Last update - 00:00 28/01/2008
Panel recommends expansion of Wisconsin welfare-to-work plan
By Ruth Sinai, Haaretz Correspondent
The Wisconsin welfare-to-work program should be expanded from its pilot projects in a handful of municipalities to the whole country, according the recommendations of a National Academy of Sciences committee appointed to oversee the program. The panel also recommended opening the program to people who receive various kinds of benefits.
The committee, which has been at work for two years, is to submit its recommendations to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Wednesday.
The committee's final report, which has been obtained by Haaretz, recommends the program's expansion based on lessons learned from the pilot projects and from similar programs implemented in 13 other countries.
The committee, headed by Prof. Menachem Ya'ari and consisting of six senior academics and six civil servants, wrote that "the number of participants who found work or expanded existing jobs during the pilot stage was higher than among non-participants receiving benefits."
The committee also said that the number of those who found jobs was relatively higher than in other countries with similar programs.
The pilot was operated in Jerusalem, Ashkelon, Nazareth and Hadera, by private foreign companies in partnership with Israeli companies. It was launched in August 2005.
The committee recommended private companies continue to run the programs "because of their ability to meet the goals of the program efficiently." The committee also suggests non-profit groups should run the program, which has been successful in other countries.
The committee cautioned that "transfering authority for the provision of social services to the private sector requires additional care." It recommended, for example, awarding bonuses to operators only by job placement rather than by the amount of money they save the state in welfare payments, a measure that has already been partially implemented.
The committee recommends incremental benefit reductions for participants if they do not meet the requirements of the program, rather than suddenly taking all their benefits away.
The committee opposes the exemption of people over the age of 45 from participation in the program, given by Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Eli Yishai. However, the committee did recommend exemptions for people based on functional difficulties. Thus it suggests requiring the program to provide aptitude testing for potential levels of employability.
Finding people jobs and then providing on-the-job training, which was found to be more efficient than training first, will continue to be the program's goal. However training and education should be expanded, the report states, along with incentives like child-care.
Job requirements for program administrators should be upgraded, the committee determined, to include an undergraduate degree rather than only high-school education, and experience in the field of employment.