Is this the way to reform workfare?

From the NY Times:

Mayor Bill de Blasio is revamping the city’s welfare program, vowing to dismantle what was once the largest workfare program in the nation and to embrace new strategies for moving thousands of people off the welfare rolls and into jobs.

Workfare? Do you remember workfare? It is the program that ballooned during the administration of Rudolph W. Giuliani, with 36,224 people working in it or assigned to it by the year 2000.

The program mostly dropped out of the headlines after Mr. Giuliani, a Republican, left office, but his work-first ethos still prevails: In April, 9,194 welfare recipients participated in or were assigned to workfare, and thousands more were required to engage in job-search programs that de Blasio administration officials have described as largely unsuccessful.

Now, Mr. de Blasio says, it is time for change.

Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, plans to prioritize education and training for able-bodied welfare recipients instead of automatically assigning them to workfare positions — cleaning parks and subway platforms and performing clerical duties — that have been described as dead ends by advocates for impoverished families.

Over the next two years, city officials say, those workfare jobs will vanish completely and be replaced by transitional employment programs, internships and community service positions in growing sectors of the economy to ensure that more welfare recipients find paying jobs.

Research shows that programs heavily focused on education and training have been less successful than others at moving welfare recipients into the workplace. And somewhere out there, Mr. Giuliani must be wagging his finger, warning of the dangers ahead.

City helps legalize illegal contractors

From Crains:

For immigrant contractors working in Flushing, Queens, many of whom speak broken English at best, jobs have most often come from within their own Chinese community: remodeling one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments in the neighborhood, improving basements, perhaps adding patios or terraces to stand-alone homes. Many of the Mandarin-speaking craftsmen work without city licenses, risking fines of up to $250,000 if they're caught by city inspectors.

Since last year, the city's grant program has had the effect of helping to rein in the off-the-books workforce and encourage so-called micro-entrepreneurs—who work for themselves or employ up to five people full-time—to play by the rules.

Last year, the Queens Economic Development Corp. won a $100,000 grant from the city's Economic Development Corp. to establish a training program. The result: 130 contractors, many of whom worked illegally in the past, passed the licensing test in Mandarin.

"Some of our contractors have now been successful getting contracts throughout the city now that they have a license and entering the mainstream market," said Franklin Mora, deputy director of the Queens Economic Development Corp.

The grant to the Queens nonprofit that paid for the training program was won in a competition run by the city and funded by Deutsche Bank.