Governor Says He Didn’t Mean to Insult Mothers on Welfare

Gov. Pete Wilson, who contended last week that his proposed welfare cuts would leave poor mothers “less for a six-pack of beer,” said Friday that he didn’t mean such women were drunkards--only that some mismanage their money.

“I might just as easily and perhaps better have said a six-pack of Seven-Up or a carton of cigarettes,” Wilson said during the taping of the KNBC-TV public affairs show, “Channel 4 News Conference.” “What we’re talking about is . . . discretionary spending.”

In an interview afterward, he elaborated, saying that enrollees in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program include “some for whom it is very much an ongoing way of life.”

“For some, I’m sure there is an ability to spend wisely,” said Wilson, who wants to cut AFDC checks by 9%. “But for others there is a good deal of concern on the part of Democrats and Republicans, both in the Legislature and Congress, that we would do better by the children to provide as much as possible through direct services.”

Wilson’s explanation failed to satisfy welfare-rights advocates, who said his assertion that some welfare mothers are spendthrifts was as insulting as the “six-pack of beer” remark.

“Again, it shows his ignorance of the problems poor families are facing,” said Kevin Aslanian, executive director of the Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations. “AFDC recipients for the most part have no discretionary income at the end of the month, and the average stay on welfare, according to (Wilson’s) own departmental statistics, is 1 1/2 years.

“We don’t know which welfare recipients he is talking about--maybe the welfare recipients he sees in his dreams.”