In 1997 New Jersey's Republican governor, Christine Whitman, signed legislation called "Work First New Jersey," which has already cut 55,000 women from government-guaranteed assistance. The state's legislation was modeled after the federal 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, signed by President William Clinton.

This legislation eliminated federally guaranteed Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and cut off food stamps for many working people. The AFDC program was won during rising labor struggles more than 60 years ago as part of the Social Security Act.

The New Jersey government limited welfare eligibility to a lifetime total of five years. The state requires anyone receiving assistance, such as food stamps, to get a job, enroll in school, or accept a workfare arrangement to pay back their welfare grants. If a single mother cannot meet one of these requirements within two years, the state takes away all assistance. The state's welfare agency through the "Work First New Jersey" program, which replaced AFDC, is now pushing "to make sure anybody who can get off welfare does so before they hit the five-year time limit," according to state welfare director David Heins.

County social workers are now conducting hour-long "interviews" of the women reaching the end of their assistance to force them to answer 38 pages of personal questions, from how often they go to "soup kitchens to whether they are drug users or victims of domestic violence," according to a report in the Newark Star-Ledger. The state has allocated $5 million to each New Jersey county welfare office to get the answers to the 38-page questionnaire.  
 
Degrading treatment
Several women who have been through the humiliating experience of having to answer the welfare agents' "questionnaires" talked with this reporter. One woman, a warehouse worker who raised four children as a single head of household, said, "They want you to prove that you don't have a husband, don't have a job, don't own a car, and don't go to school. If you meet these requirements you could qualify for some type of assistance. Now they are taking away even that." She described the experience of waiting in long lines at the welfare office, being made to feel stupid or incompetent, and having welfare agents come to her home to search for evidence of any violation of the state's requirements.

Another woman, Karen Weathers, who received some government assistance while raising her two young children as a single parent, now works in an Essex County welfare office. She said she works with women who have no other means to support themselves and their children. And now the state is "taking them off just like that. It's going to be rough for a lot of people. There has to be a better way than doing this."

The number of single-parent households, the overwhelming majority of which are headed by women, has grown rapidly from 12.7 percent of all families in 1960 to 32 percent in 1998. The 1996 "welfare reform" act is the first time an entire category of working people--single women and their dependent children--have been eliminated from protection by the Social Security Act, which had guaranteed some social protection for children, women, workers injured or thrown out of a job, and others affected by the instabilities of the capitalist system.

Of the 55,000 women and their children who have been eliminated from any type of government-guaranteed economic or medical assistance, most are now employed in jobs that do not meet their needs. Their wages are low and they have few benefits. According to the state's overview of the "Work First New Jersey" program, "most of these jobs are entry-level clerical and service-oriented positions." The average wage is $7.20 per hour.

Thousands of women cannot find work because of their responsibilities for the care of young children, lack of transportation, pregnancy, physical disabilities, and the discrimination faced by those who do not speak English. In a Star-Ledger interview, Melville Miller, president of Legal Services of New Jersey, said that "a significant number of the long-term people will ultimately not be able to find work for a variety of reasons." Meanwhile, another 11,000 women are facing the devastating effects of being thrown off government assistance over the next year.
 
 
Related article:
Rulers target working women  
 
 
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