
recaptured and revitalized in the current era. In promoting these ideas, it is
instructive to recall the tenor and substance of discussions from the earlier
eras during which fair work programs were part of the policy mix, both to
counter some of the pessimism that can so easily infuse current debates and to
revive some of these proposals and sentiments. Indeed, discussions were so
different -- in both style and substance -- from those since the early 1980s that it
would behoove us to reclaim them from the proverbial dustbin of history.
From the 1960s we should recall the focus on bringing people on the margins of
society back into the mainstream. Indeed, as Clifford M. Johnson and Steve
Savner point out in Federal Funding Sources for Public Job Creation
Initiatives [1999], one rationale for using TANF funds for job creation
programs for teenagers and young adults is to reduce the incidence of
out-of-wedlock births. The implication is that having a "real job" increases
a person’s choices and feelings of hopefulness about the future.
Most relevant for this study, the fair work programs of the 1930s and 1970s
can serve as models for future programs. Several lessons emerge. The first
set involves basic guidelines. Programs should be universalized, i.e. not
confined to specific groups, so that more people have a stake in their
viability and to avoid labeling program participants. Programs should be
federalized rather than leaving more discretion to individual states, as
history shows that this results in more progressive policies. And programs
should be funded by the government rather than by individual employers, as the
latter increases business’ tax burden and fosters a reluctance to hire new
employees.
Most fundamentally, a fair work program would establish the federal government
as "employer of last resort," providing jobs when the private sector fails to
do so. Participation would be voluntary, and open to people who are
unemployed or underemployed. Wages would be based on "prevailing rates" in
local labor markets. In order to protect people’s jobs and prevent the
development of a second-class tier of workers, program participants would be
allowed to join unions.
A fair work program should be augmented by comprehensive E&T programs -- also
universalized -- that would provide a range of education and vocational training.
This would also help replace the current work attachment model of welfare
reform with a human investment model. The 1970s offers models of creative
employment and training programs, , some designed for groups who have been
relatively marginal to the labor market, most importantly, women who have only
worked in the home. Programs in the 1980s and 1990s to enable welfare
recipients to obtain college degrees, and thereby find jobs that can get them
out of poverty, could be augmented to encourage this route instead of
requiring participants to jump through hoops.
We can see from the massive and innovative programs of the 1930s that
large-scale programs providing a range of work are indeed possible. Especially
given the cutbacks in both services and publicly funded construction since the
early 1980s, a great deal needs to be done, and could easily provide work for
millions of people. A partial list includes repair of crumbling
infrastructure (e.g. repairing roads and bridges), other construction projects
(e.g. low-cost housing and public transportation systems), public sector
projects (e.g. teacher's aides in public schools, public health projects,
programs for school drop-outs, and conservation), and increased public support
for the arts.
Any proposal in support of a large-scale job creation program should
anticipate criticisms of fair work programs and develop responses to these
time-worn complaints of fraud and abuse, overly high payments, and inefficient
and unnecessary "make-work" that will undoubtedly arise.
Charges of fraud and corruption can be dismissed as red herrings. They are
routinely made towards government agencies and programs simply because
services are provided by government instead of the private sector. Given the
ideological dominance of markets since the 1970s, this has become even more
problematic. Tellingly, these criticisms have been far more constraining when
directed at job creation programs, compared to other government programs such
as the military, since these programs expose the inability of capitalist
economic systems to create enough jobs for everyone who wants to work for
wages.
Charges that payments are too high stem from fears that people will have
attractive alternatives to private sector jobs and that women will have
alternatives to marriage. The first concern reflects the dominance of the
private sector as higher wages cut into a firm’s profits -- and have historically
constrained wage policies on fair work programs. The second alternative -- an
"independence effect" for women -- should be defended as a legitimate choice.
The criticisms that have proven most problematic historically concern
inefficiency and unnecessary "make-work." Responses should clarify the
contradictions that have caused them. Charges of make-work, commonly made
towards fair work programs in the 1930s and 1970s, resulted from directives to
avoid substituting work program participants for "normal government workers"
or "normal government operations." As a result, the work was easily construed
as unnecessary -- otherwise it was assumed that the government would already be
doing it. Further, we should point out that much of the work done in the past
programs was socially useful. In fact, many of the 1930s' projects, from
community facilities to WPA murals, still exist. And PSE projects, from
weatherizing low-income homes to working in women's health clinics, enhanced
the lives of both the workers and the people receiving the services.
Criticisms of inefficiency and "make-work" were further exacerbated by
contradictory regulations. This was particularly clear during the 1930s when
requirements to use a maximum amount of labor and a minimum of capital
goods -- i.e. to make work -- logically led to these charges. Further, during
the 1930s, production of clearly useful consumer goods was hampered by
regulations designed to ensure that the programs would not interfere with
production-for-profit.
There is an additional argument that can be made in support of fair work
programs. They make good economic sense, especially during recessions. In
contrast to "trickle-down" policies in which tax breaks were given to the
rich, fair work programs are part of "bubble-up" policies that channel money
into the hands of working people who will quickly spend it. This results in a
"percolator effect": it increases demand for goods and services and induces
capitalists to increase production, hire more workers, and thereby expand the
economy. Instead of depending on unemployment to hold wages down and maintain
profits, we can counterpose wage-led growth, in part through policies that
create jobs.
A large-scale fair work program with supporting family and labor market
policies would be expensive. Money to fund it can come from rescinding the
tax cuts for the wealthy and for corporations passed in the 1980s and 1990s,
substantially reducing the military budget, closing corporate tax loopholes,
eliminating the ceiling on income subject to social security taxes, and a tax
on the sale of short-term assets.
In order to bring these ideas into the national discourse, we need to expand
the boundaries of what is now considered feasible. In place of the
constricted vision that defines current discussions, we need to recapture the
sense of possibility that pervaded the 1930s, 1960s, and 1970s. In place of
the supremacy of the market and the politics of greed, we need to argue that
real family and moral values means making sure that children are cared for and
that parents don’t have to undergo humiliation in order to survive. In place
of an analysis positing poverty as an individual, psychological problem that
destroys a person's "moral fiber," we need a social-structural analysis that
sees poverty and unemployment as endemic to capitalist economic systems.
History shows that this is possible.
ENDNOTES
- The WPA was originally an acronym that stood for the Works
Progress Administration. In July 1939, as part of the growing reaction
following the election of many conservatives to Congress the previous
November, its name was changed to the Work Projects Administration and it was
housed thereafter under the Federal Works Agency.
- These studies were carried out by the Manpower Development Research
Corporation (MDRC), which was initially established to evaluate the SWD
project, and continues to conduct evaluations of government work
programs.
- 110 stat. 2110, Public Law 104-193, Aug. 22,
1996.
REFERENCES
- Albelda, Randy, plenary session, Work, Welfare, and
Politics, University of Oregon, February 28-29, 2000.
- Council of Economic Advisors. Economic Report of the President,
1985. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office,
1985.
- Johnson, Clifford, and Steve Savner, Federal Funding Sources for Public
Sector Job Creation Initiatives (Washington, D.C.: Denter on Budget and
Policy Priorities and Center for Law and Social Policy, December
1999.
- Piven, Frances Fox, plenary session, Work, Welfare, and Politics,
University of Oregon, February 28-29, 2000.
- Rose, Nancy E. Workfare or Fair Work: Women, Welfare, and Government
Work Programs. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press,
1995.
- Rose, Nancy E. Put to Work: Relief Programs in the Great
Depression. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1994.
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