WELFARE RECIPIENTS DESCRIBE TRAINING PROGRAM

SIKESTON -- Seeking information he hopes to include in a welfare reform bill he is co-sponsoring, U.S. Rep. Alan Wheat spent about 45 minutes Monday talking with participants in the Missouri Futures program here.

The 15 program participants are working at Delta Medical Center and studying to become licensed practical nurses or surgical technicians. Under the Futures program, men and women who are on welfare are given the opportunity to go to school and learn job skills.

While getting an education, participants receive financial assistance for child care, transportation and health care, which have been identified as obstacles that often keep people on welfare from getting an education or make them unable to get by on low-wage jobs.

"Had it not been for child care and transportation assistance, I would have had to drop out of this program," one woman told Wheat.

Another said that without the $40-per-week child-care subsidy she received, she would have been unable to stay in Futures because she could not afford to pay for the care.

One man, who recently completed training as a surgical tech, said he has three children at home and his wife is ill. Without the assistance provided by Futures, he would have been forced to stay home and take care of his family, and not been able to learn skills that will enable him to earn a good living to support his family, he said.

Many in the group who talked with Wheat said they had been on welfare at one time, gotten jobs, and then returned to welfare because they could not make enough money with their jobs to pay for child care, transportation and health care.

Wheat, who serves in Congress from the 5th District that includes Kansas City and its Jackson County suburbs, asked the group a variety of questions about how the Futures program had worked for them and any changes they would recommend.

He is a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate and made the stop in Sikeston as part of a Memorial Day weekend swing through Southeast Missouri. During his campaign he has held several forums on welfare reform like the one in Sikeston, including one he held last month in Cape Girardeau.

Wheat said legislation he is pushing will provide people on welfare an opportunity to work their way off welfare dependency. It is also designed to help taxpayers understand that people who are on welfare want to get off and are doing their best to become self sufficient.

"From my observations in talking with people around the state and the country, most people on welfare are really doing their best to get off," said Wheat.

Several Futures participants made it clear that welfare benefits were not enough to live on and they appreciated having an opportunity to become better educated and move off welfare rolls.

"By the end of the month you are scraping for food to cook," said one woman.

"Anybody who thinks you are on welfare for the money -- that's baloney."

Other observations were that there is an incentive to stay on welfare to insure that children receive adequate medical care.

In response to a question from Wheat, all 15 participants in the discussion said they would prefer to have a public-sponsored community-service job rather than not have a job at all if they could not find a position in the private sector.

Wheat said the legislation he is working on would provide some opportunities for people to work, even if jobs are not available in the private sector.

Wheat explained that his bill requires people on welfare to have education and job training and then take a job once the training is completed. The bill also provides child-care benefits for up to two years after the training is completed, provides transportation assistance, and eliminates the disincentives in current law for people on welfare to not be married.

The congressman said he hopes Congress can pass some type of national health-care bill this year that will insure everyone access to care and eliminate many of the problems that were described Monday.

"We want to provide education training and firm job requirements at the end of the program. The Futures program is what we want to emulate nationally," said Wheat.

The Futures program at the Delta Medical Center is for nine months. Besides teaching job skills and self-discipline, participants are also taught management skills, resume writing, and are how to do job interviews.