Welfare Reform in New Jersey

The $64 Question:

Welfare Reform in New Jersey

by Ted Goertzel and John Hart

Note: a version of this paper appeared as "The Politics of Welfare Reform in New Jersey," in The Politics of Welfare Reform (Donald Norris, ed.), SAGE Publications, 1995. This is the original typescript and does not include any editing added by the book's editors.

The welfare reform passed by the New Jersey legislature in January of 1992 received national attention because of the requirement that women who conceive and deliver an additional child while on AFDC be denied additional cash benefits for that child. This provision was of great political and symbolic importance, although its economic impact was expected to be modest. The approximately 95,000 women on welfare in New Jersey have about 1,000 births a month, of which about 300 are born to mothers who have been on welfare for 10 months or longer. Thus, this new provision affects less than 4% of the welfare mothers in the course of a year. Even for these mothers, the benefit loss is only $64 per month, a one-third of which is made up by a compensatory increase in food stamps.

This new provision was strongly opposed by many liberal advocates and defenders of the poor, who saw it as a case of "blaming the victim." They denounced the "myth" that welfare recipients have additional children to receive the benefits. They locked in a bitter political struggle with New Jersey Assemblyman Wayne Bryant, the initiator and chief proponent of the reform. Bryant was adamant in insisting on this provision as a means of sending a message to welfare recipients that welfare must be temporary, not a way of life. He was certain that word of this change would spread instantly through the inner city community, and that it would encourage welfare mothers to take advantage of other features of the welfare reform which were designed to strengthen families and facilitate their entry into mainstream society. He insisted that opponents consider his Family Development Plan as a whole, not just focus on the one provision they found most objectionable.

The New Jersey welfare reform is a remarkable case study in legislative entrepreneurialism by a single state Assemblyman. Wayne Bryant decided that the Family Development Plan was necessary, wrote the bills, brought them to the public's attention, persuaded the legislature to pass them and Governor James Florio to implement them. Bryant's status as an influential African-American Democrat whose district included the City of Camden, New Jersey's poorest city, denied the opposition the argument that the reform was motivated by racism or mean spiritedness. Many people who might otherwise have simply rejected such a proposal out of hand were forced to rethink their assumptions or at least temper their opposition because of Bryant's sponsorship. For example, human services advocate Catherine DeCheser, known throughout the state as a fiery advocate for the dispossessed, observed that :

I'm afraid the philosophy behind Wayne's plan will pander to the bigots out there who feel they should limit the number of minority babies born - in any way they can. Some minorities see that as a form of genocide.

On the other hand, I know Wayne cares deeply about the black family, and some blacks tell me he's right and I'm wrong. They say I'm still stuck in a 60s mentality, when black entrepreneurship and responsibility are the way to go(Magyar, 1991).

The "Bryant bills," as the legislation that created the Family Development Plan came to be known, were very much Wayne Bryant's personal project. As majority leader of the New Jersey Assembly, Bryant was an experienced and skilled political leader with a long record of advocacy for the poor. He lobbied tirelessly for his bill with the general public and in both the Assembly and the Senate. He won the strong support of then-Governor James Florio, a liberal Democrat from Southern New Jersey who had been his close ally throughout his political career. He traveled the state speaking eloquently about the need to liberate black and other poor New Jerseyans from the debilitating effects of the welfare system.

The Family Development Plan was a comprehensive legislative package designed to help poor families take responsibility for their own lives. Requiring welfare recipients to meet with a case worker to agree on a comprehensive plan for the family as a whole, it promised long-term support for recipients who chose to continue their education, even through college. It also offered incentives to make it easier for women to marry without losing benefits. Bryant's intention was to expose welfare recipients to the same economic incentives that apply to the American middle and working classes.

Politically, Bryant's proposals were most galling to two groups who seldom find themselves on the same side of an issue: feminists and Right-to-Lifers. His stress on the traditional two-parent family was offensive to feminists, fearing that such a mind set would force many women to become dependent on men who had been abusive or irresponsible. The Right-to-Lifers feared that the refusing to support additional babies conceived on welfare might lead to an increase in the number of abortions. This awkward alliance was made more difficult by a contradiction in the logic of their arguments: the feminists vehemently denied that women have babies to get additional benefits, while the right-to-lifers feared that the change in benefits would affect their decisions to carry pregnancies to term. Bryant's response to both arguments was that he simply wanted to help welfare recipients assume the same responsibilities and make the same choices as other Americans.

APPROACH AND BACKGROUND

This chapter will focus primarily on the politics of the Family Development Plan (FDP), since this unique initiative offers an important contrast to developments in other states and a useful alternative for national policy makers. Of course, we will place the FDP in the context of New Jersey's welfare history, and will also discuss developments after the FDP became law. The data for this analysis comes from a number of different sources. First, we interviewed a number of very knowledgeable political leaders and activists and several knowledgeable officials in state government. Assemblyman Wayne Bryant spent three hours answering our questions. We also collected available reports in newspapers and magazines, many of which are cited in the references to this paper. We also read the transcripts of the hearings conducted by the New Jersey Assembly at which a great many New Jersey citizens, including some recipients, testified. We incorporated the views of welfare recipients by conducting survey interviews and focus group discussions with welfare mothers in Camden, one of New Jersey's poorest cities with a large welfare population. Finally, we collected and analyzed voting statistics and the available data on the impact of the program.

