The centerpiece of the 1988 Family Support Act (FSA) is the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) Act, which directs states to provide a broad range of educational, training, and employment services. FSA offers states an opportunity to design humane and effective programs to assist welfare recipients to move out of poverty. FSA also has problems, however, foremost being its failure to address the level of benefits, its lack of JOBS program funding, and its failure to deal with the critical issue of job creation. While there is general agreement that the country's welfare systems need to be reformed, in the current debate about welfare, little mention is made of the impact of the economy, structural unemployment, declining real wages, and short-sighted government policies on poverty and welfare. Real welfare reform must begin by dispelling popular myths about welfare recipients and by defining the nature of the "welfare problem." The next step is the development of an economic security plan to ensure survival above poverty through employment, public transfers, and other essential social supports throughout a lifetime. Many components of such a plan are already in place. Others would include federalizing and expanding Aid to Families with Dependent Children to raise benefits to the poverty level; instituting child support programs; raising the minimum wage; reviewing and expanding unemployment insurance; overhauling the federal tax program; guaranteeing jobs; and integrating social supports. (AC)