BEYOND the moans from small business, past the Republican sermons, somewhere away from the air-conditioned drone of the economic task forces, rest the real results of Hawaii's recession. Hawaii’s growing
welfare caseloadYou can find it in the silence of this one statistic: In four years we have 36 percent more welfare recipients.
This month the state counted 23,000 families on welfare. In 1993, the monthly caseload went up 11.4 percent. Now state welfare officials are relieved the rate is up only 1.7 percent.
While the rest of the nation is reporting dropping welfare numbers, we are on the other side of the bubble.
The bleak situation isn't a surprise to Hawaii's welfare officials, who have been worrying about it for several years.
They already planned for more welfare applications. So it is likely that the state won't ask the Legislature next year for an emergency appropriation, according to Kate Stanley, deputy director of human services.
The problem is simple enough. We don't have enough jobs.
Everyone knows that the first to fall off the economic ladder are those on the bottom rungs. So while most of the country is reforming welfare programs, cutting people off the rolls, reducing eligibility, limiting stays on welfare and pushing people into the labor market, there are fewer jobs here to fill.
"We are losing jobs while other states are growing jobs," state Rep. Dennis Arakaki, says. "And our jobs aren't particularly high paying, either."
As difficult as the situation is on Oahu, the neighbor islands are in more serious trouble.
Garry Kemp, with the state's Human Services Department, points out that Molokai, Kauai and the Big Island have all had unemployment rates of more than 10 percent. At times, he adds, Molokai and Kauai have had the rates go up to 16 percent.
Hawaii's unresolved problem is that none of this will get better until the state's economy gets better. The hundreds of millions of dollars we now spend on welfare will not go away until Hawaii's economy makes more jobs.
Meanwhile, there is more pain ahead.
Federal welfare laws now limit you to five years of welfare payments.
As Stanley explains, that fact may be causing people to either get off or not apply for welfare.
"We are explaining to them, 'after the first two months you will have a cut in benefits and remember you have a five-year limit,' " she said.
WHILE other states have forced recipients into work, Hawaii is trying to get them off welfare by making progressively deeper cuts to benefits.
The difference is that other states can simply take people off the rolls because there are jobs to be found. In Hawaii, the state must deal with chronically sick economies such as on Molokai.
Add that to the problems of people who can't work, but are still responsible for a family.
"It is fine to force people off welfare and onto work, but there is also going to be a percentage of people who will always not be able to work," Arakaki said.
He suspects people are moving away to get off welfare. Stanley and Kemp haven't found any statistics to prove that, although they know of qualified workers who have left.
They do all agree on Arakaki's gloomy prediction: "We are being hit harder. If things don't turn around we will see even more tragic cases."