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California is embarking on the most sweeping statewide plan so far. Encouraged by the success of San Diego's local workfare system, the state legislature last September approved a program known as Greater Avenues for Independence, or GAIN. Approximately one-third of the state's 586,000 AFDC cases will be affected. As in most workfare plans, handicapped people and single parents with preschool children are exempt but may volunteer for the program. Welfare beneficiaries who do not register in GAIN stand to have their payments cut off.
After an evaluation of their skills, GAIN participants are given any necessary training, ranging from remedial math and language classes to high school equivalency courses. Once training is completed the welfare client has three months to find work in a job-search program. A trainee whose search is unsuccessful is enrolled in a one-year pre-employment preparation program to work off the welfare grant in an assigned job, with time off for job hunting. Typical jobs include clerical positions or maintenance work in a parks department, day-care centers or programs for the elderly; the pay is the California starting wage, currently $5.07 an hour. If after a year the client still has not found a job, he must begin the evaluation and training program again.
The GAIN bill won in the state senate by a vote of 32 to 2 and in the assembly by 60 to 9. Republicans were all for a mandatory work requirement, while Democrats liked the education, child-care and job-creation provisions that were written into the legislation. GAIN is enrolling members gradually and will be fully operational in 1988. Though the program is expected to cost $304 million a year, GAIN supporters estimate that it will have saved the state $115 million by 1992.
While California's program is being touted as a model for the future, other ambitious workfare operations are in place around the country. New York hopes eventually to enroll more than 200,000 of its 1.1 million AFDC recipients in a revamped workfare program that went into effect last November with the support of Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo. "We're not letting them sit at home and get into the welfare syndrome," says Cesar Perales, New York State's commissioner of social services. "Exposing them to the workplace has real value." A program in Massachusetts instituted in 1983 led to employment for 19,000 former welfare clients and saved the state an estimated $54 million over two years. Other notable programs are operating in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Michigan.