What happened to the welfare to work program

If you do not have a job after completing Job Club, you will be scheduled for two weeks of Job Search. You may also have a more in-depth assessment to help you remove any barriers that may be preventing you from finding and keeping a job.

Most expenses, such as the cost of transportation, are paid by the Welfare-to-Work Program. Upon approval of CalWORKs, if you are required to participate in the Welfare-to-Work Program and have at least one child under 13 years of age, you will be authorized to choose a child care provider for your child ren and may be eligible to receive months of child care.

Expenses for child care can be paid unless you choose a provider that charges higher rates than we can pay. Once placed in a job, you will receive additional help with work supplies and continued help with transportation and child care. Finding a job will help you become self-supporting and your family will enjoy a better way of life.

WTW can also help with important supportive services, such as child care, transportation and work or training related expenses while working or participating in approved WTW activities. Volunteers must meet the rules of the WTW program. If you are exempt and would like to participate, contact your cash aid EW for a referral to the WTW program. Once you are enrolled, you will be assigned an Employment Services Case Manager. That, Roosevelt argued, was something the federal government could change.

It was a seismic effort from the federal government that, from its inception, ignited debate. Funded by federal tax dollars, welfare use by families ballooned far beyond the Depression era. In , , families received support. By , that number soared to 1,, Aid, however, was not always distributed fairly. Families of color were largely left out of, or actively block from, government policy. President Bill Clinton signing the welfare reform bill, Four years later, The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act was passed that gave states control of welfare, ending six decades of federal government control of the programs.

The program had many flaws. Yet it provided a cash floor that could have eased the hardships of folks at the end of their ropes. TANF ought to be able to help—albeit temporarily, as the name implies. Yet many of the people we have studied have never received it. Others have tried to get it and failed.

When one mother we know lost her job at Walmart after her only means of transportation failed, she initially refused to apply for TANF out of pride, insisting that she was a worker, not a leach on the government. Finally, after months of fruitless job search, plus a list of health diagnoses a mile long, she broke down and applied. Since then, she has been sent away three times, all for no legitimate reason we, as TANF experts, can discern.

During her visit to the west-side food pantry a few weeks ago, Kathryn met families camping in unfinished basements of friends, a couple who survived a Cleveland winter while sleeping in a tent they advised finding a thick mattress to keep your body off the ground and to keep a candle burning , and a family in the process of breaking apart—the three children parceled off to relatives—until a laid-off Ford assembly line worker and his partner of 14 years, who cleaned suburban homes until her car was repossessed, can secure stable jobs and a place to live.

While greedy, heartless landlords were sometimes a source of their troubles, their biggest problem—by far—has been the lack of access to a cash safety net—money—when failing to find or keep a job. In 21st-century America, a family needs at least some cash to have any chance at stability. Only money can pay the rent though a minority of families get subsidies via a housing voucher. Only money buys socks, underwear, and school supplies. How did they survive? Nearly all had sold plasma from time to time, some regularly.

They traded away their food stamps, usually at the going rate of 50 or 60 cents on the dollar. Some traded sex for cash or—more commonly—the payment of their cell phone bill, a room to stay in, a meal, or some other kind of help.