This reform as with most reforms these days represents
welfare for a segment of capitalist business, those
who are unwilling to pay a wage that would attract
those who are not in the extremest need. Even the
meagre welfare programmes in the US made welfare an
alternative. Now there is no competition from welfare
some people are forced into them. As mentioned they
often lose health insurance and other benefits.
I am not opposed to working as opposed to welfare
but the govt. should offer the jobs and provide
reasonable benefits and a living wage. A person who
can should work but it is the responsibiility of the
government to provide that work and not at poverty
wages and benfits.
I notice that in the GM debate there is almost
never the suggestion that GM development should not be
in private hands and for profit but should be
socialised and for public benefit. The debate is all
about the potential dangers and the greedy controlling
corporations. If the corporations are greedy and
controlling then taken them under public ownership and
control. The issue of ownership of the means of
production seems to vanish from the debate.
Cheers, Ken Hanly
--- Jayson Funke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Welfare to work
> Tough love works
> Jul 27th 2006
> From The Economist print edition
>
> Why America's pathfinding reform holds lessons for
> other countries
>
> A DECADE ago, Americans began a bold social
> experiment. In August 1996,
> Bill Clinton signed into law the bill that
> introduced "welfare to work".
> From that point, poor families could no longer claim
> welfare
> indefinitely as an entitlement. Instead, parents had
> to find a job.
>
> The reform, controversial enough in America, was
> reviled in many parts
> of Europe. Its opponents said that welfare
> claimants, most of them
> single mothers, would be unable to find work. They
> and their families,
> it was argued, were being condemned to destitution.
>
> Ten years on, such dire warnings have been proved
> spectacularly wrong
> (see article). America's welfare rolls have fallen
> by over half as
> existing claimants have found work and fewer people
> have gone on benefit
> in the first place. A strong economy, generating
> plenty of jobs, has
> undoubtedly helped; but the main reason for the
> steep decline in
> caseloads is the reform itself. Furthermore, there
> has been no upsurge
> in the poverty rate; in fact, it has fallen over the
> period. Most of the
> jobs taken by former claimants are poorly paid, but
> in general they are
> doing somewhat better than when they were on
> welfare.
>
> The reform has succeeded by combining sanctions and
> incentives. The
> sanctions comprise strict limits on the length of
> time that benefits are
> paid. Families are normally not allowed to receive
> welfare for more than
> five years and all mothers are expected to work
> whatever the age of
> their children, although states can exempt those
> with a child under one.
> The incentives include financial support for
> low-income earners through
> a more generous Earned Income Tax Credit, which has
> burgeoned over the
> past ten years, and much higher public spending on
> child care.
>
> Since success is infectious, several other countries
> have adopted
> features of the American reform. In Britain, the
> Labour government has
> administered tough love in its programme to prevent
> young people from
> getting stuck in unemployment. Despite some wretched
> administrative
> foul-ups, it has also greatly boosted financial
> support for poor working
> parents, including generous help towards child care.
>
> Smaller European states like the Netherlands and
> Denmark have also
> introduced strict conditions to get people off
> welfare and have boosted
> incentives to work by making benefits less generous.
> The success of such
> policies in cutting unemployment has helped to
> convince more resistant
> countries like France and Germany that they, too,
> must move away from
> entitlement to conditionality. Belatedly, they are
> starting to adopt
> similar measures as part of their drive to cut
> chronically high rates of
> joblessness.
>
> Time out for time out
>
> Much more could still be done. In Britain, for
> example, single parents
> can remain on welfare until their youngest child is
> 16. This needs to
> change. Australia, which has had a similar rule, is
> showing the way by
> reducing the age from 16 to six for new claimants
> this year; those with
> older children will have to look for paid work of at
> least 15 hours a
> week.
>
> As important, the principles of welfare-to-work can
> be applied to other
> working-age people who in many countries have come
> to depend on welfare
> through disability payments. Whereas in Britain, for
> example, the
> jobless count has fallen sharply over the past ten
> years, the number of
> people claiming incapacity benefits has carried on
> rising. As a result,
> it now greatly exceeds those on unemployment
> benefit. Once people are on
> incapacity benefit, they tend to remain on it. Yet
> most are able to
> work. Again, a mixture of conditionality and in-work
> support is needed
> to make reform effective. These principles now lie
> behind a long-overdue
> effort in Britain to reduce the number of claimants.
>
> Welfare recipients, whether lone parents or the
> long-term unemployed or
> many disability claimants, tend to be poorly
> educated with few skills.
> Help with basic learning and training for people
> re-entering employment
> is another way in which welfare reform can be
> improved. And what's even
> more important is to ensure that children do better
> in school in the
> first place.
>
> Welfare reform was once regarded as a harsh,
> right-wing, America-only
> idea. But an unexpected lesson of the past ten years
> is that it enjoys
> much wider political appeal. Within America, its
> success has silenced
> the former fierce opposition of left-wing Democrats,
> which Mr Clinton
> had overruled. For the Labour government in Britain
> and for social
> democrats in Europe, reform offers a way to
> reintegrate people who would
> otherwise live in a welfare apartheid. Furthermore,
> it is a way to
> defend generous support for the poor-as long as they
> find work. Another
> attraction for developed countries as their
> populations age is that it
> mobilises more employment to maintain living
> standards and help pay for
> the old. And, best of all, it works.
>
>
> Jayson Funke
>
> Graduate School of Geography
> Clark University
> 950 Main Street
> Worcester, MA 01610
>
