Frederica Freyberg:
In addition to school choice adjustments, there are proposed changes to W-2 in this year's state budget. That's short for Wisconsin Works, the state's replacement for welfare. A decade ago, news organizations from around the world came to chronicle the program’s creation as the nation’s model for welfare reform. And some of the early participants were near-celebrities. Since W-2 is possibly in for some changes, producer Art Hackett, who covered the development of the program from the beginning, thought it was a good time to ask what then-Gov. Tommy Thompson called pioneers of welfare to work.

Tommy Thompson:
Simply and incredibly.  [applause]

Art Hackett:
Gov. Tommy Thompson always followed a formula for his state of the state messages. Cue the introductions for the football stars of that season.

Tommy Thompson:
Thank you, Gilbert, for being such a great ambassador for our state.

Art Hackett:
And then welcoming women making the transition from welfare to work.

Tommy Thompson:
W-2 is helping people like Daun Redmond leave welfare.

Daun Redmond:
What happened is I was working at a hardware store, and during that time I became pregnant, which around my seventh month of pregnancy, is when I started my AFDC.

Art Hackett:
Daun Redmond of Milwaukee was still on AFDC when the state, in preparation for what would become W-2, started a pilot program requiring work in exchange for benefits.

Daun Redmond:
Actually, I didn't think the program was going to work. They didn't have jobs available for people to be able to pay for day care, to be able to support their families.

Art Hackett:
She was in a program training line mechanics for electric utilities. But electric utilities weren't hiring when she graduated. Her first job turned out to be running a punch press at Allen-Bradley. Redmond was laid off by Allen-Bradley after five years, but she went on to work in the building trades. She's now an electrician for the city of Milwaukee and she remains a believer in W-2.

Daun Redmond:
I noticed that the women were able to get up and go to work and support their family. I mean, they had the child care. I like how they had it set up where if you don't go to work, you don't get paid, or else they would have found an excuse.

Art Hackett:
By January of 1998, W-2 was a statewide program, albeit one that was only four months old.

Tommy Thompson:
If you ever have doubts, just give Tina Miller a call.

Art Hackett:
Tina Miller had been a bank teller. She lost her job and wound up on welfare. In 1997, she was one of the first group of clients to be transferred into the full-scale W-2 program. Miller, who is now Tina Henn, says she was at first skeptical about whether the program had the resources to make it work. She was hired for a clerical job at Maximus, one of four W-2 agencies in Milwaukee County at the time.

Tommy Thompson:
She is now a financial planner helping other women in W-2 succeed.

Art Hackett:
Eleven years later, she is still with Maximus, supervising other case managers. She still has photos of her meeting with the governor, a meeting at which she suggested the program needed broader training options.

Tina Henn:
It was exciting that we as clients had the opportunity to go and tell our stories and to be a part. That somebody was finally listening, you know. Maybe they would take some of that feedback that we give them and maybe they could initiate it into the program. 

Tommy Thompson:
W-2 works. Take it from Michelle Crawford.

Art Hackett:
Michelle Crawford had previously been on welfare for 10 years.

Michelle Crawford:
When I was on welfare, I was taking jobs that I was getting -- not getting a paycheck, but I was getting jobs because it wasn't enough at the time. I didn't want to let my caseworker know I had jobs on the side. I did baby-sit jobs, cooking, stuff like that.

Art Hackett:
Crawford said Thompson had visited her class.

Michelle Crawford:
They was showing us how to go on an interview and everything. They was telling us that the governor was going to come there that day.

Art Hackett:
Crawford worked at Engineered Plastics in Menominee Falls.

Michelle Crawford:
Somehow I said something like, ‘you know, W-2 is a good program for us, and it can help us women and guys to determine that we can do it, you know. We can do it. There's hope.’

Art Hackett:
About a week later, Crawford was in Madison.

Tommy Thompson:
Michelle, come on.

Art Hackett:
This time, a W-2 participant would share the stage with the governor. 

Michelle Crawford:
I had to try this. At first, they had me doing some housekeeping and some cleaning. I thought to myself, I can do this at home. What am I doing here?  

Michelle Crawford:
At that time I felt that I was somebody. I was somebody. And that I noticed a change in my life and I'm determined to be what — you know, be just — I'm so happy right now. You know, it's just — at that time it just — I was just in shock, you know?  

Art Hackett:
Crawford left the job at the plastics factory not long after the speech. She says the long bus rides were taking a toll. She took a closer job as a housekeeper at a small hotel on Milwaukee's near north side. She's been there for nine years. Her daughter Lativa now works there too. Articles written after the speech chronicled the many personal challenges Crawford had faced before and after she was in W-2. But she remains on the job.

Michelle Crawford:
W-2 is not going to change any your problems or your life or something. It will change the way you been living.

Art Hackett:
Michelle Crawford was the last W-2 participant Tommy Thompson introduced. In 2000, he featured a chart showing the precipitous decline in the W-2 cash benefits caseload.

Tommy Thompson:
And W-2 will need to build upon its remarkable success.

Art Hackett:
This is what that chart looks like nearly a decade later. The number of people on cash assistance has been stuck at about 20,000 since then. Because of the state of the economy, it's trending upward once again.  

Frederica Freyberg:
That was Art Hackett reporting.