Statistics don’t tell story of struggling families

April Gross is a not a statistic. She’s not a label. She’s a 25-year-old mother struggling for a better life.

Gross, who has a 2-year-old son named Jordan, dreams of college, and perhaps of becoming a nurse.

About a year ago, some might have labeled her: welfare mom. Thursday, I spoke with the Everett woman because of statistics.

Gov. Chris Gregoire announced this week that the caseload of people on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the state and federal program dubbed TANF, is at its lowest level since 1967.

In June, the number of Washington families receiving assistance dropped below 50,000 for the first time since 1979. “The percentages are even more dramatic; 3.5 percent of the state’s population was receiving welfare in 1979, now only 1.8 percent of the population is receiving assistance,” Gregoire said in a press release Monday. “As a percentage of the population, the number of people on welfare is the lowest since 1967.”

What’s good news for taxpayers doesn’t tell the whole story.

It doesn’t tell the challenges facing Gross and others as they navigate WorkFirst, Washington’s welfare-to-work program. It doesn’t show all that’s required of needy parents as they collect precious little money. All the while, a 12-month clock is ticking. Help is short-lived.

For Gross and her boy, it was $440 per month for just four months.

Gross, who has a high school diploma, said it wasn’t easy to seek help. “My son’s father and I broke up, and I moved in with my stepmom and my dad in Stanwood,” she said. “I didn’t expect my parents to take care of my son and me. I was stubborn about wanting to ask for help from the state, but I didn’t have a choice.”

While on assistance, Gross enrolled in an Everett Community College customized job skills course through the WorkFirst program. She later worked at a Safeway store.

She’s now exploring a nursing program at Skagit Valley College. “I don’t want to hop from job to job, I want a stable career,” she said.

“In WorkFirst, what they did was go for a high level of accountability,” said Frank Cox, a WorkFirst training administrator at EvCC. “We are mandated by the feds, through the state, to account for their every hour, including homework hours.”

Marilynn Abrahamson, the EvCC WorkFirst coordinator, explained the welfare evolution. In 1997, during Bill Clinton’s presidency, Aid to Families with Dependent Children became Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, adding a work requirement. The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 boosted the accountability.

People on assistance must log as many as 32 hours of vocational training, work experience or job-search activities per week, Cox said. At EvCC, programs include GED training, welding, computer skills, medical assisting and other high-demand skills.

“People struggle, because there’s a high cost of living, to earn a real family wage,” Cox said. “It’s not an easy row to hoe.”

On top of it all are child-raising demands. Assistance is only for parents with dependent children. They get child-care support, medical care for kids and food stamps, which may continue for low-income families after welfare ends.

“It’s overcoming tremendous obstacles,” Abrahamson said. “For many people on welfare, their parents’ level of education was not high. With all the training, we’ve still found it very difficult to break the cycle of poverty.”

She sees the biggest barriers as lack of education, outdated skills, substance abuse and family issues including domestic violence.

“The most obvious thing, they didn’t graduate from high school. That’s 50 percent of our caseload,” Abrahamson said. One year of college, often a vocational certificate, is what she calls “the tipping point” that brings self-sufficiency.

“But what the governor says about people being off the welfare rolls, they’re the working poor. They don’t suddenly become middle class,” Abrahamson said.

The law allows for a lifetime limit of five years of assistance.

Even in a good economy, Abrahamson said, “it’s an endless supply of people.”

Gross is pinning her hopes on education to keep her out of the system. “I want to be able to make my own money, to bring home my own bread,” she said.

Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.