787 find jobs, off welfare.

1,000 off the Dole, but 13,000 Remain, Dalton Says

In July, more than 750 people who had been on the welfare dole started new jobs. A little more than 1,000 people have stopped receiving cash assistance under Arkansas' welfare reform law, which is a good start, but there are about 13,000 recipients to go, says Tom Dalton, Gov. Mike Huckabee's welfare reform czar.

"That number is certainly higher than I anticipated," Dalton says of the 787 people who have been placed in jobs and the total number of people who are no longer claiming welfare benefits. "It's been surprising."

Welfare reform, known in Arkansas as the Transitional Employment Assistance (TEA) program, began July 1. Under federal guidelines, the state has five years to remove able-bodied residents from government assistance check rolls and into the work force. That may seem to some an easy task, since already 1,000 people have stopped claiming benefits, but the goal of getting these people jobs will become more difficult to attain, Dalton says.

"The people with skills found jobs quickly, and a certain number of the people who had been getting assistance may have been just gaming the system," Dalton says. "They just decided to stop getting their checks and find their own jobs."

Dalton is conducting meetings around the state to inform business leaders and others of the state's responsibility to get welfare recipients ready for the workplace. He maintains that Arkansas businesses should not consider hiring welfare recipients for the public good that may come from it. Instead, he says, the focus of government and businesses should be on economic development.

"We want to create productive people who can be successful in the workplace," Dalton says. "That has got to be our thrust. This is an economic issue. And I'm finding that business leaders are hungry for information."

Jim Martindale, Entergy Arkansas Inc.'s customer service manager for central Arkansas, attended a focus group of Pulaski County business executives late in August. The meeting was one of several planned in the county and was set up by Dalton and the Department of Human Services. The goal: Get the information out about what is going on and what has to happen to make the state's welfare reform successful.

"I'm still trying to learn more about it," Martindale says. "This is a big challenge that we've got ahead of us. It seems like an impossible task, with all the issues that need to be addressed. But business needs to participate and help in the process. This is a joint effort between businesses and state government."

The issues discussed during the Pulaski County focus group meeting were job training, transportation and child care. Dalton says the same issues are faced in the successful implementation of welfare reform statewide.

Well-trained or trainable employees are crucial, he says. No one expects a business to hire someone just to see that person get off welfare.

"What the employers want is someone who is work-ready and has the right attitude," he says. "What employers want now is someone who can read, write, reason and someone who wants to work. The employer will, in turn, be willing to give specialized training if someone has these characteristics."

The New Workers

Dalton says about 95 percent of the almost 14,000 who qualify for the transitional assistance program are single mothers who have never worked. A voluntary standardized test, developed by adult educators and given before July 1, indicates that the average educational level of the new work force is about eighth grade. About 3,000 people have taken the test so far, he says.

Now, all people who qualify for the program are required to take the test. Dalton says the test may or may not relate to employability of the welfare recipients, but it allows those helping in job placement determine what knowledge the person possesses.

To be eligible for the TEA, welfare recipients must have a total family income of less than $223 a month, which is 25 percent of what a full-time worker earns at the new federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour in a month.

A family's resources must be $3,000 or less. The resources don't include a home, an operable vehicle, personal property, income producing property or money in an approved Individual Development Account or approved escrow account for business or career development.

The transitional benefits last for 24 months over the course of a lifetime as an Arkansas resident.

Dalton says it will be important for state agencies such as the Employment Security Department to help develop TEA participants into productive employees.

"They need a work history, a work resume," he says. "Right now, most of these people simply lack the work history necessary to convince an employer that they are productive individuals."

Monthly Benefits Under the Transitional Employment Assistance
Program

Family Size                          Maximum Grant

1                                         $81
2                                         $162
3                                         $204
4                                         $247
5                                         $286
6                                         $331
7                                         $373
8                                         $415
9 or more                                 $457

When family's monthly gross earned income plus unearned income
equals $446, then the maximum payment listed above is reduced by
50 percent. People who are required to work under the program but
do not without good cause, a noncompliance penalty is imposed.
Once compliance is determined to exist, the penalty is lifted.
Any future periods of noncompliance result in a penalty that isn't
lifted for three months.

Source: Arkansas plan for implementing the TEA program.

Martindale agrees. "I think they need to be economically attractive to businesses that hire them."

Another person who attended the focus group in Pulaski County, Mike Coulson, president of Coulson Oil Co., says turning people who may never have worked before into employable individuals is a responsibility that may end up resting with the state.

"These are folks who have not been in the workplace for a long period of time," he says. "Employers want people who can do elementary math, read, show up on time, deal with the public. People who can get along with others in the workplace. These are skills that people who have not worked may not have. It may be left to state government to get them job-ready."

Needing Help From Everyone

Getting these people ready for work is a state responsibility, Dalton says. Being successful will require help from others, he cautions.

"I'm traveling all over this state talking with everyone about strategies," he says. "A number of employers, while not having vacant full-time positions, have a great deal of part-time work to be done. The thing we've got to do is get people into those jobs."

Dalton is meeting with chamber of commerce officials and nonprofit groups throughout Arkansas, asking them to consider working as placement entities for this new segment of the workforce. He says that in areas like the Delta, where few employment services exist, other groups could step in and help find and fill job openings.

In addition to meeting with state business leaders, Dalton says local government officials, providers of services such as day care and transportation, and faith-based groups are being asked to help see welfare reform through.

He envisions church buses that are left parked throughout the week being used to get people with no vehicles of their own to and from work in areas of the state that lack public transportation. He hopes new businesses will sprout that cater to the child-care needs of parents who may have to work weekends or on second or third shifts.

"The delivery systems out there now are mainstream, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. support systems," Dalton says. "A lot of our people will be in nontraditional settings. Planning with these other groups will help them work through these issues. It takes time."

Dalton says he's convinced that bringing people from all segments of a community into the process is the only way to reform welfare successfully.

"We want economically driven approaches in all 75 counties that focus on the implementation of strategies," he says. "The information must be available during meetings of these stakeholders. Local coalitions need to include all groups. Everybody has to buy into welfare reform to make it work."

Coulson, whose company operates 20 Shell Superstop Convenient Stores in central Arkansas, says his business is a good place for these transitional employees to start. In fact, he says he's hired a number of former welfare recipients.

"We can teach people a lot," he says. "They've got to get to work; they've got to show up. We do on-the-job training. There's no school, no three-week training program. You've got to be able to count money and show up with a smiling face. The service industry always needs employees."

"The timing of welfare is good," he says. "We've got a strong labor market. If we had 9 or 10 percent unemployment, it would difficult. It's a good time to be looking for folks looking for a job. The real challenge will be to find jobs for people with no skills."

Dalton says getting people into jobs will be tougher in parts of the state that have higher unemployment rates, but not impossible. He is meeting with people in east Arkansas to determine what the needs will be in those areas. The key in most cases may be part-time employment to start, he says.

"The general economy in the state is good," he says. "Many employers are finding it difficult to fill jobs right now. Welfare reform will hopefully raise for them a group of employees to make the business successful. That's what we're working for."