Down and out in San Francisco

The collapse of the travel industry is hammering the Bay Area's working class. But is a reformed welfare system still able to come to the rescue?

By Katharine Mieszkowski

Oct 26, 2001 | Sonja, 50, a Ukrainian refugee living in San Francisco, lost her job at a local travel agency when business faltered following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "I am a philosophical woman," says Sonja. "Bin Laden killed more than 5,000 people physically, but he killed hundreds of thousands of people like me, because we lose job and this is like killed for the U.S., especially for people like me, who does not know so nice English and does not have a nice education."

Sonja -- not her real name -- had been a welfare-to-work success story. In February, less than a year after immigrating, she graduated from an intensive 18-week job training course at Jewish Vocational Service, a course that teaches both English and computer skills to new immigrants. After sending out 70 résumés in a month, she found her travel agency job, where she processed tickets and updated client files in the operations department. The work helped her acculturate to her new country, as well as earn a living: "I work at a beautiful American company," she says. "Young people, all the people very nice to me, and some people know a few Russian words and speak this. Every day when I came to work, I was happy."

But now, like many other low-income workers, she's been hit hard by the economic fallout from the terrorist attacks and the war. Just 10 days before her 50th birthday, at the end of September, she got the news that she and half of the rest of the office were being let go. "First week, I was killed after this. I was killed. I could not do anything. But after this, I began to send résumés." So far, Sonja hasn't been able to collect unemployment, because she hadn't worked for the company long enough.

Since the layoff, she's sent out some 300 résumés for clerical and administrative jobs in the Bay Area. She's received 90 responses, most of them the "we'll keep your résumé on file" variety, and two job interviews. She's still looking.

Since federal welfare reform was enacted in 1996, more than a million women have moved off the rolls into the work force, cutting welfare rolls in half, according to the Urban Institute, a Washington-based think tank. But the sweeping change to the nation's safety net came during an economic boom characterized by new job creation and low unemployment. At its highest point last December, employment among single women with children -- the major population segment that receives welfare -- was at 75.5 percent, up from around 59 percent in 1994, according to the Urban Institute.

The economy had already stared to slide before Sept. 11, but the kinds of jobs that most former welfare recipients had moved into hadn't yet been hit. "In the first six months of this year the downturn was pretty limited to manufacturing and high-tech, neither one of which are a big employer of low-skilled women," says Harry Holzer, a Georgetown University professor and former chief economist at the Department of Labor.

But that's changed since Sept. 11. The hospitality industry, one of the biggest employers of former welfare recipients, now has to deal with empty hotel rooms and restaurants. Welfare reform enacted during boom times now faces its first serious test: Will the safety net work when the labor market softens and ex-welfare moms find themselves laid off?

Next Page: Welfare applications rise 24 percent in one month in San Francisco

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