by Sonia Pérez and Eric Rodríguez

Latino and other advocates are experiencing a mixture of anger and denial at the recently approved changes to the welfare system. Many of us cannot believe that a Democratic president was willing to "make history" at the expense of poor children, single mothers, and elderly immigrants. A president who was largely supported by the Latino community has gambled the futures of some of our families, believing that somehow he can "fix" things later. But our community cannot wait to see how it will turn out or what Bill Clinton will do. We must turn our attention to carefully monitoring how states implement his policy and try to minimize the harm it does to poor children and families.

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 reduces federal spending on assistance programs by $54 billion over the next six years, and requires states to begin operating a program of cash assistance to needy families funded under a block grant system no later than July 1, 1997. Despite its name, the bill's focus appears to be on reducing costs instead of moving families and children out of poverty. To this end, it also:

* Ends the federal guarantee or "entitlement" of assistance to poor families and children, which means that states are not required to provide aid to all needy families who qualify.

* Converts the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program into the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) block grant, which includes Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) and General Assistance funds.

* Transfers public assistance funds or "block grants" to states to distribute as they decide; poverty status alone does not guarantee that families can obtain benefits.

* Limits welfare receipt to two years while a parent is working off their benefits and limits all lifetime cash assistance to five years.

* Removes the requirement that states provide child care to families who enter work programs.

* Denies Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and food stamps assistance to legal immigrants and imposes both a five-year ban on legal immigrant access to other federal assistance programs, as well as further restrictions after five years.

Families in Puerto Rico will be subject to similar requirements except that fewer resources will be available over time. Initially, the amount of Puerto Rico's block grant will be greater than the amount that is currently allocated under the AFDC and JOBS programs separately; the AFDC and PASOS (Puerto Rico's JOBS program) block grant will total $113.4 million, an increase of $20 million compared to the current individual allocations. However, the amount of the block grant is fixed and will not fluctuate in response to cost of living increases.

The new law also imposes a five-year lifetime limit for receipt of assistance, and families in Puerto Rico who receive TANF must adhere to work requirement rules; that is, all but 20% of the caseload will have to be in a "job" in order to receive benefits. Information from the Departamento de la Familia, Puerto Rico's equivalent of a state Department of Health and Human Services, indicates that this can include those actively participating in school, job or skills training, or community service. Those exempt include the elderly and the disabled. While Puerto Rico is also expected to have 25% of its caseload in a job by 1997 (and 50% of the caseload working by 2002), unlike the states, however, Puerto Rico will not be subject to penalties for not meeting that target. Puerto Rico currently has 20% of its caseload in training or in a job.

Another issue of great concern to both Puerto Ricans on the island and on the mainland is employment and job creation; while the law requires TANF participants to be working, it does not outline any measures for developing jobs in places with high unemployment, such as Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico's food stamp program, Programa de Asistencia Nutricional (PAN), was not affected by the overall cuts, and individuals who participate in PAN will not be subject to work requirements.

Latinos Hit Hardest

Fighting poverty has little to do with the welfare reform and that is bad news for all Latinos. According to data released in late September, Latinos' poverty rate now surpasses that of African Americans. Census Bureau data show that 30.3% of Latinos and 29.3% of African Americans lived below the poverty level in 1995, compared to 11.2% for Whites. While poverty rates for all groups declined since 1994, the Latino poverty rate did not decrease significantly; the previous rate was 30.6%.

Given these grim statistics and the new law, the four poorest groups of Latinos are vulnerable to even deeper poverty. They are Puerto Ricans, the "working poor," Hispanic female-headed families, and children. Puerto Ricans continue to be the poorest of all major Latino subgroups with about two in five Puerto Rican families living in poverty. Moreover, because Puerto Ricans are disproportionately represented among recipients of welfare in cities like New York, their poverty rate is likely to increase with these new changes. The working poor consist of those Latinos who work but whose wages do not reach the official poverty line ($15,719 for a family of four in 1995). They are "on the edge;" with any change in their employment, marital, or socioeconomic status, these Latinos are a paycheck away from public assistance.

The new law's tough provisions-harsh time limits, no guarantee of assistance (which might even lead to waiting lists for aid), and funding restrictions-will likely increase poverty among Puerto Ricans and the Hispanic working poor. Some families may be denied aid outright if a state's budget exhausts its funds for welfare. A recent New York Times article also suggested that states might deter needy families through a longer application process, the need for complex identification, and proof of income. In addition, states may be able to meet their work requirement by reducing the caseload base (e.g., cut people off, deny access, etc.). If there is no federal guarantee or guideline, states may arbitrarily set their own parameters. Another threat is the 3% across-the-board reduction in Food Stamps and the removal of inflation adjustments, which will amount to a substantial cut in food assistance in the years 2000-2003.

Because it aims to change perceived behavior instead of supporting and empowering families to become self-sufficient, welfare reform legislation will hurt those who have used the safety-net in the way it was intended-as a temporary relief program. In times of recession, downsizing, and other economic turmoil, the new form of welfare may not be available to tide families over between jobs, divorces, or other events. In particular, many Latino working poor families may not be able to have access to needed assistance because they have depleted their benefits.

Women and Children Last

Poverty will rise among Hispanic single-mother families in those states where Latinos are most concentrated, including Arizona, California, and New York, and of course Puerto Rico, where these families already constitute at least one-third of the state's poor population. Most mothers-including those with low education levels, limited work experience, and few child-care options-will be required to work. In New York State, where 33% of the caseload is Latino and a significant proportion is Puerto Rican, language barriers, inadequate transportation, and lack of high-quality child care help explain why Hispanic women, in particular, are overrepresented in the welfare caseload.

