Many of the women who used to mope around all day, watching TV soap operas and collecting their welfare checks every month, are now working, sometimes in two jobs, to make ends meet. Those jobs have improved women’s self-esteem and given their children a positive role model to admire.

If only it were that simple. Life never is.

On paper, welfare reform has been a resounding success for women, who are the overwhelming majority to get such help. Since 1996, welfare rolls have been cut by half or more in most states, helped by a strong economy. The number of children whose families get government assistance has dropped from 8 million to 4 million.

I applaud all of those efforts, but those statistics don’t tell the whole story. Too many of those women are in dead-end, part-time jobs, unable to cover medical care or child-care expenses. Their children are at risk of dropping out of school, of eventually turning to crime. In Florida, we have thousands of children whose families qualify for subsidized child care but aren’t able to get it because the Legislature has refused to put enough money into the pot to reach every child in need.

Most governors understand that reality. For welfare reform truly to do what it was intended to do, women must be better trained to enter better-paying jobs. They must get the health insurance and child care their children need. Otherwise, states get strapped with greater costs in emergency-room medical care and, later, dealing with juvenile delinquency for children left unattended because their working mothers couldn’t afford child care.

Now that President George W. Bush has unveiled his plan for the next phase of welfare reform the 1996 law is set to expire there’s a split evident between the governors who are on the front lines of such reform and the White House that’s trying to placate ultra-conservative voters. Bush wants to require more work hours (from 30 hours per week to 40) from those getting welfare benefits, which is fine. Yet his plan wouldn’t increase funding for child care or worker training. He would raise the bar for states to get federal money by requiring that 70 percent of welfare recipients be working by 2007.

Bush’s approach doesn’t take into account the inevitability of economic slumps. It also dismisses inflation. Everything from the cost of health care to gasoline has gone up. How can states cope with federal mandates that provide static funding?

A recent survey conducted for the National Governors’ Assn. highlights the growing angst among governors who fear Bush’s plan would hurt children the most. Of the 38 states that answered the survey questions, 21 are led by Republican governors, 15 by Democrats and two by independents. The consensus was that Bush’s overhaul would force states to place more women in menial jobs and take away states’ flexibility to provide more job training that would lead to better-paying jobs for welfare recipients.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, a leader in welfare reform when he was governor of Wisconsin, told a House committee this week that Bush’s proposal is flexible. It would allow 16 of those 40 work hours to be in job training or drug-abuse rehabilitation or other “constructive activities.” That’s a start. But where’s the money?

Realists understand that not every person receiving welfare may ever be able to get a high-tech job. The focus, though, should be on a livable wage one that ensures that young children get proper care while their mothers work and that health care is not an exception but the rule.

This is a rich country. A compassionate conservative wouldn’t deny the basics to people trying to make it and doing their best in jobs that pay too little.

Would he?

Myriam Marquez is an editorial page columnist for the Orlando Sentinel. Her e-mail address is mmarquez@orlandosentinel.com.