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CNN Live Sunday

Interviews With Genevieve Wood, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey

Aired May 26, 2002 - 17:16   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Congress is in the midst of dealing with how to renew and revise a landmark 1996 welfare reform law. The House passed a Republican-backed bill last week. The focus now moves to the Senate. Democrats and Republicans have different ideas on how to maintain and improve on the current trends. Government figures show the number of Americans on welfare declined from 5.2 percent in 1995 to 2.1 percent in 2000. And the percentage of the population beneath the poverty level dropped from 13.8 percent to 11.3 percent in the same period.

So is this an indication that welfare reform works? Joining us from San Francisco is California 6th District Representative Lynn Woolsey, the first former welfare mom to serve in Congress. She chairs the Democratic Caucus Task Force on Children and co-chairs its Task Force on Welfare Reform. And Genevieve Wood is a spokeswoman for the Family Research Council in Washington. Thank you very much, both of you, for joining us.

Well, Representative Woolsey, I'd like to begin with you. Is the current welfare reform system working, particularly as it pertains to putting people back to work?

REP. LYNN WOOLSEY (D), CALIFORNIA: Well, Fredricka, if all you count is how many individuals went to work, yes, we're off of the welfare rolls, yes, indeed, it's working, but that is not what we should be counting. We should be counting how many welfare recipients go to work, and how many welfare recipients have gone from welfare and off of poverty, and we've have missed that boat entirely.

WHITFIELD: So you're saying that the issue is not necessarily that fewer people are on welfare, but they're contributing to, they're adding to a greater pool of the working poor?

WOOLSEY: Absolutely, and...

WHITFIELD: Why is that?

WOOLSEY: Well, that's because we don't educate and train the welfare person so that that participant can go from welfare to a job that pays a livable wage. And that's a big mistake, because we had a wonderful boom economy. So, of course, the poverty rates went down, and of course we were able to find jobs at entry level. But now we have to make sure we don't have a greater number of working poor. WHITFIELD: So, Ms. Wood, then, how would this bill work? It's already passed in the House, it's on its way to the Senate. It is requiring something that President Bush is hoping for, that it requires that there are more working hours for those people who are on welfare and then returning to the work force. So if they are working longer hours, does it necessarily mean that it's pulling them above or closer to being above the poverty level?

GENEVIEVE WOOD, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL: Well, it's certainly pulling many of them closer. While many of people who, as the congresswoman mentioned, are not making double what they were making on welfare, statistically all of those who have moved from the welfare rolls into the work force are making better than they were when they were on the welfare rolls. And she's right; we ought to be doing more of the job training, we ought to be adding more education, which this bill does.

But we're also asking that people who not only get cash assistance but who live in public housing or who get food stamps, that they also have to work a certain number of hours per week.

Look, the fact is this is just the first step. This is not something that was -- the '96 bill was not designed to solve all problems with poverty, but it was certainly a very good first step. And when you have welfare rolls across the country go down by 50 percent -- and people should realize that there were four million people, two million of which were children, now off the welfare rolls -- that is a great first step. It's breaking that whole dependence on months after months of government dependence, making a living for themselves, and eventually getting above that poverty line.

WHITFIELD: Well, why is it that you would argue then that tougher or greater work hours would be the answer when you yourself just said that educating people about trying to make the transition for those on welfare to the work force is needed and it's absent.

WOOD: Well, no, it's both. The fact is that part of the work requirement is just work hours, but part of it can be job skills training that contribute to the work hours.

But let's also focus on one other aspect that should be a part of this bill. The fact is, it's not just unemployment that causes people to live in poverty. The number one cause of poverty, the root cause of poverty is the breakdown of the family. And one thing that the White House has talked about, and I certainly hope that Congress will push through, is encouraging states to look at programs that also promote marriage and promote families staying together, because that's...

WHITFIELD: Well, let me bring in Representative Woolsey in that, because that is a controversial topic, you know. Should the government now be regulating whether -- or encouraging whether someone is ready for marriage?

WOOLSEY: Well, certainly the Democrats support marriage, but we know that if you want to have a good, solid marriage, it really helps if you can pay your bills. So we'd take that $300 million that the president has set aside to promote marriage, and invest it in education and training. And with the added hours of work -- we have not invested enough in child care. So we're going to expect families to go to work and leave their kids...

(CROSSTALK)

WHITFIELD: But promoting marriages doesn't answer to get people off welfare and to be better suited to raise their kids?

WOOD: Let me jump in. Here's most of the time the kind of Democrats the way they view welfare. Currently, for every $1,000 we spend on programs to assist broken families, we only spend $1 trying to prevent family breakdown in the first place. Why do we constantly want to spend more money on fixing the problems when we ought to be investing more in trying to prevent them in the first place?

The fact is, we can do a little bit of both. States have not done anything to really promote marriage, with the exception of Oklahoma, I have to add. All other states have not taken advantage of that. The states have proven when they were required to reduce welfare rolls, they did it. What we ought to be doing now is requiring them to promote marriage and asking them to do the same thing there.

WHITFIELD: So, congresswoman, what are welfare recipients saying, or perhaps even those who have recently gotten off welfare and now in the work force, what are they saying about these changes?

WOOLSEY: Well, actually, they laugh about the marriage proposal, and it's a waste of $300 million. We all know it, but we're not going to fight it, because...

WOOD: How do we know it if we have not tried it?

WOOLSEY: ... what we want to fight is to have education up to and through an AA degree or the training that an individual needs to actually go from welfare so they can afford to raise their children, and at the same time go off of assistance entirely. That has to be our goal and our aim.

WOOD: Our goal...

WOOLSEY: And we added as a goal to this reform, we added the words that one of the goals is to go -- to get out of poverty, and that has to be our major goal.

WHITFIELD: Ms. Wood, I'll let you respond to that real quick.

WOOD: OK. Well, I was going to say, when you look at single- parent homes, for instance, single moms -- children who are raised by single moms tend to have -- or are six times more likely to live below the poverty level...

WHITFIELD: All right. I'm sorry, I am going to have to interrupt you because we need to go to Oklahoma now, but Ms. Genevieve Wood and Representative Lynn Woolsey, thank you very much for joining us.

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