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For several years, Congress and many state legislatures have pronounced welfare reform a top priority. But getting people off public assistance and into the workforce may prove tougher and costlier than some expect. In Derry, the focus of WBUR's "People's Voice" coverage of the New Hampshire primary, Washington is sending seemingly contradictory messages about welfare. "Take responsibility for yourself and get a job," the government seems to be telling the young welfare mothers of Derry. But Congress has just made getting a job more difficult by pulling the plug on a local job training center for pregnant teenagers and teenage mothers. WBUR's Patrick Cox has our story.
Meet Christina Raymond, twenty-year-old mother of two.
"Hi how are you, this is Christina Raymond from National Credit Services and I was wondering if I could have someone stop by and meet with you next week regarding how you're handling your collections."
Raymond used to be on food stamps and Medicaid. But four months ago she got a job, at a collection agency in Bedford, New Hampshire. Just making it to work every day is no mean feat. Raymond gets up at 5:20, drives her two kids fifteen miles to Methuen, Massachusetts, where she drops them off with her mother. From there, she heads 28 miles back across the state line to her job in Bedford. Raymond doesn't get home in the evening until 8:00, leaving her practically no time with her children.
"My mother feeds them 3 meals a day , because when I get home my daughter in is bed within 20 minutes of getting home, so I don't really see her at all."
For her successful transformation from welfare mom to working mom, Raymond credits the 16-week course she took at a federally- funded program in Derry, a program slated to disappear in a month due to federal budget cuts. The program, called Teen Women-- an Independent Generation, teaches teenage girls who are mothers or about to become mothers, to find a place for themselves in the working world.
"Now when you're dividing fractions do you remember what you have to do? Fix the mixed number. Right, fix the the mixed number..."
At the heart of the Derry program is one-on-one coaching for the GED, the high school equivalency diploma. That, along with seminars on resume writing, job interviewing and dressing for success gives the girls a fighting chance to find a good job, says caseworker Sharon Dalton.
"It's not just getting a job. They need to get a job that's at least 12 dollars an hour to be able to support themselves and a child, but they can do that, but they're going to need help to do that. They can't go out at 17 without a GED and get a job for 12 dollars an hour." "I'm going to get a job December 15th, I swear to God. Don't even care what I have to do."
Declarations of bravado mix readily here with parenting tips and teenage gossip. At this age, program staff say, the girls teeter between depression and almost limitless ambition, and a slight nudge either way can determine their future. Staffers appear to be nudging the girls toward success. At the five-year-old teen women program, more than eighty percent of the students have received their GEDs and gone on to college, or, more often, a job. The key, caseworker Sharon Dalton says, is encouraging the girls to take responsibility.
"There's a lot of kids here that walk a couple of miles to get here and it's hard for me sometimes on cold days to let them walk here but I know in some ways it's good because they feel a sense of independence and they're willing to do it."
Teen Women -- an Independent Generation, costs $3,400 per student. That may sound like a lot, but supporters say the outlay is quickly recouped as the teenage moms trade in their welfare checks for paychecks.
The program is now in jeopardy as a result of cuts enacted by Congress earlier this year. The cuts came in the wake of a study issued by the Department of Labor suggesting that all short-term job training programs for high school dropouts were a waste of money. Ray Worden directs the New Hampshire job training Council, which administers federal job training grants.
"What happened was Congress got a hold of this study and said oh gee this program doesn't work. Why do we need to invest in this at all and so they ended up cutting the national funding for out-of-school youth programs by 80 percent from its previous year level."
The 80% cuts were part of a package of budget recisions eagerly endorsed by New Hampshire's congressional delegation. Congress now is working on a new job training bill, which, like welfare, would send block grants to the states. The states would then decide how to spend the money. Republican Congressman Bill Zeliff, whose district includes Derry, supports block grants. Zeliff argues localizing job training would make individual programs more accountable to taxpayers.
"What we're hoping to do here in terms of introducing accountability is to put the resources back to the states so that the programs that are working and really are meaningful and are leading to jobs can be spotlighted and funded perhaps at even more money."
But job training officials in New Hampshire say the proposed congressional reforms are unlikely to produce more money for programs like Teen Women -- an Independent Generation. That's because the reforms would cut fifteen to twenty percent of an already decimated youth job training budget.
In Derry, caseworker Sharon Dalton is preparing for what seems like the inevitable closure of the job training program she helps run. But Dalton doubts the closure will be permanent.
"I think there'll be a year where people will really suffer and people will be very difficult for-- they'll see babies that are sick and mothers that have no place to go, and then they'll have to do a program and they'll start it up something like this."
Among this winter's graduating class of teenage mothers, there's anger at the prospect that future teen moms may be on their own in Derry. nineteen-year-old Nicole Shappelle, who's worked her way out of dependence on food stamps and Medicaid, says she's sick of politicians condemning her.
"I could have been more careful, I could have not been pregnant but I did and it happened and I'm doing things to get along. Here I am, I'm working two jobs, going to school and nobody wants to help me."
And back at the Bedford collection agency where she's now worked three months, former student Christina Raymond strikes a similar tone of defiance on behalf of Derry's teenage moms.
"I mean everyone complains, 'Oh well, they don't pay taxes and they don't do this.' Well, I'm proof that they do out and get a job, and our taxes are what's going into this program. Some people will drop out but the majority who you offer this to will stick with it and they will graduate."
Christina Raymond leaves her office. She gets in her car, points it in the direction of her mother's house in Methuen to pick up her children.
It'll be two and a half hours before she gets home. It's a long work day, but as Raymond says, it sure beats welfare.
For WBUR, I'm Patrick Cox.
For more information about people struggling to make
ends meet check out the SOUNDPRINT production, The Dispossessed.
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