As Yogi Berra might say, its deja vu all over again. At least that's the way it feels to some who have lived through previous attacks on welfare participants for political gain. In recent weeks Republican candidates for Governor, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and former EBay CEO Meg Whitman have targeted CalWORKs as a key policy issue that must be changed. Here is what Steve Poizner says about welfare

• California has 12% of the nation’s population, but 30% of the nation’s welfare recipients.
• 1.2 million Californians, or 3.5% of our state’s population, is on welfare. This is almost three
  times the national average.
• Only 22% of welfare recipients in California are meeting their work requirements. Of California
  recipients required to work in 2007, 64% didn’t work at all.
• States that impose lifetime welfare limits of less than five years have, on average, just 0.77% of
  their populations on welfare.

Here is the link to Meg Whitman's radio ad on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmhMcP--kaM

Bashing welfare participants is a time honored sport in American politics. Two recent Presidents have used the public perception of welfare as a way to gain political support. Ronald Reagan famously coined the phrase "Cadillac driving welfare queens" in the 1980's as a way to drive a wedge between voters and the poor. Then candidate Bill Clinton promised voters to "end welfare as we know it" to help distinguish himself in Democratic primaries and then followed through by ending the federal entitlement to AFDC in 1996.

Then, as now, the attacks always carry some element of truth to them. It is true that in 2007 only  22% of CalWORKs recipients met federal work participation but it doesn't mention that that was because the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress changed the formula for calculating work rates in a way that disproportionally hurt California. See WCLP's attached piece on the ten ways California was hurt by the 2006 federal changes.

But both candidates rely on data that is at best questionable and at worst outright misleading. Alleging that 64 percent of CalWORKs participants didn't work at all is hard to reconcile with the fact that during the same time 60% of families were engaged in federally recognized activities. It also paints a stagnant picture of the caseload. A family that is working one month may not be another month. So does that mean they are or aren't working? And the candidates ignore the fact that federal and state law allow participants to engage in job search, counseling and education as part of their welfare to work program.

Both candidates suggest that cutting welfare is needed to help the state budget but neither candidate tells voters that California has already cut state spending on welfare from $3.7 billion in 1994 to about $2 billion in 2010. Both candidates bemoan "high" grant levels but the truth is the maximum CalWORKs grant for a family of three is exactly the same now, $694 a month, as it was in 1989.

Perhaps the most repugnant comment is by Steve Poizner who alleges in the Sacramento Bee this week that "[T]here's a lot of fraud in the system because of exploiting kids." By this the candidate is referring to CalWORKs cases in which only children are aided. Since these benefits are long standing in state law and are subject to a rigorous fraud review how is it that a candidate for Governor can accuse poor families of fraud without a single fact. The willingness to exploit stereotypes of welfare families for political gain ought to raise serious questions about the judgement of these candidates.

The recent attacks by Whitman and Poizner echo the comments made by Governor Schwarzenegger last summer when he accused participants of just sitting around the house rather than engaging in work. While the press largely gave the Governor a pass last year, the media is scrutinizing the statements by the two Republican candidates. Yesterday both the San Jose Mercury News and the Sacramento Bee did articles on the use of this new/old wedge issue. The SJMN piece is stronger because it gets the facts correct while the Bee piece says 40% of the caseload is children when it is really 74%. It also says spending on welfare is roughly 50-50 between the federal and the state government but in reality it is more like 2-1. Check out the articles for yourself.

http://www.sacbee.com/politics/story/2520490.html#mi_rss=State%20Politics

http://www.mercurynews.com/california/ci_14344263?source=rss