When welfare ends, will jobs be there?

Larry Henry

Monday, May 5, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Welfare recipients who are going to need jobs soon have a simple message for Las Vegas business owners: Put your money where your mouth is.

A measure making its way through the Legislature, Assembly Bill 401, caps benefits at two years -- the result of public pressure and federal legislation -- to wean people off lifelong assistance.

After two years, a recipient must remain off welfare for 12 months, and then can go back on for only two more years, unless hardships arise.

Many recipients worry that enough jobs won't be available when the bell clangs two years from now. In March, 29,199 Nevadans were receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. The overwhelming majority are women and children.

Jobs won't be a problem, according to anti-welfare politicians who always note that the classified pages are full of listings.

Others insist that the businesses placing those classified ads aren't interested in, for example, an unskilled 7th grade dropout with sick kids at home.

"They don't want to take a chance on people without experience," said 23-year-old Anna Buhovecky, of Las Vegas.

Buhovecky quit school in the 7th grade and lived on $848 a month in public assistance, including food stamps. In order to feed her four children and pay the $500 rent, Buhovecky, who is single, sold blood twice a week. That brought in $120 a month.

Although she has found work through a state job-training program, Buhovecky fears others won't be so lucky, especially when the law kicks in and thousands of marginally employable people are combing the classified ads.

"What are you supposed to do then?" she asked. "Are you going to be out on the street?"

Enough safety nets are in place to keep that from happening to a good number of recipients, said Mujahid Ramadan.

Ramadan is director of Nevada Partners Inc., a free job-training program whose financing includes $970,00 from a foundation established by financier Kirk Kerkorian.

Since 1994, Nevada Partners has placed 3,200 people in jobs, mostly in casinos, Ramadan said.

"In Southern Nevada, we have the luxury of having a lot of jobs," he said.

Buhovecky said some business owners, who always want to keep taxes low, are quick to "preach" about the need to end welfare, but they are reluctant to put welfare recipients on the payroll.

According to Lisa Appelrouth, of the Nevada Empowered Women's Project, a comparison can be made to those who crusade against abortion but won't adopt homeless children.

"These jobs aren't going to fall out of the sky," Appelrouth said. "Businesses should put their money where their mouth is."

One Las Vegas businessman who says he's willing to do that is Mike Flinspach, of Non-Ferrous Bolt and Manufacturing Co.

"Anybody that walks in my place that's drug-free can get work," Flinspach said.

(The welfare reform bill doesn't require drug testing, but another measure, soon to be introduced by Sen. Maurice Washington, R-Sparks, will include that provision, though it is expected to have difficulty passing.)

Flinspach, whose company employs 230, said he always has openings for bolt-making jobs that aren't necessarily glamorous, but at least pay about $8 an hour.

The problem, he said, is that welfare recipients make more money, with all the benefits combined, and don't have to show up anywhere every day.

"Can they maintain the same lifestyle? No."

But Flinspach supports welfare reform because he said it will "force" people to learn a work ethic.

"It will bring more people into the work force," he said. "Jobs will be created, and we'll be a more productive society."

Buhovecky, the mother who received public assistance but now works, agrees with the concept of welfare reform.

"The intentions are good," she said. "I believe it makes people not be dependent."

Plus, she said work has instilled her with a sense of pride. She can take her kids out to eat now, even if it's only to Burger King.

"It's a good feeling to pick up a paycheck and say, 'I earned this,' " she said.

But in her view, a society that allows punitive legislation to dictate public policy could be setting itself up for long-term debts, including increased homelessness.

"If they took the welfare system away 100 percent, people would be on the streets," she said.