Statement of Community Voices Heard, New York, New York

Community Voices Heard (CVH) is a membership organization of over 3,500 low-income people, mostly women on welfare, working together to improve the lives of our members' families and all poor people in New York City. We are directed, run and being built by low-income people on welfare. We use public education, public-policy research, community organizing, leadership development, political education and direct action issue organizing, to build our membership and to organize around issues that are defined by our membership. While we focus on welfare reform, we broadly define "welfare activism" to be multi-issue, and thus must include issues such as education, training, jobs, housing, economic development and other community issues.

Referenced Reports:

1) COUNT OUR WORK REPORT
The Work Experience Program (WEP):
New York City's Public Sector Sweatshop Economy

By
Laura Wernick
John Krinsky
Paul Getsos
Community Voices Heard

2) WELFARE TO WORK: IS IT WORKING?
The Failure of Current Welfare-To-Work Strategies
To Move The Hardest To Employ Into Jobs

A CASE FOR PUBLIC JOB CREATION

By Andrew Stettner,
Georgetown University Graduate Public Policy Institute
Community Voices Heard

I. Introduction

This report makes the case that tens of thousands of workfare workers are working in New York City agencies, performing vital functions for the city, for no pay. Yet while they play an important role in running New York City, they are not getting paid for an honest day's work. Instead, they are forced to work off below poverty-level benefits in jobs that once provided families with a real living wage and enough income to survive in New York City. Previously, paid workers were allowed to unionize, were protected by employee rights, and were able to access benefits such as vacation time, unemployment insurance and social security. Today, workfare workers are displacing these paid union workers, they are denied the right to organize, and they are denied basic worker benefits. Worst of all, they are consigned to participate in a government-run, sweatshop type program that keeps them mired in poverty and that by its structure, cuts off their only source of income when they begin to fight for economic justice and equal pay. While the city enjoys untold prosperity, economic growth, improved city services, and renewed parks and street-life, it is at a price: tens of thousands of people are forced to work as no-wage workers in New York City's public sector and non-profit labor force.

These workers are only being compensated for their important work through meager welfare benefits, which are significantly below the poverty level, and they are not allowed to organize. They face punitive loss of their only source of income if they question and try to change their working conditions. We believe that the conditions workfare workers face in New York City are akin to a "publicly funded" sweatshop, which all New Yorkers ultimately benefit from through their use of city services, from city parks to administrative offices. Finally, for many workfare workers, especially those with limited education and employment experience, lack of English proficiency, older workers, and people of color, especially immigrants, workfare is the only way that they can be guaranteed any means of support. With no other option available, they are forced to work in this second tier economy.

Background

In the summer of 1999, Community Voices Heard (CVH), an organization of people on welfare and in workfare, initiated a research project to determine what workfare workers were doing at their Work Experience Program (WEP) assignments in New York City. Our members increasingly reported being forced to do more detailed work and performing significant work responsibilities at their work-sites. CVH commissioned the study to prove that WEP workers were not just carrying out make-work assignments, but rather were responsible for providing critical services to the city.

Currently there are approximately 40,000 people in New York City's workfare program. Workfare workers work in city agencies, private not-for-profit agencies, and, in certain instances in private-for-profit entities such as South Street Seaport and Fulton Fish Market. Workfare workers are not paid a wage for the work they perform. Instead, they are seen as compensating the city for their public assistance grants. Accordingly, they are not eligible for collective bargaining or unemployment insurance, and receive neither social security payments for the work they do nor Earned Income Tax Credits. Many workfare workers are also engaged in 35 hour simulated work weeks, that combine workfare jobs with mandatory programs such as job searching, which requires workfare workers and public assistance recipients to engage in useless activities looking for work, such as calling up stores and businesses identified through the phone book.

Purpose of the Report

The Count Our Work Report demonstrates that workfare is displacing paid union entry level employees with a second tier of unpaid workfare workers who are doing a substantial portion, if not the entire workload, of former entry-level employees working in New York City's public agencies. This report proves that workfare is in fact a public employment program in which workers are performing critical services for the citizens of the city for no pay, and that it keeps people trapped in poverty while displacing a full-time union workforce. This report also proves that WEP is an illegal and illegitimate program that threatens the economic livelihood of current and future employees by violating state labor law because it displaces city workers and provides incentives for further displacement.

