Welfare Reform: Help Parents Help Children

“Welfare Reform Malady” (editorial, July 21) highlights the problems (physical and mental ailments, limited education and language competence, large number of children) that can keep welfare parents from work.

These very same problems and others (lack of access to child care and public transportation, domestic violence, substance abuse, etc.) can keep these adults from attending the programs intended to assist them in moving from welfare to work.

Failure to participate in such mandated programs not only deprives adults of the help they need, it also leads to sanctions for failure to participate--which cut already minimal welfare payments. What could be more unacceptable than a welfare program that sanctions more recipients each month than it places in jobs? Or a welfare program in which families with the greatest need are punished rather than assisted?

You are correct in pointing out that there is a lot to correct when welfare reform comes up for reauthorization next year.

Leonard Schneiderman

Prof. Emeritus, UCLA School of Public Policy and Social Research