COLUMN: Tearing a hole in the safety net

From Nadia Dowshen's, "Urban Guerrilla's, Fall '99 From Nadia Dowshen's, "Urban Guerrilla's, Fall '99Next week, on March 3, 1999, while most Penn students will be preparing for their spring break trips to the Caribbean or Europe, over 20,000 Philadelphia residents will lose their welfare benefits. As time runs out, the city and its surrounding suburbs are not prepared to offer enough jobs for all of the city's welfare receptionist -- Philadelphia's unemployed outnumber available jobs in the metropolitan area by a three to one ratio. This major hole of the American safety net opened on August 22, 1996, when President Clinton signed a bill replacing the old system of public assistance with a new system placing time limits and work requirements on guaranteed government cash assistance to needy families. The new policy put the power of welfare reform in the hands of the states, with two stipulations: Benefits are limited to no longer than two years at a time and no more than five years within one's lifetime, regardless of employment status. Few would argue with the idea that we should end dependency on the former flawed welfare system and move people into the workforce. However, the job market in communities like Philadelphia makes implementing welfare reform an impossibility. For example, even if there were enough jobs for everyone, average salaries for these kinds of jobs fall far short of $16.40 per hour -- the amount the Pennsylvania Self-Sufficiency Project estimates a single mother of two typically needs to raise her family. And the jobs that do pay enough to support a family often require very specific training or some college education, while many welfare recipients face multiple barriers, such as limited English proficiency. According to the Department of Public Welfare, half of current welfare recipients have only a high school education, half have no recent work history and most are single parents. To make matters worse, welfare recipients who over the course of the last two years have attempted to upgrade their education and training to increase the likelihood of their securing employment and moving towards self-sufficiency will also get kicked off of the rolls next week. In addition to the lack of jobs suitable for welfare recipients at family-sustaining wages, former welfare recipients face Philadelphia's form of apartheid: The region's poor minorities are extremely concentrated in certain neighborhoods while the new entry-level jobs they need can only be found over an hour away in suburban malls and industrial parks. While many companies will bus workers to suburban jobs, Penn Sociology Chairperson Douglas Massey notes that "you can import workers into the suburbs and then boot them back into segregated ghettos where you don't put any money into the schools or other services." Welfare recipients who try to overcome this discrimination by relocating closer to available jobs in the suburbs will find almost no low-income or affordable housing in these areas. So where do we in the Penn community fit into this sad story? Unless we are content to watch thousands of Philadelphians and women and children nationwide -- possibly some of our own friends and family -- end up on the streets, we students, faculty, staff and administrators must do something about this impending crisis. Right now, welfare reform isn't based in any research or any real experience that suggests that this is the way to help more people become productive members of society. And that is where Penn can make a difference. As a large and powerful research institution, we can suggest welfare policies and programs that really work for people as opposed to simply saying that we need people to go to work without focusing on the best ways to do that. The way to begin this process is with intelligent, respectful dialogue. On that note, I encourage all members of the Penn and Philadelphia communities to attend a panel discussion on "The Changing Face of Welfare: It's Time to Hear the Facts" next Tuesday, March 2, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in Meyerson B-3.