Bill Clinton: “Yes. As a matter of fact, this is--ironically, again, these are just glitches in the law. That's why I'm trying to pass…”

“Yes. As a matter of fact, this is--ironically, again, these are just glitches in the law. That's why I'm trying to pass a law, because otherwise you have to do it State by State. If that same woman had gone on welfare for 30 days and then come to work for you, she could have kept her Medicaid for, depending on what the State does here, but for a minimum of 9 months, a transitional period, because we never want to discourage anybody. You can't ask anybody to hurt their children. In the perverse world we live in, a lot of small-business people can't afford health insurance. So if you're on welfare, your kid has Medicaid. And then if you go to work, you lose the health insurance for your kids, and if you make $4.25 an hour--which is what the minimum wage is, I think it should be higher, but there it is--and your child gets sick and you don't have health insurance, then all of a sudden your income is much lower than it was if you were idle. So under the law now, that young woman, had she drawn one welfare check, could have then come to work for you and in every State gotten to keep that Medicaid coverage for her children for some time, for her child for some time, and in some States over a year. So what we're trying to do is--let me just give you--one of the things that we could give a State permission to do is to let someone immediately go to--you're the first person who has ever told me about this incident; I've never heard this example before--but we could give, easily give the State permission to just tell people like you, you can hire them before they ever have to go on welfare, but if they would have been on welfare otherwise, maybe their income level, we'll deem their income level to be what it would have been and for a few months they can be covered. If our welfare reform legislation passes, then the Federal Government would be out of that and the State could just make a decision to do it, which is what I would like to see happen. The real problem in all this welfare business is--besides developing sort of the self-esteem and sense of responsibility of people on welfare--most people on welfare would like to work, and most people on welfare are not better off financially not working. The problem is that welfare, real welfare payments in almost every State in America are lower in terms of what they'll buy than they were 20 years ago. Welfare, per se, is not a good deal. What helps you is the Medicaid for your kids and the fact that if you're home you don't have to hire anybody to do child care. Those are the big barriers to moving people from welfare to work. And if we can overcome them, if we could have very tough requirements requiring people to work if they want to get any help, I think that's what we ought to do. But I see all your employees have got their kids here today; what we want for America is for everybody to be successful as a parent and successful in the workplace. And we don't want people to have to choose one over the other. We want people to succeed at home--that's the most important job any of us have--and to succeed in the workplace. [A participant stated the need for a program that would allow minimum wage employees to work and have child care.]”