The welfare system was created to help poor men, women, and children who are in need of financial and medical assistance. Over the years the government realized that welfare was becoming a way of life for its recipients and hence was creating a culture of dependency that the nation could not financially support. In order to get people off the welfare system and onto the job market, the government created a vehicle that would gradually move those families from dependence to self-reliance. Workfare’s emphasis is to train people for that transition. Unfortunately, those who have been participating in the job training programs have several problems moving into an arena where they compete for jobs that will financially sustain them. Workfare is seen as a way to end welfare. Workfare however, is not a fool -proof plan. From the time this program was instituted in 1996, by President Clinton, to the present day, this issue has been at the forefront of modern politics. Our goal is to examine this issue from varied angles with the ability to see the past and the present which we then can form a model as to future trends. From the president, to an individual enrolled in the program, we must analyze the situation in order to make a fair and just judgement on the issue of welfare and its reformation to workfare.

The new regulations concerning welfare, introduced by the Giuliani administration and the expansion of New York City, WEP program that requires all welfare recipients to work, will jeopardize 22,000 of CUNY’s welfare recipient students’ education. Due to the conflicting work site hours and the two -year limit put on the higher education, many welfare recipients feel that the doors for a better and successful life are being closed. They see education as their only means of progressing out of poverty. This would assure and encourage them to stay out of public assistance. "A study [done in cooperation with the New York State Education Department]... recipients who earned two or four year degrees, for example, found that 87 percent of them remained off welfare. Earning capacity and stability of employment increases significantly with a four -year education.

Some people disagree with the idea that education is the best resource to reduced welfare. The work experience program is designed to help give people experience that will sell them to employers. Workfare provides experience for low paying jobs, even if the program does not succeed in getting recipients off welfare.

The bible says that work is every man’s duty. He must act on his civil responsibility and get up each morning to engage in some form of labor, be it mental or physical. From the days of Karl Marx and his upper class property owners, along with the low class workers, commonly called bourgeoisie and proletariat, we get the ideologies that run a capitalist economy. Each person has to either sink or swim. Pull yourself up by your boot -straps is a common American phrase. In America each person has to do for himself. American society is thus based on a strong work ethic.

Based on a pole taken in 1996 by a New York Times associate the average American feels that welfare assistance is, first being abused by undeserving people and second, should be revised in order to allow only the truly needy to receive the benefits. Its poll was not recorded according to race or gender but simply the general population. These stereotypes are what drive the leaders of political parties into making decisions that make welfare reformation a necessary tool for winning votes.

The U.S News and World Report did a story on welfare recipients this year and it featured eight women on welfare of which seven were black and one was Indian. The Media propagates these stereo types by showing America a false representation of who is on welfare. The Article describes the women as incapable of holding a job and as being lazy. In actuality it was just that the women were unwilling to leave their children with daycare sitter of whom they knew nothing about. None of this misrepresentation is ever discussed in the context of welfare reform. All of the top political leaders continue to play the race and sex card when it comes to welfare reform because that is what they want. It seems public backing is all that matters. If the media allows this misrepresentation to continue then so will the politicians who make a career of a single platform. An example of this, made by the following statement issued by the President.

A statement made by President Bill Clinton in 1996 on the state of welfare:

Along with the presidents strong views on welfare came some solutions that proved to work. Statistics show, that today there are 1.3 million fewer people on welfare than there were four years ago. It also shows that child support collectors are up 40% to 11 billion. Paternity identification is up 40% too. The Senate also passed a welfare reform bill that provides health care along with child -care.

In March of last year the president called upon the federal government, the nations largest employer, to join in his quest for businesses, nonprofit organizations and religious groups to help with welfare reform by providing jobs to welfare recipients. The administration, in an effort to increase the number of people being hired off welfare, has proposed a welfare reform legislation. This legislation would give businesses tax incentives to those that hire these people, and in addition would give job placement firms a bonus for every person the place from welfare into a job. Programs such as the Javits-Wagner-O’Day act, (J.W.O.D.), and the Compensated Work Therapy/Veterans Industry (C.W.T) are providing impossible opportunities for disabled welfare recipients. The JWOD organizations employ people with severe disabilities. In 1996, this program provided 31,151 people with disabilities, various employment opportunities. These employees worked over 24 million direct labor hours, and their wages totaled more than $147 million. There are now over 600 nonprofit agencies throughout the nation participating in JWOD programs. The CWT program was enacted into law to provide a supportive, stable, vocational rehabilitation program that allows veterans to develop a vocational identity that maximizes his/her potential. The program is based on skills, abilities and rehabilitation needs. In 1996 there were 103 CWT programs in operation. Nearly 13,000 veterans per year are in the process of moving from welfare dependence to self-sufficiency.

