[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 11 (Monday, March 17, 1997)]
[Pages 319-320]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
The President's Radio Address

March 8, 1997

    Good morning. This week we learned that America's economy continues 
to grow steady and strong, creating almost 600,000 new jobs in the first 
2 months of this year alone and about 12 million in the last 4 years. We 
can make this time one of enormous promise for America, but only if we 
make sure that all Americans who are willing to work have the chance to 
reap the rewards of our prosperity.
    This morning I want to talk to you about what we can do to lift the 
permanent underclass into a thriving and growing middle class and to 
announce new steps the National Government will take to move people from 
welfare to work.
    Four years ago, when I became President, I pledged to end welfare as 
we know it. We worked with States to launch welfare reform experiments 
to require work. We cracked down on child support enforcement, 
increasing child support payments by 50 percent. We required teen 
mothers to stay at school and live at home if they wanted to receive 
welfare. Today I'm pleased to report that due to these efforts and our 
growing economy, we've already moved 2.6 million people off the welfare 
rolls, a record number.
    Last summer, we took the most dramatic step of all when I signed the 
bipartisan welfare reform legislation that imposed time limits, required 
work, and extended child care and health care so that people can move 
from welfare to work without hurting their children. The new law ended 
the old welfare system when we said to those on welfare: Responsibility 
is not an option; it must be a way of life.
    Now, all the rest of us have our responsibility, indeed, our moral 
obligation, to make welfare reform work, to make sure that those who now 
must work, can work. We must move another 2 million more people off the 
welfare rolls in the next 4 years. And frankly, we must recognize that 
many of these people will be harder to reach and will need more help 
than those who moved off the rolls in the past 4 years.
    This cause must engage the energy and the commitment of everyone in 
our society, of business, houses of worship, labor unions, universities, 
civic organizations, as well as government at every level. Above all, we 
must harness the private sector to bring jobs and hope to our hardest 
pressed neighborhoods. We are working with leaders of American business 
to help mobilize other businesses to hire people off welfare. My 
balanced budget plan would give businesses tax incentives to hire people 
and would give job placement firms a bonus for every person they place 
from welfare into a job.
    States can do more, too. I have called upon every State to use the 
power that has now been given to them under the new welfare law, to turn 
welfare checks into private sector paychecks. And the National 
Government must do its part and set an example. Our National Government 
is now the smallest it has been in three decades, but it is still the 
Nation's largest employer. We must do our part. So today I am committing 
a National Government action plan to hire people off welfare.
    I am formally directing the heads of each agency and department of 
our Federal Government to do everything they can to hire people off the 
welfare rolls into available jobs in Government, consistent with the 
laws already on the books for hiring Federal workers. Because this 
effort is so important, I am asking Vice President Gore, who has led our 
reinventing Government effort and done so much to make our Government 
work better as it costs less, to oversee this endeavor.
    I want these agencies to use the worker-trainee program, which the 
Government already has in place, to train workers quickly and move them 
into entry-level jobs. Then if the people do well for 3 years, they can

[[Page 320]]

join the civil service. And I am asking every member of my Cabinet to 
prepare a detailed plan for hiring welfare recipients, what jobs they 
will fill, how they will recruit welfare recipients, how they will make 
sure these people have the chance to work hard, perform well and, 
thereby, deserve to keep their jobs. The members of the Cabinet will 
present these plans to me in one month at a special Cabinet meeting.
    The job of moving people from welfare to work as the law requires 
will not be easy. But we must help them as they help themselves. And we 
need to help all low income Government workers. We need to make sure 
they take advantage of the earned-income tax credit, the tax cut that 
already has helped 15 million of our hardest pressed working families. 
We should give these workers help with transportation to work, and we 
must help them to find affordable child care.
    Government can help to move people from welfare to work by acting 
the way we want all employers to act, demanding high performance from 
workers but going the extra mile to offer opportunity to those who have 
been on welfare and want to do something more with their lives. If we 
all do that, we can move into the 21st century strong, united, and with 
the American dream alive for all our people.
    Thanks for listening.

Note: The President spoke at 10:06 a.m. from the Oval Office at the 
White House.