The federal government has hired nearly 2,000 welfare recipients in six months and is 20 percent of the way toward meeting President Clinton's goal of hiring 10,000 people off the welfare rolls by the year 2000, Vice President Al Gore announced Wednesday.
The achievement is a "milestone," said Gore, who heads the president's Welfare-to-Work initiative.
"The federal government is leading the way in giving welfare recipients the chance to rebuild their lives," Gore said at the White House. "And all across this nation, those welfare recipients are responding. In the process, we also are setting a powerful example for the private sector."
As of Sept. 22, several agencies--including the departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and Veterans Affairs, and the General Services Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, the Social Security Administration and the U.S. Information Agency--had already met more than 30 percent of their welfare-to-work hiring goals.
The Executive Office of the President and the Office of Personnel Management had already met 100 percent of their goals.
Veterans Affairs leads the way, with 604 welfare recipients hired. DoD has hired 339, and the Social Security Administration has hired 188. The Securities and Exchange Commission has yet to bring in any people off the welfare rolls, and NASA has only hired one such employee.
"The federal government is the largest employer, so we've got an obligation," Gore said. "An obligation bigger than anyone else."
Earlier Wednesday President Clinton announced that welfare caseloads have declined by another 250,000, bringing the total reduction to more than 3.6 million.
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