'WIN' Is Losing Its Battle To Get Poor Onto Payrolls

(Miss-Wright, a student at the Harvard Summer School, will be a senior at the University of Michigan next fall. She is an editor of the Michigan DAILY).

"WE WILL get the poor people off the welfare rolls and onto the payroll." So promised Richard M. Nixon during the 1968 Presidential campaign.

That he should focus on poverty and welfare as a, if not the, central domestic issue is not surprising, for welfare and the lack of incentive synonomous with 'gift' aid have been highly controversial since their conception and initial appearance in the Social Security Act of 1937.

Numerous welfare programs have been put into action since that time, most notably during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. But few seem to be able to rid the concept of the main criticism leveled at it--that it fails to fit the individual into a stimulating and vital role.

Critics argue that the dole does little to stimulate a welfare recipient, while general manpower or rehabiliation programs oftentimes attempt to educate a group en masse and thus again defeat their own purpose by avoiding the problems of the individual.

In an effort to change these circumstances the federal government, at the end of the Johnson days, decided to employ a Nixon type of solution in the Work Incentive Program (WIN). Enacted under the most flexible manpower act in the history of welfare, the program's function is to "increase the basic educational skills and employability of people under Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC)."

WIN, through both vocational and basic adult education, is attempting to fulfill Nixon's pledge of moving the poor off welfare onto an independent payroll.

Under the direction of the Departments of Labor and Health, Education and Welfare, the national pilot team was set-up in Boston in August, 1968. Consisting of five members, each WIN group includes a counselor, a manpower specialist, a coach and a work and training specialist.

Under the supervision of a WIN team a client selects the field of training that has the most appeal, i.e. hair-styling, key punch operation, etc.

A "contract is than drawn up between the client and the WIN team, which provides for training from an authorized school for the client, continued vocational counseling from WIN, a supplemental allowance beyond the normal welfare check and child care facilities.

If a client's educational level is found to be too low to contract him out to a regular school, he is sent to the second set of Win specialist--the Adult Basic Education (ABE) team. Again stressing an individualized program, the team assists the satisfied that he has achieved his objectives, which will support his employment goals.

Working on a one to one basis, the client remains in training until he is satisled that he has achieved his objectives and the team feels he is capable of employability or further vocational training.

By acting as "a creation of the community it serves, WIN represents the most basic form of community self-help, that of improving employment opportunities", and thereby hopes to overcome the standardization and impersonality of other welfare programs.

Since the first group's establishment last fall, seven others have been set-up in the Boston area and 11 elsewhere in the state.

But the increase in teams does not denote success or an increase in participants in the program. Just the opposite has occurred; WIN has had less then minimal participation--due to both the recipients themselves and, ironically, to the Department of Welfare, which recruits clients.

LIKE ALL OTHER welfare programs, WIN is largely a voluntary program (only AFDC fathers--who are few--are required by law to participate). An additional stipend of $30 a month beyond the regular welfare check has been allotted to each client with the hope that it would offer incentive to stay with the program.

Statistically, Massachusetts WIN has 3000 "slots" or training openings per year--1400 are in Boston--although a slot may be used more than once a year. For example, if a client is involved in a five month long school, the slot is re-opened to a second client at the end of the first's training.

But a complex recruiting system, plus the problems familiar to other welfare projects, have caused the program to fall short of its predicted success.

Although the WIN teams have been working since October of last year, only 964 welfare recipients have enrolled, and a bare 174 have been placed in jobs.

Critics of the program, which include the National Welfare Rights Organization, feel the main problem lies in the recruiting system. The actual communication with AFDC clients is done by the Department of Public Welfare social workers, after which a recipient is referred to WIN.

The state must rely solely on the social workers to bring attention to the program. Since there have been only 1955 referrals since October--which would fill only two-thirds of the available slots--the workers have obviously failed.

Thus the program suffers a loss from the very beginning because of the reliance on an outside agency for recruitment.

Part of the blame might be laid with the possible apathy of the recipients themselves. Because of the program's voluntary nature the state has no way of forcing anyone but unemployed fathers to participate.

Clients' apathy is a problem basic to WIN's ideology. As Evelyn Smith, assistant state supervisor for WIN, puts it, "Although the program ocers preparation for a new way of life, we're working with people who are not even interested in jobs."

Coupled with this are the fundamental problems of other rehabilitation efforts, such as their inability to overcome a primary level education in such a short period of training.

ALTHOUGH WIN's aim is to stimulate work incentive through education, even in the maximum of a year of training it is difficult to provide more than basic 'mechanical" skills.

A comparatively trivial, but surprisingly substantial drawback has been the lack of adequate child care facilities. Again, the Department of Public Welfare is to make arrangements for either day care or baby-sitters. As yet, no centers exist for AFDC use, and the red tape in paying baby-sitters often involves a lengthy delay in just getting funds appropriated.

A third drawback is found in the main focus of the program. Designed to let a client chose a job that will offer incentive, the WIN counsellors consider the supply and demand for the job as secondary.

Although WIN will pay to move a client and his dependents to another city if an opening is not available in the home city, it seems to be a rather costly and possibly psychologically damaging play to train someone to do a job for which there is little demand in the original locality.

Thus the low number of participants, the inefficient means of recruiting, the difficulty in developing more than mechanical skills and even the lack of child care facilities may lead to the collapse of the most highly developed rehabilitation program yet.

Bureacracy and inter-agency dependency have bogged down the first welfare program that has made a sincere ecort to work on a one-to-one basis, that has actually tried to do what rehabilitation has talked about since its conception.

But the great danger is that the trend of the pilot WIN programs in Boston and Massachusetts may become nationwide. The most flexible welfare program in history may be chalked off as unsuccessful due to the inefficiency of its brother parts.

If this should happen it would be a great loss to both welfare recipients and taxpayers--for only through job placement are the welfare rolls going to decrease' and only when the poor are given stimulus or an incentive to work are they going to forfeit 'gift' aid for a full time occupation.