Immigration Laws: January, 2002 - Number #4

San Francisco became the first US city to officially recognize ID cards issued by Mexican consulates, matricula consular, for applicants seeking city services. For $27, Mexicans with birth certificates can get an ID good for five years with the holder's photograph, address, birthplace and signature. Proponents argued that, since September 11, many government offices and businesses have required IDs for services. Many San Francisco businesses have agreed to accept the cards, and Wells Fargo Bank honors them at its branches nationwide.

Welfare-to-work. There are 50 distinct federally funded cash assistance programs for poor people in the US that operate under relatively few federal rules, including a maximum of five years of "lifetime" cash assistance. In many states, the first recipients are hitting the five-year limit as the US enters a recession.

The number of New York City residents on welfare fell by half between 1995 and 2001, to 400,000. New York City placed many ex-welfare recipients in jobs cleaning subway cars. Of 9,509 people sent to the subways on workfare since December 1999, 4,400 showed up, and 301 were hired, for wages of $13 to $18 an hour, plus benefits.

Most welfare-to-work programs provide temporary on-the-job training, but the CityJobs program in Los Angeles placed 228 former welfare recipients in permanent city jobs, with great success. Under CityJobs, half the salaries of the ex-recipients during a six-month period of on-the-job training was paid by the US Department of Labor, but the ex-recipients were union members with full benefits from their first day on the job. Los Angeles guaranteed permanent civil service positions to those who could pass the city test at the end of the training period.

Ex-welfare recipients who find stable jobs experience rising earnings. Of the former welfare recipients in Los Angeles who had found work between 1990 and 1998, only 17 percent had remained with the same employer for 2.5 years or more, but their earnings rose twice as fast as ex-recipients who cycled in and out of jobs.