February 4, 1995

Massachusetts lawmakers are putting the final touches on legislation that would give their state one of the most restrictive welfare systems in the country. The measure, slightly differing versions of which were approved by both houses of the Legislature this week, would require at least a third of the state's able-bodied welfare recipients to have found work after 60 days of benefits, would eliminate the practice of adding to the benefits of families whenever they have another child and would end payments altogether for beneficiaries who have been receiving assistance for two years.

In the clearest sign yet that the economy is cooling off, the Government reported today that job growth was surprisingly weak in January and that unemployment rose to 5.7 percent. For all practical purposes, the three-tenths of a point rise in the jobless rate last month was the first increase in unemployment in two and a half years. There was an artificial jump, which made comparisons invalid, when a new method of computing the jobless rate was introduced at the beginning of 1994.

Challenging skeptical Republicans with a popular pocketbook measure that he knows is unlikely to pass, President Clinton today proposed a 90-cent increase in the minimum wage, to $5.15 an hour, over two years. "The only way to grow the middle class and shrink the underclass is to make work pay," the President said in a Rose Garden ceremony at which he was joined by a number of Congressional Democrats, many of whom had urged him to fight for a higher rate than the $5 figure he originally favored. "And in terms of real buying power, the minimum wage will be at a 40-year low next year if we do not raise it above $4.25 an hour."

Day after day, the curious and the bored line up in the cavernous hallway of the Nassau County Courthouse for a chance to watch a man, whose own lawyers say is mad, defend himself against charges of murder. They have come to see Colin Ferguson, cast in the role of a lifetime: defense counsel in the Long Island Rail Road shooting case. For a week and a half, he has been turning in a performance as startling as it is strange.

The Tennessee doctor nominated by President Clinton to become Surgeon General provoked alarm and criticism among some Republicans today when he said he had performed abortions during nearly 30 years of practice as an obstetrician and gynecologist, although he said the number was small. Some Republicans whose initial response to the nomination was muted said the statement today raised questions both about the choice of Henry W. Foster Jr., the acting director of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, and about the White House's handling of the matter.