And simply mandating that all welfare recipients work will not make hiring women on welfare more attractive to private employers, nor will it create more jobs for them. Without better educational credentials and child care, most welfare recipients will be unable to compete for and hold onto even low-wage jobs. Our goal should be to prepare poor parents for the labor force, help them find jobs, and ensure that their children are adequately cared for. And instead of pushing fathers away from families, our policies should encourage them to participate responsibly in their children's lives. Today, we live in a world where jobs are tenuous, real wages are falling, and there are more low-skilled workers than employers need.
Marriages fail, women work, and many American children grow up knowing only one parent.
A new welfare system must help poor parents cope with the changing economic and social environment. The job prospects for people with a high school education or less have declined dramatically in the United States since the mid-1970s. Men and women without high school diplomas are five times as likely to be unemployed as those with college degrees. In general, employment opportunities have not kept pace with the large numbers of low-skilled people who need work. Moreover, the wages of low-skilled people who do find work are often insufficient to support a family.