II. Overall Findings

A. Workfare workers are performing jobs that are critical to keeping New York City agencies operating, vital services rendered and New York City clean and maintained. Workfare workers are doing critical work for the city, ranging from keeping parks clean and safe, doing light repair work and doing entry-level receptionist duties. While the vast majority of workfare workers are performing entry-level jobs, many are also doing more complex jobs with higher degrees of responsibility, including supervising and training other workfare workers, opening and closing city buildings and parks, and assisting the general public with community problems.

• Workfare workers do valuable work for their fellow New Yorkers. We have found that they perform almost every one of the tasks in three categories of entry-level City worker job descriptions (City Parks Workers, Custodial Assistant, and Clerical Aide). We have also found that workfare workers in the Metropolitan Transit Authority are also responsible for station cleaning and garbage removal and that workfare workers in social service agencies are also providing critical community services such as day care, childcare, and nursing assistance.
• Workfare workers are performing basic services that keep New York City clean and efficiently operating. The survey has found that contrary to popular perception, WEP workers in the Parks Department only report raking or sweeping as 27% of the tasks they perform. In fact, at least 37% of an average workfare workers' job in the Parks Department involves more responsible tasks such as laying sod and hedge trimming, minor repairs and safety checks of equipment. In the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, workfare workers are doing a wide range of jobs including cleaning bathrooms and replacing supplies; scrubbing, waxing and polishing floors; vacuuming rugs and carpets; and even operating elevators. Clerical workers are answering phones, typing and serving as receptionists. They are also processing forms and information requests.
• In many cases, workfare workers are doing jobs that have more responsibility than entry-level jobs. Workfare workers surveyed for this project report doing such tasks as supervising other workfare workers, operating light equipment, and managing case records. In the Clerical and Office Aide Category, 13% report supervising other WEPS. In the Department of Citywide Agencies, 8% report supervising workfare workers, and in the Parks Department, 7% report this activity. In addition, many workfare workers are taking care of children and the elderly in non-profit agencies.
• Both the survey data and individual case studies show that workfare workers are also engaged in other critical jobs, including opening and closing parks and recreation centers, assisting directors of jobs centers and Medicaid offices, and performing critical public safety duties. Many workfare workers in the Parks Department report doing safety checks of park and recreation centers that are used by the public and are responsible for opening and closing park gazebos, bathrooms and offices. Other workfare workers report being responsible for recording complaints about unsafe trees and community problems, and are working as social service case aides, assisting people with their domestic violence problems.

B. New York City is violating New York State Social Service Law by using welfare recipients in jobs formerly done by regular workers. New York State Social Service Law protects unionized municipal workers against being displaced by workfare workers. The law covers both full and partial displacement. We have found that at least partial, and very likely full, displacement is happening in city agencies.

• At least 86% of all survey respondents in all categories report doing the same work as municipal employees at their WEP sites.
• Workfare workers are performing 35 of the 36 tasks in the descriptions of three union job titles that we surveyed. (City Parks Workers, Custodial Assistant, and Clerical Aide).
• In some cases workfare workers are doing work that is not a listed activity on entry-level jobs descriptions, meaning they are doing work that was previously done by union employees and/or are doing tasks that other workers are supposed to be doing.
• Even if one assumes a worker does every job in his or her job description (which most workers do not), the average individual workfare worker is doing 36.7 % of the work done by similarly situated union workers.

C. Workfare creates a source of cheap labor for the City of New York and threatens the city labor force because of the huge financial incentive to the city to expand workfare as an inexpensive way to get the city's entry-level positions filled. Because the welfare grants that workfare workers get in exchange for their labor are mostly subsidized with state and federal dollars, there is a great incentive for the city to expand the program and to replace unionized city workers with workfare workers. In addition, even when federal and state aid is included, the average annual salary for workfare workers is well below the poverty line.

• The cost to the City for an hour of a workfare worker's wage is only $1.80 an hour. This figure is based on the average number of hours worked per week and the city's share of the welfare benefit check.
• Based on a 40 hour workweek, 50 weeks a year, the annual cost to the city of a workfare worker's pay is only $3,600 a year, compared to an annual salary of between $18,000 - $22,000 a year for an entry-level union worker in a similar position.

