Abstract
This article proposes an agenda for a welfare society through comparing cash for work (CFW) with
workfare. CFW programs employ victims of a disaster as workers on reconstruction projects (at below-market
wages). Although CFW may be useful for tsunami disasters, which require short-term relief, it
does not function well for other disasters and cannot respond to those who were the working poor or
unemployed before earthquake.
In the recent event, multiple disasters were linked inextricably with each other, and social problems
existing prior to and resulting from the disasters also overlapped inextricably. It seems that recovery will
take a long time. Therefore, in the disaster-stricken region, it is not enough only to ensure jobs; income
security needs to be provided for a long time.
The current systems of unemployment insurance and job-seeker support do not provide adequate
income security, so public assistance is expected to play an important role, but there are many difficulties
in using public assistance for disaster relief. Both before and after the disasters, arguments about reform
of public assistance have leaned consistently in the direction of workfare. Workfare is a policy that
forces employable public-assistance recipients to work. However, if there are not enough other forms of
assistance, CFW does not function well, seems to act as workfare, or changes into something like it.
CFW and workfare have similar purposes: to support self-sufficiency and reduce dependency on
relief. In addition, they share a similar problem: they cannot offer support to less-employable people. In
conclusion, in order to recover from this disaster and set an agenda for welfare society, it is important to
expand income security through public assistance, which would make CFW function well.
