Wilson Is Betting Poor Can Forgo Safety Net

By MELISSA HEALY

Jan. 12, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON — By proposing to allow California counties to stop providing General Assistance payments to the poor, Gov. Pete Wilson joins a growing list of governors willing to gamble that those now benefiting from this safety net of last resort will be able to make it on their own.

The welfare plan Wilson proposed last week would save an estimated $550 million over two years through a variety of measures. It includes dropping a state requirement that counties provide General Assistance--although counties that wished to continue the payments would be free to do so.

In recent years, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Massachusetts are among the states that have eliminated or greatly reduced their General Assistance programs, which provide cash payments to those who do not qualify for federal Aid to Families With Dependent Children, or AFDC.

Studies show that several years after being dropped from the General Assistance rolls, many who relied on such benefits are not exactly on the street, but they are hardly success stories either. Some move back in with their families, and about a third find low-wage, temporary jobs. Many are hard to find at all.

“All one can do is make assumptions about what happens to these people,” said Marion Nichols, senior policy analyst for the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “They just disappear.”

What is clear, said Nichols and others, is that with sweeping changes underway in federal welfare aid, more people will find themselves in the same situation.

General Assistance programs are designed to help those who somehow fall through the cracks of federal aid--including women who have aged beyond AFDC eligibility and drug addicts and alcoholics whose conditions are so dire they are considered disabled.

With the changes in federal welfare programs mandated by Congress in August, eligibility for federal aid will constrict significantly, widening the cracks through which the poor can fall. In the past, individuals and their families dropped from federal aid rolls would turn to the patchwork of General Assistance programs pieced together by states and counties.

“This is the ultimate, the last safety net,” Nichols said. “If there’s no General Assistance for them, there will be nothing for them.”

The prospect that more applicants will seek General Assistance appears in part to have prompted Wilson’s initiative.

According to Sheila R. Zedlewski, a welfare analyst for the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank, many California counties sought Wilson’s decision because they foresaw rising demand for General Assistance as more poor people were dropped from federal welfare rolls.

The counties feared their General Assistance rolls--and the burden on their budgets--would swell with legal immigrants and those who could not find jobs within time limits set by Congress and the state.

Most states have found that cutting General Assistance saves state treasuries substantial sums. In Michigan, spending dropped $243 million a year, and Massachusetts is saving $101 million annually.

Currently, 42 states have some form of General Assistance aid, most of it funded and administered at the statewide level. Eight states--including California and New York--have eligibility rules that vary from county to county.

In a 1995 study of Michigan’s cuts in General Assistance, Sandra K. Danziger of the University of Michigan found that a majority of those dropped from the General Assistance rolls “still are not formally employed, continue to have health problems and totter on the edge of subsistence even while pursuing multiple strategies for acquiring basic needs.”

A similar study of the impact of reductions in Ohio’s General Assistance program in Cuyahoga County (which includes Cleveland) drew similar conclusions. Three to six months after their General Assistance funds were cut off, about 17% of former recipients were working, just 2% more than had been working while receiving the General Assistance funds.

Many recipients begin depending on the generosity of families and private charities. But few--as few as one-fifth in the Michigan study--pick themselves up and find steady employment.

Many analysts pointed to the experience of such states as evidence that General Assistance can be cut without dire consequences to former recipients or the communities they live in.

But others cautioned that experiments like the one proposed by Wilson are taking place in a whole new environment, making comparisons to precedents like Michigan more difficult.

Because of changes made by Congress, recipients dropped from General Assistance will have a tougher time turning to the federal government for another form of last-chance aid: Supplemental Security Income, a cash-grant program designed to aid the elderly and disabled poor.

In its August measure, Congress tightened eligibility requirements to deny SSI funds to legal immigrants and most able-bodied drug- and alcohol-dependent individuals.

Strictures like those will foreclose an avenue of help that many in Michigan sought in 1991 after Republican Gov. John Engler substantially curtailed its state-run General Assistance program. Three years later, Danziger found that a “substantial minority” of those dropped from state General Assistance rolls were able to secure cash grants through the SSI program.

* MANY QUESTIONS, FEW ANSWERS: Wilson’s adoption plan has officials wondering about the practical implications and expectations. B1