D. Workfare workers are working at below poverty-level wages while the New York City public sector has developed into a two tier system of workers: union workers who work for benefits above the poverty level and workfare workers performing the same functions for below poverty level wages and doing so under constant threat of losing their only source of income.

• On the average, a single adult who is working 22 hours a week is making at the most $5,724 a year in benefits including food stamps.
• A Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) parent with two children (the average parent on welfare), who works and/or is forced into other work-related activities for 35 hours a week is at the most receiving $10,344 a year in benefits.
• These figures mean that workfare workers are working for pay that puts them at 63-77% of the poverty level and should be classified as the "working poor".
• In all three categories of union labor, salaries are kept above the poverty level, while in no case is the welfare benefit for workfare workers at that level, in spite of the fact that the two do substantially the same work. A City Parks worker makes an annual salary of $22,011 a year and a Safety Net recipient in workfare makes $5,478 a year (working just over half time). A Custodial Assistant working for $20,353 a year and a Family Assistance recipient with one child working at the same job makes $8,220 a year (full time).

E. Workfare workers are not trainees, but rather are workers performing tasks that are done, or were formally done, by union employees. While it is clear that many of the jobs done by WEP workers require generally low skill levels, it is wrong to assume that workfare workers are "trainees".

• Less than a quarter of workfare worker respondents to the survey, 24.76%, reported getting any regular training on the job.
• Only 17.19% of workfare workers reported getting any health and safety training
• Among the group who reported getting regular training, 84.28% of those workfare workers could not be specific about its content.

F. Workfare workers want to work and a majority wants to get paid for the work they do. The clear majority of survey respondents, when asked how they would want to change workfare, responded that they would prefer to be paid for the work they do (73.36%).

IV. Findings by Sector

A. Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR): DPR workers are working in all of the department's facilities in New York City, from Central Park to local neighborhood parks. While, a vast majority of WEP Workers in DPR are doing work that much of the public equates with workfare [i.e., sweeping pathways, raking leaves, and emptying garbage cans (all part of the union job description for entry-level parks employees)], a significant number of workfare workers report doing other major parks maintenance tasks. This includes almost 24.8% who report mowing or edging lawns, 13.9% who do safety checks of equipment, 12.1% who lay sod and trim hedges, and 11.5% who do minor repairs.

B. Janitorial and Maintenance WEP Workers: Most WEP workers performing janitorial and maintenance work are placed in the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS). DCAS workers are responsible for maintaining and cleaning city properties and office buildings including administrative offices, court buildings and public buildings such as City Hall. Approximately 80% of these workers are cleaning office buildings by sweeping and mopping floors, emptying and removing garbage and cleaning bathrooms. Approximately half of these workers are cleaning mirrors and glass and replacing bathroom supplies, and approximately 30% are washing walls, waxing and polishing floors, dusting and cleaning blinds, polishing furniture and fixtures, sweeping and washing sidewalks. Approximately 10% of these workers are operating elevators and replacing bulbs and fixtures.

C. Clerical and Office WEP Workers: WEP workers are working in a variety of city offices including the Office of Employment Services, neighborhood Jobs Centers, Department of Housing and Preservation and in borough buildings and schools. Clerical WEP workers are doing the tasks of a basic entry-level office aide. A majority of work that people report doing includes filing records (83.8%), answering phones (62.9%), and keeping records (56.2 %). Almost 50% of workers report doing receptionist duties, and approximately 25% are giving directions, answering questions and inquiries, preparing mailings, and typing and processing forms.

D. Transit WEP Workers: Transit WEP Workers report doing the highest level of work that corresponds to permanent workers in a city agency. Over 90.5% of the workfare workers we surveyed reported doing the same work as permanent employees. Over 80% of the reported tasks of transit workfare workers include cleaning and polishing surfaces, emptying garbage cans and sweeping stairs and street areas. Seventy-five percent (75%) are dusting handrails and turnstiles.

