MPR: Minnesota Family Investment Program: Doing the Job?

Minnesota Family Investment Program:
Doing the Job?
By Dan Gunderson
October 13, 1998

Part of the MPR Welfare to Work Series

The heart of welfare reform in Minnesota is something known as MFIP, the Minnesota Family Investment Program. The state of Minnesota calls MFIP tough, but fair, welfare reform. Critics say it's a short-term solution that forces people into dead-end jobs and leaves them in poverty.

MFIP HAS ONE GOAL: GET WELFARE RECIPIENTS WORKING. Everyone agrees that by that measure, MFIP is a success. Twenty-five percent of Minnesotans on welfare at the beginning of this year are now working. The focus on work is driven by Congressional reform which says federal funding will be cut unless states prove they are moving people from welfare to work. To accomplish that, Minnesota lawmakers designed a carrot-and-stick approach. People who go to work will continue to get assistance. But those who refuse to take a job will quickly find their assistance reduced or cut off.

The dozen or so people in the waiting room at Clay County Social Services ignore the television in the corner as it repeatedly plays educational videos about MFIP

While MFIP forces people on welfare to focus on work, it also demands social workers pay more attention to the needs of those people - helping solve problems with daycare, transportation, or any of a multitude of problems that may keep someone out of the workforce.

Joe Peterson: Our staff is almost pulling their hair out.

Joe Peterson supervises Clay County caseworkers. He says under the new system, each caseworker has fewer clients but is working harder because clients need much more individual attention.

Peterson: But that's a price we're happy to pay, if you want to call it that, because it's exciting to see what it does for recipients. We see hope, where before we just saw despair.

Peterson says under the old AFDC system, work was penalized. If you earned $100, $100 was taken out of your welfare benefits. Recipients had no incentive to work, and social workers had no incentive to care if they did. That's changed. Now, success is measured by how many people get jobs.

Julie is considered an MFIP success. She's working part-time - starting a home based business - and raising two small children.

Julie went on assistance when her marriage fell apart a couple years ago. She says welfare made it possible for her to survive the transition, but she's not been a passive participant. Julie has something most welfare recipients don't - a college education.

Julie: I'd make spreadsheets on my computer just to plot a way out. I mean, my gosh, not everyone can do that.

Julie says she did not notice a dramatic change when MFIP started. She says welfare is still more about paperwork than long-range planning.

Julie: The system does not tell you, "Okay, if you do this and this and this you can get off the system faster." It's just, "Here's what we do ... da da da." They were very nice. No one ever treated me disrespectfully. I never felt slimy, but I also did not get a lot of coaching or mentoring, and maybe they systematically can't, but we should say, "Okay, here's a way: If you get the income up in this area then we move on to the next step."

That may be one of the main weaknesses of MFIP, according to Shawn Fremstad. Fremstad is an attorney with the St. Paul based-Legal Services Advocacy Project which just completed a statewide study of MFIP.

Fremstad: In some counties, you see ratios of job counselors to welfare recipients that are as much as 100 recipients to one counselor. I don't think it's reasonable to think a job counselor can give the individual attention that's needed if they have to work with 100 clients.

Fremstad says judging the success of MFIP based simply on how many people move from welfare to work may not be an accurate assessment, because it doesn't indicate how many of those people have been moved out of poverty.

Fremstad: Ultimately, it comes down to the well-being of children who are two-thirds of the state-welfare population. I think that's the real true measure of failure or success of welfare reform, is do we increase the well-being of low-income kids.

Fremstad says spending-per-client varies greatly among counties, raising questions about equality. There's also a great disparity in the private sector's level of involvement. In Clay County for example, a program provides clothing for recipients, and a local bank has set up a loan fund to help people with bad credit buy cars. But those programs happened because the county took the initiative. Many other counties provide far fewer support services.

Harvey Stallwick says that's why giving too much control to counties may be dangerous. Stallwick heads the social-work program at Concordia College in Moorhead and has been studying MFIP since its conception. He says as a pilot project, MFIP was a very good blend of welfare and work. He fears as it became a statewide program the emphasis shifted disproportionately to work.

Stallwick: Get people out, get them into a job. Bye-bye. End of welfare as we know it. That's pretty callous. That's pretty objective.

Stallwick says MFIP is one of the best state welfare reform programs he's seen, but its still a short-term solution to a chronic problem. He says at a time of record-low unemployment, it's easy to move people into the workforce. He wonders what will happen when people use up the five years of welfare benefits they're allowed.

Stallwick: If we have a continued buoyant economy in five years, it won't be so dramatic when the caps on those programs cease. If the last round of jitters on Wall Street continue, we have no idea what it's going to be like in four, five years time. If we are facing a downturn in the economy, We are not prepared. we no longer have a safety net.

Most everyone involved with MFIP is pleased with its early success at putting people to work, but most agree it's too early to tell if MFIP will solve the underlying problem of poverty.

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