by Dillonna C. Lewis, Coordinator for Supportive Services Welfare Rights Initiative, Hunter College.
(September 1999)
Speaking to more than 250 people at the Women Fighting Poverty Conference, 19-year old Maziel Mejia, a Hunter College student and Welfare Rights Initiative (WRI) leader, recently stated: "It is funny how we are supposed to live in a democracy yet we cannot choose not to starve, suffer or be victims of domestic violence." Maziel understands the challenge of trying to raise a family on a cash grant that falls 27 percent below the poverty line. She knows that welfare "reform" has NOT lifted families up and out of poverty. Instead, it has brought harm to thousands of college students on welfare.
Few politicians who celebrate the declining welfare rolls seem to know what happens to those forced off welfare by The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRA). The PRA converted the federal entitlement program for single mothers, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), into a state-run block grant called Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF). TANF also imposed a five-year maximum lifetime limit for welfare eligibility, made it simpler for states to restructure their welfare programs, and narrowed the educational options under the law.
The far-reaching impact of welfare "reform" has been mostly negative. While the rolls have dropped and some people have found work, many former recipients tell researchers that they cannot make ends meet. Due to low wages, lack of health insurance, expensive childcare, and loss of other benefits, they find themselves poorer than before.
The loss of educational options under welfare "reform" has deprived thousands of poor single mothers nationwide of the opportunity to attend college-even though data show that 87 percent of students who attain a Bachelor's degree move permanently off welfare. Before welfare "reform," 28,000 of the students at City University of New York (CUNY) or 10 percent of the student body used public assistance. Due to welfare reform, more than 18,000 students/recipients have had to abandon their studies for dead-end jobs or workfare assignments. Today only 10,000 remain in school.
How did this happen? The former welfare law allowed states to count college attendance as a work activity and still get federal funding. While students paid their own tuition, this rule helped women on welfare to stay in school. TANF ended this. It disallowed more than 12 months of education and made it more difficult to enroll in basic adult literacy, GED, and ESL classes. In addition, recipients must spend up to 35 hours a week in an acceptable "work activity" instead of going to school. This can include "workfare" which assigns most recipients to work-off their benefits sweeping city streets, cleaning public agency toilets or filing papers at a private agency. The promise that workfare, officially known as the Work Experience Program (WEP), will lead to a regular job rings hollow since less than four percent of workfare participants end-up employed and then only in short term, minimum wage jobs.
The intensified use of sanctions (the loss or reduction of benefits for not following one of welfare's tough new policies) has also forced women out of college and into low-paid jobs. For example, a single mother attending college full time may be called to participate in WEP. If she wants to continue her studies or stay home with her children, she risks loosing some or all of her benefits. The same is true if she simply misses an appointment with a welfare department worker. Full-time students who participate in an internship or the federal work-study program often learn that they must also fulfill "work activity" requirements or the City will close their case.
Students on welfare resent that welfare reform prevents them from developing the skills and credentials needed for work at a living wage and that it leaves them poor, under-educated, and qualified only for low paid jobs. WRI helps students stay in school. In addition to work with individuals, WRI engages in legislative advocacy. A group of legal aid attorneys, with whom WRI works closely, recently used the courts to prevent the city from inappropriately assigning single mothers with dependent children to WEP. The successful lawsuit-Davila v. Turner-permits single mothers who maintain a full time schedule of classes, federal work study and/or internship hours to more effectively use administrative fair hearings to challenge the 35 hour WEP assignment. WRI strongly believes that students in school full- time and in federal work study jobs and/or internships are already preparing themselves for work. In May 1999, Assembly member Roberta Ramirez brought WRI's Work Study and Internship bill to the floor of the New York State Assembly. If passed the bill would allow the state to count federal work study and internships as work activities. WRI's student leaders actively mobilized support for the bill and the bill now awaits a sponsor in the NYS Senate. WRI and the wider advocacy community believe as well that proper implementation of the assessment procedures promised in the welfare law could protect students on welfare from inappropriate assignments.
WRI is a student activist organization. Now four years old, WRI works to insure that any public policy debate about welfare includes the voices of those directly affected. Its main activity consists of mobilizing and training college students supported by public assistance so they can influence welfare policy themselves. Its students-mostly women-are regularly pursued by the media, conferences and advocates. They now stand at the forefront of city and statewide efforts to create better future for all poor single mothers on welfare in New York City.
Readers are invited to join WRI and help keep the doors of our nation's largest public university open to poor students who are trying to improve their life chances. Contact Dillonna C. Lewis at 212-650-3569 for further information.