Reporting from the trenches: welfare reform is one area where the press has looked beyond the spin to where the rubber meets the road.

• Position: Excerpts from US journalism on workfare and welfare reform - Column

Welfare reform is one area where the press has looked beyond the spin to where the rubber meets the road

Washington often seems to be fonder of make believe than of reality. The clearest evidence of the trait is its tendency to view a problem as having been dealt with when a legislative solution to it is enacted. Bill Clinton started talking about the 100,000 cops that his crime bill had put on the street as soon as the bill was passed in 1994. But today, fewer than 50,000 more cops are actually working.

Too often the press, instead of exposing the make believe, is part of the conspiracy. Who wants to troop around rural America finding out if the latest farm legislation is actually producing the reform it was supposed to? My favorite example--since I'm from West Virginia--is mine safety. Has the bill designed to protect miners actually done so? Or has it proved an unnecessary burden on industry? The one thing you can be sure of is that reporters don!t go into the mines to find out. They will simply report what the union and the company say or tilt the story according to whether they are liberal or conservative.

Savings-and-loan deregulation is the most disastrous recent example of the failure. Deregulation was followed by about a decade of journalistic indifference to finding out whether the effects of deregulation were good or bad. This failure to report in a timely manner what was going wrong with the S&L deregulation ultimately cost the government--meaning us--$130 billion.

But now I'm happy to report there is an exception to the rule of make believe. It is welfare reform. This time the story didn't end with the passage of the bill in 1996. Papers all over the country have been looking into the actual results of this reform. As a result, a reasonably clear picture is emerging of the progress stemming from reform and the problems that have followed in its wake.

We publish the following excerpts from that reporting, first so that our readers will know the story they tell, and second so that other journalists will be inspired to do similar investigations not only of welfare reform but of what is really happening with other government programs where the rubber hits the road.

Incidentally, we are proud to note that some of the best reporting on the effect of welfare reform has been done by two alumni of this magazine: Jason DeParle of The New York Times and Katherine Boo of The Washington Post.

Progress

"More than 1.3 million people left the welfare rolls in 1996--more than 650,000 of them in just the last four months of the year, after the law was signed. The pace of decline is faster than at any time since welfare rolls peaked at 14.4 million in March 1994.... Welfare caseloads shrank 5% in the last four months of 1996, and 10% in all of 1996. The drop of more than 650,000 in the last four months is nearly double the 377,000 in the same four months of 1995. Caseloads dropped in every state in the last four months of 1996." -- USA Today

"[Wisconsin] expanded three new programs in Milwaukee last March and saw its caseloads suddenly plummet. One is a `diversion program,' which requires applicants to perform 60 hours of job search activities as a condition of getting aid. Another is a 'pay for performance' plan, which reduces grants proportionately for every hour of work or training that recipients miss. A third is a program of bureaucratic incentives that measures caseload reductions and threatens lagging offices with a loss of money. The welfare rolls in Milwaukee have fallen by 7,235 families in the 10 months since the program began, compared with a decline of 2,753 families in the previous year. Since March, new applications have declined by about 30 percent." -- The New York Times

"Nearly three years after a controversial `family cap' welfare-reform policy began in New Jersey, the state's welfare birthrate has continued to drop. ... At least 18 states have federally approved family cap policies, in which welfare mothers do not receive more cash if they have additional children." -- The Washington Times

"The Westchester County workfare program has become a national model by sharply cutting welfare rolls and putting more than 15,000 welfare recipients to work since 1989." -- The New York Times

"Fourteen welfare recipients, many of them homeless, crossed the stage [in Arlington, Va.,] to become the latest graduates of Marriott International Inc.'s welfare-to-work program. One of them, Rhonda Taylor, rose to sing to the gathering and choked up with emotion. `You have no idea what it's like to go from dependence to independence," she said.

"But the hotel chain, which has put nearly 600 people through its welfare-to-work program in the past...