E. Social Service Agencies/Not-for-Profits: Respondents worked primarily in daycare and senior care facilities, though one did domestic violence crisis intervention, and another did clerical work at a CUNY College. The WEP workers in nonprofits and schools worked longer hours than WEP workers in any of the other categories. Ten of nineteen respondents in these jobs worked at least 70 hours every two weeks (full time), six worked at least 48 hours, and two worked 35 hours every two weeks. These figures suggest that the vast majority of WEP workers in these positions are mothers with children in the TANF program. Duties included reading to children, putting them down to sleep, and serving lunches and snacks, twelve respondents were teachers' aides in public schools. Eleven of these--as well as two others, one who worked as a cafeteria aide, and the other who did not specify her job--worked full time. A majority of the respondents had worked in their public school placements for a year or more.

IV. Recommendations of the COUNT OUR WORK REPORT

A. The Work Experience Program (WEP), should be dismantled in both the public and private sector, as it currently exists. In its place, the following programs should immediately be implemented:

• All welfare recipients should be assessed, evaluated and placed in programs that provide training, skills development and real opportunity for permanent, living-wage employment. Examples of programs include the Transitional Jobs Program, BEGIN College Option, and education and training programs, such as GED, English as a Second Language, as well as other qualified training programs.
• The Mayor and Human Resource Administration should implement the New York City Transitional Jobs Program, passed in April 2000 by the City Council, immediately.
• Workfare workers should be removed from and no longer placed in public sector agencies where they currently displace union workers, depress wages and eliminate entry-level jobs. New funding should be secured by the city to replace lost entry-level positions in city agencies to the 1990 levels. Workfare workers with at least one-year of experience in an agency should be asked to submit their names for employment and be prioritized for hiring.
• Workfare workers should be removed from and no longer placed in private not-for-profit agencies where they eliminate current and entry-level jobs.
• Compulsory "work activities" should include programs such as English as a Second Language (ESL), GED courses, secondary education, on-the-job with pay training, programs and other programs that build real skills, education and experience.

B. The Transitional Jobs Program, which creates public sector and not-for-profit living-wage jobs for people on welfare, should be implemented, fully funded and expanded to accommodate public assistance recipients currently engaged in work activities. This program, which already exists in New York City law, but is not being implemented by the Mayor, should be implemented immediately. It should be funded through TANF surplus funds, welfare-to-work dollars and general budget surplus dollars. The program, which protects existing employees through strong anti-displacement measures, should be expanded to cover all welfare recipients who are forced into work participation activities in both the public and not-for-profit sector.

C. The Mayor and City Council of New York City, the New York State Legislature and the New York State Department of Labor (DOL) should implement the following mechanisms to ensure complete and total compliance with New York State Social Services law and to ensure that partial and complete displacement of city workers by workfare workers not take place in city agencies:

• New York City and the New York State Department of Labor should make public the number of WEP workers placed at each city agency in an annual report, and track how many are removed each year, with the goal that this number reach zero within three years.
• •The New York State Legislature and New York City Council must enact legislation that ensures that workfare workers working in public sector and private not-for-profit agencies are entitled to the comparable wage for the position that they are doing.
• New York City and the New York State Department of Labor should implement a grievance procedure through which both WEP workers and city workers can report partial and total displacement taking place in public sector industries so that these illegal activities can be investigated and halted.
• New York City and the New York State Department of Labor should implement a public education and rights training for both regularly employed and workfare workers to ensure that workers know their rights regarding displacement.
• The NYS Department of Labor should impose monetary penalties on any New York City agency that continues to engage in practices that create partial and complete displacement of union workers by workfare workers.

A full copy of the COUNT OUR WORK REPORT may be downloaded from the CVH Website at: http://www.cvhaction.org/ or call CVH at 212-860-6001.

COMMUNITY VOICES HEARD

WELFARE TO WORK: IS IT WORKING?
The Failure of Current Welfare-To-Work Strategies
To Move The Hardest To Employ Into Jobs

A CASE FOR PUBLIC JOB CREATION

Description: In May of 1997, Community Voices Heard, a membership organization of people on welfare, developed a proactive program proposal - the Community Voices Heard Community Jobs Program - as our response to work requirements set forth by federal and state welfare reform. CVH's proposal, developed by our members and based on similar program proposals in Pennsylvania, Vermont and Milwaukee, became the model for New York City and New York State legislation. This legislation seeks to create temporary wage-paying jobs for people on welfare, combined with comprehensive education and training programs. This two-pronged approach provides the work experience and skills necessary to compete in the labor market.

