A Plan that serves the politicians
by Avi Dabush, Haaretz, 30/12/05

In his opinion piece ("Give Wisconsin a chance," Haaretz English Edition, December 23), Avraham Tal views the Wisconsin Plan as a success. The figures, ostensibly, support him: After five months, nearly 3,000 recipients of guaranteed income have started to work (in temporary jobs that pay the minimum wage) and the allotment has been stopped to nearly 4,000 participants.

Tal evinces understanding of the difficulties experienced by participants in the plan in adjusting to the new reality, but not of the reactions from the social organizations like the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, which are very critical of the program. And indeed, a superficial connection between some of the figures and the criticism by the organizations could justify his conclusions: The social organizations want to preserve the culture of unemployment and unjustified transfer payments.

There is nothing further from reality. In fact, these are the very same organizations that for years now have been creating real alternatives for exiting the cycle of unemployment for populations similar to those that are participating in the program, well before the politicians began to take an interest in the issue. Therefore the organizations' critical commentary derives from quite other sources.

In the macro-social perspective, the organizations stress the fact that this is a plan that has set new records in the privatization of the dwindling welfare services. If until now the state has taken the responsibility for the ills of the free market, which are expressed in the high unemployment rates, the Wisconsin Plan rolls this responsibility over to private companies that operate it. This is a brilliant maneuver: The ills of the free market will be ended by superimposing the disease - unemployment - on the reason for it, the very same free market and its principles. This is like an attempt to overcome side effects of the radiation treatment given to a cancer patient by means of additional strong radiation treatments.

The model that the government has chosen not only transfers the struggle to reduce the allotments and the unemployment rates to the business sector, but also puts policing and supervisory power into the hands of employees of private companies. It is no wonder, then, to find phenomena of the denial of allotments on the basis of "non-cooperation" in the program, which often means inattentiveness at one of the workshops, arriving at one of the activities "unsuitably dressed" or a day of staying home with a sick child.

At the micro level of the contents of the plan, the social organizations point to a program that focuses on superficial and temporary change in the employment of the welfare recipients by means of finding low-paying jobs, most of them temporary and part-time. Studies that have examined over time the effects of such programs in the United States have indicated a return to the initial socio-economic situation and unemployment rates at the end of the program, which entails extremely high public expenditures. And these are translated into profits for the operating companies.

The plan creates employment "musical chairs" in saturated job markets. Without parallel investment in upgrading the job market - by means of creating workplaces and improving and enforcing working conditions, alongside investment in education - the welfare recipients are condemned to run around to the tune of the magic flute of the program only in order to find that the number of unemployed remains the same.

An analysis in depth of the ostensibly impressive figures raises the question of whether the plan has added value as compared to a government service and as compared to an independent job search by recipients of guaranteed income. Is there a real message in the program for groups that are permanently kept out of the labor market: men, and especially women, over the age of 50, new immigrants, Arabs, people in poor health and handicapped people who have been participating thus far in the program with no success?

More critical reading of the plan, which was born in a specific political context, leads to the understanding that the program serves two main government aims: divestment of the state's responsibility for the most profoundly hurt sectors of society - the beneficiaries of the safety net of guaranteed income - and the preparation of the public's consciousness for the continuing harm to these same people, by means of cutting allotments and denying welfare payments.

The reasoning is that if these people have not made use of the program to find part-time work at the minimum wage, why should we, the taxpayers, continue to give these "social parasites" a safety net? The advertising campaign, during an election period, that is exploiting the taxpayers' money for public relations for the private operators only brings into clearer focus the cynical political aims at the basis of the program.

Among the thousands of participants in the activity of the experimental centers in Ashkelon, Jerusalem, Hadera and Nazareth who are flocking to the organizations' doorsteps for help, there is one message: Until now we have lived below the poverty line. Now, under the auspices of the Wisconsin Plan, we have dropped below the shame line.

The author is the coordinator of the forum of organizations for the fight against unemployment on behalf of Shatil, the New Israel Fund's empowerment and training center.