(Columbia)—Governor David M. Beasley today
praised the efforts of the Trident One-Stop Training Center as he declared
an end to the old welfare system in South Carolina.
“Tomorrow, October 1st, welfare as we know it will be officially
dead and buried,” Governor Beasley said. “Critics claimed we’d be
yanking the daily bread off family dinner tables. Instead, we’ve
been empowering parents to earn that daily bread themselves. And
we’re finding out that it’s a much more satisfying meal for everyone involved.”
The Governor, at the Trident One-Stop Training Center in Hanahan,
celebrated the huge numbers of families that are no longer receiving welfare
benefits. Since the Family Independence Act became law the number
of able-bodied welfare recipients facing tomorrow’s cut off date has decreased
from 28,382 to 388.
“Welfare reform is working because DSS isn’t an entitlement agency
anymore. It’s an employment office,” the Governor added.
The Trident One-Stop Training Center recently opened to provide
employers with skilled workers through quality employment training services
offered by multiple agencies in one location.
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Note: A copy of Governor Beasley’s speech is attached.
Remarks By Governor David M. Beasley
Family Independence Celebration -- Hanahan
September 30, 1998
Note: The Governor sometimes deviates from text.
Thanks Chuck (Cain) and the entire Trident Workforce Development Board.
It’s great to see all of you here today…because we’ve got two great causes
to celebrate.
The first is that Trident One-Stop Training Center is officially up
and running!
There’s a tremendous local partnership going on here…preparing people
of the Lowcountry for lives of self-sufficiency. It’s the support
of folks like you that’s helping make welfare reform such a success all
across South Carolina.
And that leads me to our next…and greatest cause…for celebration.
Today is the last day South Carolina’s old welfare system will exist.
Tomorrow, October 1st, welfare as we know it will be officially dead
and buried.
We’ve been waiting for two years now to see what that fateful day would
bring. And as usual, a lot of folks predicted the worst.
Some proclaimed (and I quote) that there was “potential for real tragedy
for the children...” that “we’re going to end up putting…people out on
the street.”
Others doubted if we could educate the uneducated and employ the so-called
“unemployable.”
Well, based on what countless women have told me and just about every
news outlet in this state, the doubters were just plain wrong. And
lots of you are living proof.
Maybe you can relate with what some former clients have said these
two years.
One woman, who trained to be a computer technician, said simply, “My
whole life has changed. I’m buying food and paying bills with my
own money that I worked hard for. I can buy my kids’ clothes and
shoes for school.”
Another woman who became a nursing assistant said, “It’s like a whole
new era. I’m no longer dependent on the Department of Social Services.
I’m making my own way.”
One woman went through our Bright Futures program to become a correctional
officer (making, by the way, seven times what she made on welfare!).
She said, “Welfare makes you feel like a child, like there’s only certain
things you can do…Now I’m responsible not just for me, but for the safety
of everyone.”
And this Christmas will be better for her children, she said.
“We’ll have a real tree, the biggest tree you could ever see, with presents
underneath that I picked for them. That will make their faces light
up.”
Obviously the only tragedy of welfare reform…is that it wasn’t done
sooner.
Because after thirty years and trillions of dollars in social spending,
all we had to show for America’s great mission to end poverty was more
poverty…and a vast entitlement quicksand that entrapped the poor and stripped
them of their dignity.
But a courageous group of legislators finally went against the fray
and insisted on change, and the Family Independence Act of 1995 was passed.
We dismantled what was broken beyond repair, and we started over.
Critics claimed we’d be yanking the daily bread off family dinner tables.
Instead, we’ve been empowering parents to earn that daily bread themselves.
And we’re finding out that it’s a much more satisfying meal for everyone
involved.
When Family Independence was first passed, we knew it would be one
of the toughest, most far-reaching endeavors ever attempted.
A lot of issues are wrapped up in this: generational poverty,
education, child care and transportation, not to mention the tragic breakdown
of the two-parent family.
So our first predictions were modest. My advisers said we’d be
doing well if we reduced the rolls by 30 percent.
But today, I’m proud to report that of the employable clients in South
Carolina (those who are able-bodied and can work), our welfare rolls are
down by 74 percent.
When the two-year clock started ticking, about 28-thousand people stood
to lose their benefits…if they stayed on the caseload continually over
the next two years.
But tomorrow, when the alarm finally sounds, a grand total of 388 cases
will be affected…and only 44 in the entire Trident area.
Most of those folks are actually leaving a meager government check
of about $215 a month…for real jobs with real benefits.
In fact, DSS has done three follow-up surveys on how families are doing
after leaving the system.
Of those who left welfare last spring, we know that 75 percent left
because they got a job. And a year later, 70 percent were still working!
To top it off, 86 percent of those families now had health insurance.
Welfare reform is working…because DSS isn’t an entitlement agency anymore.
It’s an employment office.
DSS offices like the ones in Berkeley, Dorchester and Charleston Counties
have done a fantastic job, thanks to leaders like Larry Cannon, Gerald
Fogle, Jackie Jenkins and Odessa Williams.
They’ve been faithfully working with the private sector to teach clients
—many of whom have never held down a job – how to type, how to dress
for work, how to get along with the boss. So now folks leave welfare,
having learned a trade and what it takes to be a good employee.
It also helps that they’re entering a booming economy, where we’ve
created more jobs than ever before…with salaries averaging over $30,000
a year.
Last year, poverty fell to its lowest point in South Carolina history…which
was even lower than the national average. And the Associated Press
just reported that South Carolina leads the entire nation in job creation.
“If you’re looking for a job,” the story’s lead said, “you’ll probably
find an opening in South Carolina.”
Clients now in training are ripe for the picking in South Carolina’s
job market.
So today we want to continue to urge employers to give these folks
a chance. Most are hungry for a better life, and the rolls have given a
lot of public employers and private businesses…like Quoizel, Koyo and National
Car Rental…some of their best workers.
We also want to urge communities to keep reaching out to the least
of these.
Our founding fathers made it perfectly clear: government is meant
to uphold the law and preserve freedom…but never to be the family provider.
So now we’re giving back the role we wrongly took from families, churches
and communities. If life-changing is our goal, it will take all the
faith, love and human kindness that only you and I…as good neighbors…can
bring.
And I’ll tell you, life-changing is going on all across this state…thanks
to everyone from lawmakers and case workers to charities and people of
faith.
We all share in the overwhelming success of welfare reform.
And we all share in the challenges to come. With the core group
of long-term clients still out there struggling, our toughest mission may
still be ahead.
But we’re proving again a valuable truth that’s somehow been pushed
aside along the way--that when people grow in knowledge, when they experience
hope, when they feel pride in a job well done, there’s just something God’s
placed in the human spirit that can’t stand still. It has to rise…and
it has to prevail.
There are now thousands of testimonials to that truth (some of them
here in this room) of families whose backs were once bowed to poverty…and
today they stand a little taller on their own two feet.
October 1st was supposed to be Armageddon. Instead, it’s Independence
Day. And that’s a banner I’m proud to wave October 1st and every
day of the year.