CVH developed the "jobs survey" to make a case for why a publicly funded temporary jobs program is needed to move people into work. In the summer of 1998, CVH surveyed 483 people on welfare at workfare worksites, welfare centers and social service agencies in Northern Manhattan and across the city. The survey includes questions about the Work Experience Program (WEP), job training, barriers to employment, and past work experience. In December 1998, we interviewed 72 of the original participants to measure the impact of welfare-to-work programs on their lives.

New York City has just begun to spend its $88 million dollar welfare-to-work block grant from the U.S. Department of Labor on 21,000 current welfare participants who have been exempted from workfare in the past. The city is planning to put over 60% of these individuals into the city's Work Experience Program. This report concludes that expanding the Work Experience Program will adversely affect people currently on welfare.

Contrary to common misconceptions that welfare participants do not make an effort to improve their economic situation, the report finds that people on welfare want to work, are actively looking for work with little help from the government, but have yet to find jobs. Our report shows how the Work Experience Program is failing to move people currently on welfare into jobs and is failing to develop marketable skills and education. In addition, WEP participants have little or no chance at getting a permanent city job - we have found that the city has used WEP to eliminate well-paid union jobs that were once available to low-skilled workers. We find that most people on welfare have multiple obstacles to employment, such as a lack of education, lack of recent work experience and large families. Expanding a workfare program that provides poor quality work experience and little education and training will not help participants overcome barriers to employment nor help them find permanent work.

FINDINGS

I. WORKFARE FAILS TO ADEQUATELY SERVE PEOPLE CURRENTLY ON WELFARE.

Workfare Is Not Helping People Move Into Jobs or Increase their Skills and Experience:

• Most workfare participants (60%) report that workfare is not helping them get a job and is not helping them to build their work experience and skills.
• From a six-month follow-up survey, we found that only 6% of workfare participants from our original survey had found jobs.
• While less than 10% got jobs, 23% of people in WEP had their benefits reduced or cut off (sanctioned). This confirms that WEP is most effective as a tool for punishing people and removing them from the welfare rolls, and is not effective at helping them move into employment.
• The longer participants are in the Work Experience Program, the worse off they are. Even after six months in the program, 67% of workfare participants think they will not get a regular job in a city agency. There is no advancement in WEP.
• The Survey results support the idea that WEP workers are displacing union workers. 89% of WEP workers report doing the same work as regular city workers. WEP workers - not unions workers -are filling union positions eliminated under the Giuliani administration.
• Workfare Workers are less likely to receive job placement assistance than other welfare participants are. Only 50% of workfare participants get help looking for jobs from welfare caseworkers, job placement programs or the employment service, while people on welfare not in the work experience program are 20% more likely to receive such job placement assistance.

II. PEOPLE ON WELFARE WANT TO WORK AND ARE LOOKING FOR WORK WITHOUT HELP FROM THE CITY.

• People currently on welfare want to work and are actively looking for work. 90% of unemployed survey respondents said they want to work, and 70% reported looking for work. Their failure to find work cannot be blamed on a lack of effort.
• The City is not helping people on welfare look for work. While the city is now pushing welfare participants into the labor market, only half of welfare recipients looking for work are getting any help from the city. People on welfare are more likely to look for work on their own (75% use newspapers, their friends or temporary placement agencies) than they are to get job search assistance through welfare caseworkers, the employment service, or other job placement programs (50%).

III. PEOPLE ON WELFARE MUST OVERCOME ECONOMIC AND PERSONAL OBSTACLES IN ORDER TO MOVE FROM WELFARE TO WORK.

People currently on welfare face multiple obstacles to employment. In September, the Human Resources Administration (1998) released a study describing a small number of individuals who have gotten off of welfare and successfully transitioned to work. The HRA study showed that the city has only been able to move the most educated and job-ready individuals into work. Our survey finds that those still on welfare are much more disadvantaged.

