Billions to Pay, and a Spreading Revolt

If there is one thing that politicians and the public agree on--and have agreed on for a decade or more--it is that the U.S. has the world's worst welfare mess. In fact, it has a monster: a system that costs some $45 billion a year at all levels of government, delivers benefits to 25 million people and requires a quarter of a million government employees to administer it. While most Americans would agree that financial help should be given to the unavoidably unemployed, the disabled, the fatherless young and the unsupported old, practically everyone feels that welfare has become a hydra--sustaining many who do not deserve help, breeding incredible bureaucracy and inefficiency and entangling the nation in ideological clashes over just how much aid should go to whom, who should pay for it and how stringent the standards of eligibility should be.

Now, a revolt against the whole system and new cries for reform are spreading, prompted largely by the lingering effects of a recession that swelled not only the numbers on welfare but also the costs of assisting them. President Ford, for one, has said that the whole welfare program "either ought to be junked or a substitute put in its place, or the present welfare system should be tightened up very, very greatly." Jimmy Carter, former Governor of Georgia and now a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, agrees that "nobody on the face of the earth can make the present welfare system work fairly and effectively" because it is so "confused, overlapped and uncoordinated." New York's new state commissioner for social services, Stephen Berger, with tongue only slightly in cheek, has a proposal that is aimed at the vast welfare bureaucracy. Since firing the government employees involved would only add to unemployment, he wants to "strip every third person of his or her typewriter and telephone, encourage them to play bridge or do anything that comes into their heads--except send out more instructions, forms and guidelines."

Many state and local officials believe the Federal Government should take on the entire burden of welfare payments, but U.S. Commissioner of Welfare Robert Carleson, a conservative supporter of former California Governor Ronald Reagan, resigned his post this month with the statement that his position should be abolished as "a symbolic gesture that welfare is a basic and primary responsibility of the states." At the moment, the Federal Government picks up slightly more than half of the welfare bill.

The states insist that they can no longer handle the burden. Unemployment is running at 8.4% nationwide, and new census statistics report that last year the number of Americans below the poverty line rose to 23.8 million. At the same time, inflation has added to the amount of money needed for survival. All in all, the welfare rolls have increased by some 38% and payments by 11.3% since 1968. The situation is so bad that some states are defying the Federal Government, and a few counties have voted to withhold payments to their states.

So far, the revolt is aimed mainly at the bureaucratic confusion. At the beginning of last year, the Federal Government undertook what looked like a more efficient way of speeding help to needy aged, blind and disabled people. Any state wishing to take part in the new program, called SSI (Supplemental Security Income), could let Washington's Social Security computers figure the benefits and mail out the checks to each recipient. The states would then be billed for their share of the welfare costs by the Social Security Administration. Thirty-two states took advantage of the arrangement, since it seemed to remove an administrative burden borne largely at the level of budget-strained counties and state capitals.

This program, however, quickly collided with one of the welfare system's most glaring absurdities: the 50 states have widely varying standards of how much welfare recipients should get, how the payments should be shared by county and state governments and how ineligible recipients should be detected and removed from the rolls. Washington's computers and programmers proved too inflexible and too slow in handling all of the variations and fast-shifting rosters of eligible recipients.

Checks for Dead. The federal checks were sometimes triple what the counties thought they should have been; some checks even continued to flow to the homes of people who had died. In all, 27 states claimed that Washington had made overpayments totaling about $400 million; they have refused to reimburse the Federal Government for roughly half of that sum.

Apart from such federal-state friction, many local governments are growing restive in the 17 states where they contribute to the nonfederal share of the most expensive welfare program: Aid to Families with Dependent Children (in the other states, the state government picks up the full nonfederal tab). In New York, where the AFDC bill is split 50% federal, 25% state and 25% local, officials of Oneida and Orange counties simply decided to stop contributing. In California's Plumas County, an impoverished timber area in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, local welfare costs have risen by $60,000 from a year ago; the county board voted not to finance the full increase. These revolts have been challenged in the courts by state officials.

The signs of rebellion are not surprising, since the welfare burden falls so unevenly and irrationally on various communities and regions. New York City pays a staggering $2.6 billion a year in benefits, while Chicago, with an even higher rate of unemployment, pays only $9 million (the state of Illinois carries most of Chicago's burden). The average payment per case in general welfare assistance early this year ranged from $15.05 a month in Mississippi to $203.34 in Hawaii.

Federal regulations also sometimes clash with the practices of the states. Georgia's Governor George Busbee, for example, plans to go to Washington this week to protest restrictions against requiring beneficiaries of Medicaid to pay a portion of their medical bills. Georgia had been assessing such payments, and, at the present rate of spending, the federal ban will leave the state $20.8 million short in its Medicaid budget; the entire program may have to be shut down early next year. In Massachusetts, where the state assumes all local welfare costs, Democratic Governor Michael Dukakis last week reluctantly signed a bill removing 18,000 employable people from welfare--a first-time cut prompted by fiscal pressures. Officials of New York and other hard-pressed states are campaigning to get the Federal Government to pick up all or a larger share of the full welfare burden, with uniform eligibility rules. (Specifically, Commissioner Berger is asking that Washington pay 75% of all AFDC in states where unemployment exceeds 7%.)

Reform Hearings. President Ford's approach will be a cautious one. He has selected John G. Veneman, a former Under Secretary of HEW and now an aide to Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, to pull together the choices for reform. Then Rockefeller will hold a series of regional hearings. Says Ford: "There is an awful lot of wisdom out in the country on what is right and what is wrong about welfare."

As a Congressman, Ford twice voted for the welfare reform proposed by former President Richard Nixon, which would have abolished the complex of overlapping programs and provided a single cash grant to families below an established poverty line. This Family Assistance Plan was assailed by conservatives as a handout, criticized by liberals as too stingy and virtually abandoned by Nixon, who failed to lobby for it and let it die in the Senate in 1972. When all the hearings and early skirmishing are over, Ford will probably recommend some form of single and uniform federal cash grants, with tougher procedures for determining who should get them. But whatever he proposes, he will be doing it in a volatile election year, and the temptation on all sides to score political points will be strong.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.