Ten or twelve years ago when the Knowles Administration was VERY reluctantly trying to implement the Clinton Era Welfare to Work reforms forced on Clinton and the Democrats by Newt Gingrich, we were trying to figure out how to do this in a rigid merit system and under union contracts; no easy task.   Very few of our potential Welfare to Work applicants could even meet the minimum qualifications for entry-level jobs, Range 8 or 10.   At that time, a single woman with two dependent children if she availed herself of all of the economic benefits for which she was eligible had an income roughly equivalent to a Range 14 or so, and she'd have more disposable income.   That's a job for which she would never qualify absent ten years of so of successful experience.   She would be crazy to go to work for us, few did, and fewer stayed long; they were and still are doing better staying home in their bathrobe - knew one, real well.