• Only 42% of the welfare participants in the CVH survey have a high school degree or its equivalent, compared to 72% of those in the HRA study.
• Most current welfare participants in the CVH survey have three or more major obstacles to employment: 71% have been on welfare for two years or more; 66% have not worked in the last two years; and 60% have more than two children.
• Welfare recipients state that their lack of experience and skills is the most challenging and significant obstacle to employment. They are more likely to identify these problems as important than inadequate access to childcare, language barriers or health problems.

IV. WELFARE PARTICIPANTS FACE A LABOR MARKET WHERE THERE ARE MANY MORE JOB SEEKERS THAN THERE ARE AVAILABLE JOBS.

Welfare participants being forced off of welfare will have a hard time finding work, especially in poor communities. Despite claims of economic recovery and an expanding jobs market, welfare recipients are struggling - and will continue to struggle - to find entry-level jobs to support themselves and their families.

• Despite the national recovery, New York City's unemployment rate remains 50% above the national average. In particular, there is a shortage of jobs available for low-skill workers. A recent survey conducted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors found that New York City has the largest welfare-related job shortage of 125 cities in the country. Our analysis shows that there will be approximately six workers for every new job created over the five-year time limit imposed by federal welfare reform.
• Welfare recipients face a labor market that provides very low wages and little job security to low-skill workers. Of the welfare participants we surveyed that had previous work experience, most have worked in jobs that do not pay a salary large enough to support a family. In past jobs, welfare recipients only earned an average of $5.85 per hour - $772 per month. This amount is less than the federal poverty level of $1066 per month for a family of three. The most common reason for losing a job was being laid off.
• Community Voices Heard found that 71%, or more than two-thirds of the unemployed welfare participants surveyed, stated that there is a shortage of jobs in their communities. The experiences of welfare participants looking for jobs confirm labor market data for New York City - there is a shortage of entry-level, low-skill jobs available for people moving off of welfare. Many people surveyed reported going on numerous interviews and not getting hired.

Recommendation: Enact Community Job Creation

WHAT IS COMMUNITY JOB CREATION AND HOW IS IT DIFFERENT FROM WORKFARE?

Community Voices Heard developed its job creation program as a policy alternative to workfare. Job creation programs use public funds to create jobs for people who are unable to find work in the private sector. In job creation programs, workers complete necessary public works in the public and private nonprofit sectors. The most well known historical examples are the Work Progress Administration of the 1930s and the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act Public Service Employment Program of the 1970s. Both programs hired hundreds of thousands of workers in times of economic downturns and made lasting improvements to communities, while providing the dignity of work to unemployed individuals.

Welfare reform has spawned a rebirth of job creation programs. Philadelphia is launching a program to hire 3,000 welfare participants with cash wages over the next two years and Detroit, San Francisco, Vermont, Washington State and Baltimore are also starting programs. Newer programs use community service employment as a temporary on-the-job training experience that help individuals develop the skills and experience they need to find unsubsidized jobs.

While both workfare and community jobs programs provide work for welfare participants,there are fundamental differences between the two approaches:

1. Workfare participants receive their regular welfare benefits in exchange for work, while community jobs workers receive cash wages like regular workers. As a result, community jobs workers qualify for the federal and state Earned Income Tax Credit, up to $3,000 dollars a year.

2. Like a regular job, community jobs workers would choose where they want to work. Unlike workfare, community jobs participants are matched to jobs that they believe will help them reach their long-term career goals. Unlike workfare, community jobs programs allow workers to get skills training to increase their employability.

3. Workfare participants are not granted the full rights or treated with the full measure of respect accorded to regular workers. WEP workers are relegated to a lower tier of workers that don't have the right to join a union, file grievances or get worker's compensation.

4. As bona fide workers, people in a community job develop on-the-job experience and occupational skills that help them compete in the private labor market. Research supports the fact that community jobs programs are more effective than workfare. The Manpower Research Demonstration Corporation found that unpaid work experience programs were not effective at moving people into unsubsidized employment (MDRC, 1993). In contrast, an evaluation of the AFDC Home Care Demonstration found that subsidized jobs in home care increased the earnings of welfare participants by as much as $2,600 per year, as compared to a matched comparison group (Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, 1997). In general, research shows that programs that combine work experience with education and training are the most effective at providing lasting employment and earnings gains.