Individual state work plans will replace the federal JOBS program as the vehicle for training women for the workforce and will count unsubsidized and subsidized employment, community service, four weeks of "job search," and 12 months of vocational training as "work." Although the new law increases the financial allocation for child care, it does not guarantee child care for participants. The message is that as long as families are "working," in whatever form, poverty and related factors are not an issue. While the new system intends to move recipients into the work force, it does not focus on increasing skill levels or opportunities and potential for permanent, steady employment at above poverty-level wages.

Latino child poverty can also be expected to climb over the next few years as this reform is implemented at the state level. Currently, two in five of our children are poor (40%); among Puerto Rican children, more than one in every two on the mainland (56%), and three out of five on the island (60%) live below federal poverty guidelines. An analysis by the Urban Institute suggests that a similar version of this legislation would push over one million children into poverty. Given that 20% of children receiving cash assistance from the AFDC program are Latino, we should expect them to be made still poorer by these changes. That means more children in families who do not have enough money to afford decent housing, pay utility and other bills, or buy school supplies.

Finally, welfare reform will have a disproportionate impact on immigrants. Although immigrants make up only 5% of welfare recipients, they will bear more than 40% of the cuts in services. Cuts extend well beyond "classic" welfare programs and limit or outright bar access to preventive health care, prenatal care, and student loans. Most legal immigrants will be prohibited until citizenship from receiving Food Stamps and SSI, which will cause about one-half million immigrants to lose SSI benefits, and about 900,000 to lose Food Stamps. States will also have the option to bar legal immigrant from Medicaid, AFDC, Title XX social services block grants and most state-funded "means-tested" programs.

Although Puerto Ricans tend to believe that the immigration issue does not affect us, it indirectly does. Much of the current anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S. often becomes anti-Latino. Access to assistance programs may be hindered for Puerto Ricans and all Hispanics who may be asked to "prove" their citizenship. Our community must vigorously oppose this anti-immigrant environment not only because it affects us as Puerto Ricans, but also because it limits opportunity precisely in those areas in which we and all Latinos seek to improve.

Getting Focused

As advocates, we should use the lessons learned from the last two years of the reform process to shape our work on implementation. Our community lacked a clear Latino perspective on welfare reform because we weren't able to "carve out" a niche within the low-income advocacy community that represented the major issues for poor Latinos. Where was our expertise and our greatest need? Were we going to focus on Food Stamps, child care, child poverty programs, time limits, work? How would we get our message out to the media and general public who simplify the welfare debate by assuming that welfare for Latinos only means cuts in benefits to immigrants? Not being able to answer those questions throughout the last two years made the "message" harder to frame. But not being able to answer those questions now may mean being ignored-once again-as critical policy that will affect our children and our community is shaped.

Although the Clinton Administration had still not issued guidelines regarding implementation at the time of this writing, the Latino community can begin to do two sets of things. First we can hold the president to his pledge to work with the next Congress and press for legislative improvements to two of the worst elements of the bill: the legal immigrant and food stamp provisions. In the meantime, we should monitor the Administration as it makes critical implementation decisions which will determine how the provisions in each of these areas are enacted in the states.

Second, since states will have both authority and flexibility to extend or deny public assistance benefits, Puerto Ricans should work with other Latino, African American, and broad low-income advocacy groups to track and try to shape the evolution of implementation in the months ahead. On both the island and the mainland, we must work to hold politicians accountable to the needs of our children and families in these key areas:

* Work requirements and job training. Within this area, the three issues that Latino advocates must consider are the definition of "work," the quality of that work or training experience, and access to such opportunities. The current law broadly and loosely interprets work to include several different types of "tasks" or "activities." Some of these, for example searching for a job, will not necessarily enhance a woman's skills or potential to qualify for a permanent, decent-paying job. Understanding the work requirement is critical because time limits and the welfare "clock" are based on "work."

With regard to quality, Latinos must push their state legislatures to both design and offer programs to strengthen a woman's education and skill levels, and to fund local, community-based initiatives that have proven to be effective in helping participants make the transition into the workforce. Enhancing education levels and providing concrete job skills are key since most Puerto Ricans and Latinos tend to have insufficient education and limited work experience.

Finally, advocates must ensure that all women are equitably and adequately served. Historically, Latinos have been underserved by federal programs, including JOBS.

* Job creation. The lack of any discussion about the creation of jobs to absorb the workers that the new welfare system intends to push into the workforce is deplorable. Advocates must urge their state policy makers to foster small business growth and private-sector investment for economic development. In addition, they should encourage their states to carefully examine both the development of public service employment, and the role of nonprofits and Latino community-based organizations within this niche as a strategy for producing jobs.

We must also be aware that for welfare reform to be effective, Latino men must be employed so that they can fulfill their child support and other familial obligations. We cannot address the issue of child poverty or the well-being of our families solely by pushing women into the work force.
 

This is an election year and if our advocacy efforts are going to mean anything, Latinos across the country and in Puerto Rico must vote. Low voter turnout is one reason politicians do not listen to us and why so few understand and fight for the plight of our children and our families. At the state level, in particular, now is the time for us to show policy makers and politicians that we will watch how this law unfolds and actively support those who understand and strengthen the efforts of our community.

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Published in CRITICA: A JOURNAL OF PUERTO RICAN POLICY & POLITICS. Issue 29 (October 1996)

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