The problem presented by the millions of Americans that are unemployed and dependent on welfare is a troubling one. Democrats must put forth a solid strategy directed at solving this problem if we are going to get back to our roots and take back the areas of America that are now Republican.
Republicans rail against a "welfare state" while at the same time making it harder for welfare recipients to get low-level employment and shake that burden. Those who honestly want to get off of welfare do not like being on it. They do not wear it as a badge of pride. It is the bottom line, though, that rules the day for the Republicans: keeping the wages down and the profits coming in.
Unlike what anti-welfare proponents would like people to believe, there are more methods to solving this problem than hiking wages and making it difficult for the rest of us. The rhetoric doesn't measure up to analysis. Job turnover rates - the rate at which workers quit and employers have to replace them - has always been a problem with welfare workers. They just don't seem to stay at work. Wages play only a small part in this equation. When simple humanity is injected into the workplace, turnover rates dramatically decrease.
According to studies done in collaboration with the publication of David Shipler's brilliant account of welfare workers, The Working Poor, simply having an employee or supervisor talk to and eat lunch with a new employee regularly can reduce turnover rates by half. Yes, something so simple as making a welfare worker feel as if they are more than just one cog in the machine will help bridge that gap and cut turnover rates drastically.
Families that have used welfare through generations - the groups Republicans like to harangue - are often those who would be helped the most by this process. They normally show an increased difficulty attaching to a regular work schedule beyond a 60-day period of high motivation. These "60-day workers" are normally bound down by family issues and are not used to holding a fixed schedule. As an employer interviewed by Shipler put it, "Work is not the first job." With someone there to spot them, per se, they now feel needed. That fundamental motivation of feeling important in the workplace solves the most basic problem of turnover.
Looking for a college degree for a secretarial job, or in nursing or car repair, cuts out many applicants who have trained in these very skills through welfare job training programs. It sounds bad, but lowering the requirements for those jobs from a college degree to a G.E.D. would open doors for hundreds of thousands of otherwise capable but undereducated workers. Let me briefly explain why this is not such a negative thing:
The long-term solution to the swollen ranks of welfare recipients lies not in wages - which are also an important part of the workplace, but actually ranked lower than "Feeling Appreciated" in Shipler's studies - but in taking low-cost risks and focusing on the worker. It takes extra time, but a partnership between corporations and the government to allow for rebates if workers stay beyond a set time limit would help ease the burden employers may feel. A motivated welfare worker is much more likely to stay employed and work his or her way into self reliance and out of the welfare pit. This challenge is far more difficult than Republicans - or Democrats, for that matter - give credit for.
Time, not money, will solve this problem. Time, care and adaptation will serve as three tonics that will do what money cannot do. Democrats and Republicans could both take some points away from Shipler's book: if we want to make welfare reform real, why not start by making jobs available to those who have the skills for the labor but not degree? Why not let them work their way out, like everyone seems to want? It's time to answer.
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