WASHINGTON -- A 1988 law designed to transform the nation's welfare system from a permanent support system into a temporary safety net has fallen far short of its goal of helping recipients find jobs, the General Accounting Office of Congress reported yesterday.
In a separate study, a conservative polling organization said the public overwhelmingly supports the concept of welfare reform, but strongly resists many of the key elements of the welfare initiative contained in the House GOP's "Contract with America."
The GAO report, commissioned by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the New York Democrat who drafted the 1988 law, was released just as Congress is preparing to overhaul the welfare system once again. It could influence the direction of the debate by identifying flaws in the previous reform effort.
The Family Support Act restructured the government's principal form of welfare assistance, Aid to Families with Dependent Children. It created a new program, called JOBS, to help recipients get the training, counseling and job-placement services needed to leave the welfare rolls. The program was targeted at those recipients considered most at risk of long-term dependency.
Although annual spending on the JOBS program had grown to $1.1 billion by 1993, its efforts "are generally not well-focused on recipients' employment as the ultimate goal," said the GAO, the congressional watchdog agency.