Putting the Poor to Work

— A cancer that is destroying those it should succor and threatening society itself." That is how California Governor Ronald Reagan described welfare in 1971. He has been waging war on that system of public support ever since. Now, as President, Reagan wants to eliminate the "legitimate fraud" of people who, he says, are fit to work but who qualify for the dole. His solution: workfare, a program in which able-bodied welfare recipients take community public service jobs to repay part of the value of their benefits.

Under Administration plans disclosed last week, unemployed...

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