
 Philosophy :     Workfare
 
 "Society's Restraint to Social Reform"
 	
 	Of the many chatted words in the social reform vocabulary of Canadians today, 
 the term workfare seems to stimulate much debate and emotion.  Along with the 
 notions of self-sufficiency, employability enhancement, and work 
 disincentives, it is the concept of workfare that causes the most tension 
 between it's government and business supporters and it's anti-poverty and 
 social justice critics.  In actuality, workfare is a contraction of the 
 concept of "working for welfare" which basically refers to the requirement 
 that recipients perform unpaid work as a condition of receiving social 
 assistance.
 	Recent debates on the subject of welfare are far from unique.  They are all 
 simply contemporary attempts to decide if we live in a just society or not.  
 This debate has been a major concern throughout history.  Similarly, the 
 provision of financial assistance to the able-bodied working-age poor has 
 always been controversial.  
 	On one side are those who articulate the feelings and views of the poor, 
 namely, the Permissive Position, who see them as victims of our society and 
 deserving of community support.  The problems of the poor range from personal 
 (abandonment or death of the family income earner) to the social (racial 
 prejudice in the job market) and economic (collapse in the market demand for 
 their often limited skills due to an economic recession or shift in 
 technology).  The Permissive View reveals that all participants in society are 
 deserving of the unconditional legal right to social security without any 
 relation to the individual's behaviour.  It is believed that any society which 
 can afford to supply the basic needs of life to every individual of that 
 society but does not, can be accused of imposing life-long deprivation or 
 death to those needy individuals.  The reason for the needy individual being 
 in that situation, whether they are willing to work, or their actions while 
 receiving support have almost no weight in their ability to acquire this 
 welfare support.  This view is presently not withheld in society, for if it 
 was, the stereotype of the 'Typical Welfare Recipient' would be unheard of.  
 	On the other side, the Individualists believe that generous aid to the poor 
 is a poisoned chalice that encourages the poor to pursue a life of poverty 
 opposing their own long-term interests as well of those of society in general. 
  Here, high values are placed on personal choice.  Each participant in society 
 is a responsible individual who is able to make his own decisions in order to 
 manipulate the progression of his own life.  In conjunction with this opinion, 
 if you are given the freedom to make these decisions, then surely you must 
 accept the consequences of those decisions.  An individual must also work part 
 of his time for others (by means of government taxing on earned income).  
 Those in society who support potential welfare recipients do not give out of 
 charity, but contrastingly are forced to do it when told by the Government.  
 Each person in society contains ownership of their own body and labour.  
 Therefore anything earned by this body and labour in our Free Market System is 
 deserved entirely by that individual.  Any means of deducting from these 
 earnings to support others is equivalent to criminal activity.  Potential 
 welfare recipients should only be supported by voluntary funding.  For this 
 side, welfare ultimately endangers society by weakening two of it's moral 
 foundations: that able-bodied adults should be engaged in some combination of 
 working, learning and child rearing; and secondly, that both parents should 
 assume all applicable responsibilities of raising their children.(5)
 	In combination of the two previous views, the Puritan View basically involves 
 the idea that within a society which has the ability to sufficiently support 
 all of it's individuals, all participants in the society should have the legal 
 right to Government supplied welfare benefits.  However, the individual's 
 initiative to work is held strongly to this right.  Potential welfare 
 recipients are classified as a responsibility of the Government.  The 
 resources required to support the needy are taken by means of taxation from 
 the earnings of the working public.  This generates an obligation to work.  
 Hence, if an individual does not make the sacrifice of his time and energy to 
 contribute their earnings to this fund, they are not entitled to acquire any 
 part of it when in need unless a justifiable reason such as disability is 
 present for the individual's inability to work.  The right to acquire welfare 
 funds is highly conditional on how an individual accounts for his failure in 
 working toward his life's progression by his own efforts.  Two strong beliefs 
 of the Puritan Position are;  Firstly, those on welfare should definitely not 
 receive a higher income than the working poor, and secondly, incentives for 
 welfare recipients to work must be evident. 
 	The distinction between the "deserving" and "non-deserving" poor is as 
 evident now as it was in the Poor Laws of the 16th and 17th centuries.(1)  The 
 former were the elderly, the disabled, the sick, single mothers and dependent 
 children, all of whom were unable to meet their needs by participating in the 
 labour force and, therefore, were considered worthy of receiving assistance.  
 The latter were able-bodied adults who were often forced to do some kind of 
 work as a condition of obtaining relief as a means of subsistence.  Those who 
 refused this work requirement were presumably not really in need.  Throughout 
 our own history of public assistance, the non-deserving poor always got 
 harsher treatment and fewer benefits than their deserving counterparts. 
 	Due to it's mandatory nature, historically, workfare has been viewed as a 
 forceful measure.  Two other program strategies are now in use as well. 
 Namely, a service strategy, and a financial strategy.(8)  The former includes 
 support services for the work participant, such as counselling, child care, 
 and training.  The latter includes a higher rate of benefits for those who 
 participate in work programs than someone would receive from social assistance 
 alone.