There are legislative efforts underway in the City Council (Bill 354 with 30 sponsors) and the State Legislature which would commit New York City to launching a community jobs program.These programs would employ 10,000 people over 5 years; provide valuable work in the public and non-profit sector; pay a decent wage of $7.50 an hour; assure health and child care benefits; assure one day of education and training per week; and protect permanent employees from displacement by mandating that community jobs workers be engaged in new work projects and by ensuring that community jobs workers have the same rights and responsibilities as regular workers.

WHY IS A COMMUNITY SERVICE JOBS PROGRAM NECESSARY?

CVH and over 100 organizations throughout the city and state are supporting community job creation because there are not enough jobs being created to accommodate welfare participants moving off of welfare; welfare participants do not have the skills and experience to compete for those jobs; and current welfare-to-work programs do not address the special needs of hard-to-employ welfare recipients. The evidence from our survey supports all three of these contentions.

• There are not enough low-skill job opportunities available for all of the new job seekers pushed into the labor market by welfare reform. According to the Independent Budget Office, New York City hopes to move over 200,000 welfare participants off of the welfare rolls. ⁽¹⁾ In addition, there are over 100,000 low-skilled unemployed individuals in New York City. ⁽²⁾ Our analysis of New York State Department of Labor data indicates that there will only be 98,400 new low-skill jobs available for these new job seekers over the next five years. ⁽³⁾ These numbers add up to a shortage of at least 200,000 jobs.
• Welfare participants face a multitude of difficult obstacles to employment. As we demonstrated above, a vast majority of people on welfare want to work (90%), are looking for work (75%), but are not finding jobs. Their struggle to find work is directly related to the number and nature of the obstacles they face. A majority of welfare participants face three or more of the following barriers to work: low levels of education, large families, little work experience and long-term histories on welfare. Now that the most advantaged welfare recipients have moved into work, New York City needs new strategies to address the barriers faced by hard-to-employ individuals. Welfare recipients assert that a lack of training and skills is the most important barrier to employment: a community job can teach both specific vocational skills taught on the job or in the classroom and basic "soft" work skills such as the ability to work effectively with customers and co-workers.
• Workfare is not working: Most workfare participants do not think WEP will either help them get a job or increase their level of skills or education. As New York City seeks to move these hard-to-employ individuals into work, it will need strategies other than WEP to make welfare participants more employable. After reading two paragraphs describing both New York City's current workfare program and the job creation legislation in the City Council, a vast majority of respondents to the CVH survey (95%) preferred the job creation legislation.

Community Jobs can address the disadvantages of welfare participants and help them find private sector employment by:

• EXPANDING THE NUMBER OF AVAILABLE JOBS. 40% of the welfare participants we interviewed have not worked in the last two years and 20% have never worked. A community job would allow people on welfare who are unable to find jobs in the regular labor market get recent work experience.
• •PREPARING PEOPLE ON WELFARE FOR UNSUBSIDIZED JOBS: With recent experience, welfare participants would have a much better chance of convincing employers that they can be productive workers. Such a program could also address the large skill deficits that we identified in the survey - 58% of welfare participants do not have high school degrees and they believe that their lack of training is the main reason they have not found jobs. By combining work with on-the-job and classroom skills training, a community jobs program could make welfare participants more competitive in the labor market.

Both city council bill 354, "The Transitional Employment Program," and draft state legislation, "The Empire State Jobs Program," present viable alternatives to workfare for welfare participants that face multiple barriers to employment. Such a two-pronged program would provide marketable work experience and allow people on welfare to pursue education and training opportunities. Together, work experience and skills development will greatly increase the probability of finding work.

A full copy of the WELFARE TO WORK: IS IT WORKING? report may be downloaded from the CVH Website at: http://www.cvhaction.org/ or call CVH at 212-860-6001.

1. The Independent Budget Offices estimate that 100,000 Family Assistance participants will move off the roles. When we add 156,000 Safety Net participants (childless adults) whom the city is also trying to move into work, the total is over 200,000.

2. This is the total number of unemployed individuals multiplied by the average skill level of the unemployed from the 1990 census.

3. This projects industry employment growth in major industries in New York City over the next five years. To determine the skill level of jobs, we used the National Occupational Information Crosswalk to identify the number of low-skill jobs in each industry. From those ratios, we project low-skill job growth.