As an affluent, liberal eastern state, New Jersey's welfare benefits are comparatively generous by national standards. The most important innovation in the period prior to FDP was the REACH program, which was passed under the administration of the liberal Republican governor Thomas Kean. When the REACH program (Realizing Economic Achievement) was introduced, it too was heralded as an innovative reform designed to correct the defects of the AFDC program. As recently as the Fall of 1989, former Republican Governor Thomas Kean praised REACH as a "workfare" plan requiring able-bodied recipients to "draw up a contract, a specific and detailed plan of action that spells out what the participant will do to help herself and her children get off welfare" (Kean, 1989: 70). Several participants in the public hearings on Bryant's proposed legislation observed that his Family Development Plan was actually quite similar to the REACH program in many respects. They argued that if REACH had failed, it was because of inadequate funding or ineffective implementation, not because of fundamental policy deficiencies.

Bryant's argument regarding a shortage of resources to implement FDP is that there were many under used resources available. State institutions, such as universities, should make their services available to recipients free of charge because they are already being supported by the state. There is no need to create new schools and training program when the state already supported school systems in each community. These resources needed to be made available to welfare recipients on a priority basis with a minimum of additional funding. The success of Bryant's hopes to raise welfare recipients into the economic mainstream through education, then, was dependent on enthusiastic support from welfare workers and from people providing educational and support services throughout the state.

Table 1 lists the key differences between two plans. Although the Family Development Plan was heralded as an important change, it is clear from the table that most of the differences are incremental and qualitative, not drastic or revolutionary. Participation must begin when a child is two under the FDP, while under REACH it began when the child was three. Under FDP the whole family is expected to prepare a "family plan," while under REACH this applied only to the recipient. College is included as an option under the FDP, and a recipient can continue to receive benefits if she marries a man who is not the father of her children. And, finally, the controversial FDP provision that a child conceived while the mother is on welfare will not lead to an increase in the family's grant. This became known as the "$64" clause, because the cash increase for a woman having an additional child was most frequently $64. Actually, the difference in net income was somewhat less than that because the food stamp allotment is automatically increased to partially compensate for the lower cash income.

It is clear that the differences in the plans as implemented may turn out to be less than the differences on paper. On paper, the REACH program was originally intended to apply to all eligible AFDC recipients. In practice, many of its provisions were limited to federally approved target groups because of limitations in resources. It is likely that resources will continue to be limited, given the current political and fiscal realities in the state. Many welfare workers and officials believe that participation in educational and work programs should be voluntary; they may not make a strenuous effort to force compliance on the reluctant recipient, particularly if his or her work load is heavy and resources are scarce.

Table 1

Comparison of FDP and REACH

New Family Development Plan / Old REACH/JOBS Plan
Recipients with a child younger than two years old must participate in counseling. / Participation is voluntary for recipients with a child under two years of age.
AFDC recipients with a child two or more years of age or older must participate in FDP activities. The assumption is that resources will be found for all]. / Recipients with a child three years of age or older must participate, in principle. In practice, REACH/JOBS served primarily those in federal target groups.
Failure to participate without good cause leads to reduction of benefits, a 90-day suspension and eventually termination. / Failure to participate without good cause leads to a reduction of benefits for as long as six months.
Each participant must develop a "family plan" including a written contract. The entire family is included in the plan. / Each participant must prepare an "employability plan" and a written agreement. The plan focuses on the individual recipient.
Job development and placement, counseling, vocational assessment, educational, and training services are provided for the recipient and family members. / Similar services are provided to recipients, but services extended to family members are much less comprehensive.
A high school diploma or equivalency is required before assignment to vocational activity (unless the recipient is unable to complete it). / Only recipients younger than 25 years of age must acquire a high school diploma.
One or more full time job specialists in each county to find and create jobs. / No such provision.
Scholarships available for vocational training, community college or 4-year college programs. / Basic opportunity and Pell grants available, but four year degree programs not supported.
Support services include child care, transportation, 2-years extension of Medicaid eligibility. / The same services are provided with a 1-year Medicaid extension if necessary because of earned income.
A recipient's natural children may continue to receive benefits after she marries a man who is not the father, so long as the total annual income does not exceed 150% of the poverty level. / If a recipient remarries, the new spouse may be included or excluded in the eligible unit. If excluded, part of the new spouse's income is deemed available to the eligible unit.
A recipient who gives birth to another child will not receive an increase in benefits. Working families with an additional child receive an additional earned income disregard. / AFDC benefits increase with an increase in family size. Working families with an additional child receive an additional earned income disregard according to a different formula.
Men on municipal general assistance (without dependent children) must enroll and participate. / This population participates only in a less comprehensive general assistance employability program.
Family resource centers to be established in each county to handle service delivery. / Non-existent.

When Governor Kean was replaced by Governor Florio in 1989, there was no reason to expect major changes in welfare policy. Welfare was not an important issue in the campaign, in which Florio defeated a much more conservative Republican candidate, James Courter. Although the formal evaluation of REACH was never completed because the funds were cut off, the legislature was convinced that REACH had not been successful. Indeed, the preface to the Family Development Act legislation began with a statement to that effect (see Table 2).