 		To actually show that workfare does not work, we must observe the United 
 States, which has had federally mandated workfare programs for welfare 
 recipients since 1967.  Although the research on American workfare programs is 
 inconclusive to some extent, many findings suggest that workfare is 
 ineffective in reducing welfare costs and moving people from the welfare rolls 
 into adequate employment. It was found that low-cost programs with few support 
 services and a focus on immediate job placements had extremely limited 
 effects.  These did not produce sizable savings or reduce poverty or reduce 
 large numbers of people from welfare.(9)  Furthermore, While expensive 
 programs with extensive supports and services were more likely to place people 
 in employment, there was a definite point of diminishing returns where the 
 expenses outweighed the benefits.(10)
 	Even the limited success by some American workfare programs is highly 
 questionable.  Largely missing from the research is the discussion of 
 workfare's major limitation: The lack of available adequate jobs.  In the wide 
 scheme of things, it doesn't  matter whether the program is mandatory with no 
 frills or voluntary and comprehensive if there are no jobs to fill.  This is 
 the "Achilles Heel" of all workfare programs.  Even if some individuals manage 
 to find jobs and get off welfare, if the unemployment rate for the area does 
 not change, it is obvious that there has already been a displacement of some 
 people in the workforce.  What actually occurs is a shuffling of some people 
 into the workforce and some out, with no net increase in the number of jobs.  
 Workfare only increases the competition for jobs, it doesn't create them 
 (except for those who manage and deliver the programs, generally not welfare 
 recipients).  In addition, the few jobs that workfare participants do get tend 
 to be either temporary, so the person returns to welfare, or low-paying with 
 minimal benefits, so that people are not moved out of poverty, but merely from 
 the category of "non-working poor" to "working poor".(11)
 	Another issue largely ignored in Canada as well are health and safety 
 conditions affecting workfare participants.  For example, in New Brunswick an 
 unusually high accident rate has been reported among welfare recipients who 
 took part in provincial work programs.  
 	Given the overall failure of workfare programs to reduce welfare 
 expenditures, reduce poverty, and move people into adequate and permanent 
 jobs, workfare should not even be discussed as a viable social reform option  
 today.  Politicians and the business establishment only call for workfare 
 because it helps to protect their privileged positions in our society.  
 Workfare serves to preserve the status quo by:
 i.	creating the illusion that politicians are actually doing something 
 meaningful about the deficit and welfare.
 ii.	increasing the reserve pool of available labour which can be called upon 
 at any time to carry out society's dangerous and menial jobs.
 iii.	increasing the competition for scarce jobs, which tends to keep wages 
 down and profits up.
 iv.	reinforcing the attitude that people on welfare are largely responsible 
 for our economic and social ills, that they are lazy, deviants who will not 
 work unless forced to do so.
 	Workfare creates the assumption that unemployment is caused by personal 
 choice or lack of work ethic.  However, due to the fact that we have well over 
 one million people in Canada actively looking for work, this is a ridiculous 
 assumption.  Fifteen thousand people lined up one day in Oshawa in January to 
 apply for one of a few hundred possible jobs at General Motors.
 	The problem is not one of a lost worth ethic or personal pathology.  The 
 problem is a lack of jobs, and workfare undoubtedly does nothing to compensate 
 or eliminate this problem.   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 NOTES:
 1.		deSchweinitz, Karl.  ENGLAND'S ROAD TO SOCIAL SECURITY (New York:  A.S. 
 Barnes & Co., 1943)
 2.		Irving, Allan.  "From no poor law to the social assistance review: a 
 history of social assistance in Ontario, 1791-1987" (Toronto: Social 
 Assistance Review Committee, Research Document 44,1987)
 3.		Hum, Derek.  FEDERALISM AND THE POOR: A REVIEW OF THE CANADA ASSISTANCE 
 PLAN (Toronto: Ontario Economic Council, 1983)
 4.		Lightman, Ernie S.  "Work Incentives Across Canada", JOURNAL OF CANADIAN 
 STUDIES, 26 (1), 1991
 5.		Evans, Patricia.  "From workfare to the social contract: implications for 
 Canada of recent U.S. welfare reforms", CANADIAN PUBLIC POLICY, xix,1 (1993): 
 54-67.  Also:  Hardina, Donna.  " Targeting Women For Participation in Work 
 Programs: Lessons From the U.S.",  CANADIAN REVIEW OF SOCIAL POLICY, 33 
 (1994): 1-20
 6.		Hess, M.  "Traditional Workfare: pros and cons"  (Toronto: Ontario Social 
 Assistance Review Committee, Research Document 21, April 1987)
 7.		Johnson, Hubert.  "Welfare work Will Go Ahead Despite Snubs,"  CALGARY 
 HERALD, 6 January 1983
 8.		Lightman, 1991.  Also:  Rein, Martin.  INCENTIVES AND PLANNING IN SOCIAL 
 POLICY (Chicago: Adeline, 1983)
 9.		Evans,1993
 10.		Evans,1993
 11.		Hardina,1994
 12.		Handler, J.  and Hasenfeld, Y.  MORAL CONSTRUCTION OF POVERTY: WELFARE 
 REFORM IN AMERICA (Newbury Park, California: Russell Sage Foundation, 1991)
 13.	  	Govier, Trudy.  THE RIGHT TO EAT AND THE DUTY TO WORK.  Philosophy of 
 the Social Sciences, vol. 5 (1975).  (Wilfred Laurier University Press,1975)
 