The welfare to work initiatives has helped millions of people get off welfare dependency and learn to help themselves. They provide opportunities that in short give poor struggling people a new found confidence that will help them in the "working world". As President Clinton states:

The welfare system and its reformation is a controversial issue that deals greatly with civil liberties. Within the welfare system, new reforms are being made such as the workfare program and other that many people feel violate civil liberties because the government gives the workfare recipients less money when they are in this program or harm people in some fashion.

In reforming the welfare system many organizations dealing with civil liberties, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, carefully examine many of these changes. Specifically their major concerns lay in the Constitution and whether these reforms are in violation of our civil liberties given to us in the Constitution. The ACLU is a strong believer that if proposals dealing with the removal of benefits without due process, or targeting groups or individuals for unfair treatment, is in violation of the Constitution and are passed, the whole reform system will not work.

One major civil liberty concern is the idea of the government putting a family cap on welfare recipients. This proposal is called the child exclusion bill. Under this proposal welfare recipients will not receive an increase in benefits when there is an addition to the family. Under the present welfare system, there is no family cap and as an individual on welfare has another child, their benefits increase. The conflict over this issue is whether this proposal is depriving both the child and family of the monetary assistance that is needed for everyday life. This reform is also in violation of civil liberties dealing with our constitutional right to privacy. Specifically many Supreme Court cases would be in favor of the welfare recipient for not having this child exclusion bill. Some examples that would support the bill as being in violation of human civil liberties are Griswald versus Connecticut, Roe versus Wade, and Planned Parenthood versus Casey. All of these cases dealt with civil liberties and concluded that the government was found at fault for violating constitutional rights in regards to pregnancy, marriage and birth control. The child exclusion proposal is no different. The government is in a way blackmailing welfare recipients by saying that if you have more children, you won’t receive any more additional assistance. This violates our right to privacy and what we do with our bodies.

The government states that their goal is to force, "welfare mothers" into not having children. They feel that by putting this family cap on welfare recipients, the mother will take responsibility for their actions. On the other hand this bill raises many questions on whether or not the system will truly become better when there will be children starving or families homeless because of this reform.

A second huge reform that has come into existence is the, "Welfare to Workfare Program." Under this program, welfare recipients work for their benefits by doing various jobs such as working in non-profit organizations and city parks. At first this doesn’t seem as much of a civil liberties issue, but it is. As stated before many civil liberties groups look for unfair or unequal treatment that is in violation of civil liberties. These organizations found many places of workfare recipients that indeed did violate their civil rights. Some examples found included the unequal treatment of the workfare recipients by not providing them with the necessary tools for employment. Specifically many workers were not allowed to use the bathroom for hours at a time and often had no access to drinking water. These workers were also subject to jobs that were making them dispose of dead animals, needles, and medical waste from the streets. While doing such jobs at times they were not given proper face -masks, gloves or boots. This issue of welfare and its workfare counterpart does take into account the aspects of civil liberties and rights. It raises the question not only dealing with rights but with equality issues and terms of inferiority. The welfare reform system makes the recipients think whether the government is out to help or do harm. With such a reform one must wonder if the entire idea is beneficial. Sure something has to happen with the people who encounter circumstances that leave them in need of help. The way it was where needy individuals only received money no longer sounds as such a bad idea. The system will always be abused by a few, just as any other system. The debate will not end any time soon because of the cost to benefit problems of pre and post welfare system programs. We as Americans must only hope that whatever path is taken will do the most good while harming as few as possible.

Arenson, Karen W. "Workfare Hurts Enrollment, CUNY Says." The New York Times.

Firestone,David. "Judge Orders Health and Safety Items For 5,000 in Workfare." The

New York Times. 19 August 1997: B3

Greenhouse, Steven. "Judge Orders Assessments For Workfare Recipients." The New

York Times. 26 March 1997: B3

1-Executive Office of the President

2-Welfare –To-Work-Initiative

3-Statement by the President

4-Letter from ACLU