From Welfare to Workfare

For five years Maria Unzueta's sole source of income was a monthly welfare check. Separated from her husband, the San Diego mother of four made do on benefits totaling $7,920 a year. But now Unzueta, 39, is part of a local job- training program for welfare recipients in which she works 40 hours a week as a hospital file clerk and makes roughly the same amount of money she was getting on the dole. Under the workfare program, she still receives child- care benefits worth about $130 a month, but she hopes to be completely self- sufficient soon. "For me it's...