A welfare reform based on help for working parents

The Help for Working Parents Plan-developed by Dr. Heidi Hartmann and Dr. Barbara Bergmann in collaboration with the Economists' Policy Group for Women's Issues, which they co-chair - offers an innovative welfare reform program that encouragesjob holding, and sustains working parents and their children in decency. The HWP provides benefits to both single- and dual-parent households, to families who are under the poverty line and to those who waver along it. Increased child care and health care benefits, food stamps, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and housing assistance are the critical components of the HWP plan - elements which will afford low-wage workers the opportunity to attain an above-poverty standard of living. It also provides a low-cash fallback option to parents who do not work for pay or are unemployed. Bergmann and Hartmann estimate that 60 percent of welfare recipients would work if the HWP plan were implemented.