Meg Whitman on California's Broken Welfare System

Keep your fingers crossed for Meg Whitman, hopefully the next Governor of California. Here is her piece on the California welfare system:

The numbers tell a bleak story. In 1996, California had 21 percent of the nation’s welfare cases. Today, 32 percent of all welfare cases in the United States are in California, even though we only represent 12 percent of the total U.S. population. Consider this troubling comparison; California is nearly twice as big as New York state, but we have five times as many welfare cases.

Despite being a state famous for opportunity and promise, California lags much of the nation when it comes to moving people from welfare to work, according to the federal government. Only 22 percent of welfare recipients in California who are required to meet federal work minimums are working. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, our state is one of only nine that does not unconditionally enforce the federal government’s five-year lifetime limit on cash welfare assistance. These flaws in our welfare system, coupled with a monthly cash check that is almost 70 percent higher than the national average, work against the goal of helping more welfare recipients leave welfare for a life of greater independence and dignity.

California simply cannot afford this kind of failure any longer. The good news is we don’t have to. Michigan, which enacted sweeping welfare reform in the 90’s, is a good example. When adjusted for population, Michigan has half the incidence of welfare dependency as California, despite a higher unemployment rate than ours. A 2009 study by the Public Policy Institute of California found that if there were stricter sanctions on adults who fail to meet work requirements here in California, the state’s caseload would be substantially lower and its work participation rate would be significantly higher. Everybody would be better off.