Catherwood LibraryILR School

A study released yesterday by the National Governors' Association and the American Public Human Services Association representing state welfare officials blasted President Bush's proposed welfare plans as unrealistic and fundamentally flawed. The bipartisan consensus of the governors and welfare officials in the thirty-eight states that weighed in on this report was that the president's plan would trap welfare recipients in low-paying workfare and community service work without helping them to enter the normal workforce and achieve self-sufficiency. The twenty-one Republican, fifteen Democrat and two independent governors cited Bureau of Labor Statistics data in characterizing as "unworkable" the Bush administration's plan to require seventy percent of welfare recipients in all states to put in workweeks five to six hours above the national average without increasing funding for affordable child care.