Wisconsin 'Super' Model Emerges Overseas in Wake of Dubious Audit

The culture of poverty within the welfare system remains unmitigated and rife with canard. Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), the ‘Super’model for welfare reform, originating in Wisconsin and replacing AFDC in 1996, fails, yet is launched in Israel, Europe and Australia as a solution to a worsening problem. The Department of Workforce Development and Department of Health and Human Services, in final analysis, determine that 'self sufficiency' for working poor with dependent children is 'mythical', and that state Legislative Audit Bureau (LAB) significantly skewered facts though purportedly nonpartisan.

Human rights organization, Welfare Warriors, protest devastation being caused by ‘welfare reform’ today in the U.S. and beyond. In the wake of discovering a $1.9 billion discrepancy after pouring over Federal and State TANF breakdowns published by LAB, it was conclusive that the LAB report had misconstrued facts through omission of bulk W2 expenditures revealing:

*In Wisconsin TANF family incomes fell 25-50% below poverty levels.

*W2 agencies took $30 million in sanctions from families already below poverty level reducing fixed grant lows averaging $7800 down to $6561.

* Of ‘graduates’ less than 20% were 'self sustaining'. Meanwhile privatized W2 agencies received $149.9 Million in profits.

Maximus, a private W2 administrator in Wisconsin, found guilty of bilking the plan a half million dollars helped bring 'The Wisconsin Plan' overseas. Pat Gowen, spearheading the Welfare Warriors resonates that $1.9 billion out of $3.3 missing in allocations is dubious but may have been the motivating factor in fostering global growth, and then describes the mythical aspect of 'healthy welfare reform' in Israel and the U.S.

She relates that 81% who fall below the poverty line work while their children remain home. Similar to the U.S., parents are forced to work for supplements and not wages, 30 hours weekly. Laborer's Voice, a watchdog organization, spoke out against the policy enforced by the ‘Wisconsin Center’ located in Nazareth. Since beginning in August 2005, 940 families have been terminated because childcare is not part of the program, the situation is becoming catastrophic.

Since it’s recent inflection, Israel mourns a Wisconsin Center Father, who while working off his debt, collapsed and died when his request to return home because of personal illness was refused. This type of mortality has become prevalent. In Milwaukee, during Goodwill Industries 2001 tenure and mid $87 million dollar contract, a child dies while Mother is forced to work. Though son has Cerebral Palsy, no adult summer care is allowed. The same year Goodwill yielded $36million in profits from the plan, and recruits for the company traveled, hosted parties, and without prosecution were found guilty of stealing a half million dollars.

Gowen speculates greed and corruption as the reason why a nonpartisan audit would cover-up truths and reminds us, ‘ Poor Mothers are unpopular among legislatures, and some fear the rocking of the boat would kill the monies allocated for future programs so they stay silent.".

W2 costs more than former AFDC , is laced with ‘erroneous’ pay-outs, but it remains the children who suffer. Other nations guarantee assistance for children to age18, whereas in the U.S. there is no guarantee beyond age12. Most disturbingly, the infant mortality rate, since TANF began, has escalated 37% in Milwaukee County, and this, in our culture of poverty, must be expunged.