(Miss-Wright, a student at the Harvard Summer School, will be a senior at the University of Michigan next fall. She is an editor of the Michigan DAILY).

"WE WILL get the poor people off the welfare rolls and onto the payroll." So promised Richard M. Nixon during the 1968 Presidential campaign.

That he should focus on poverty and welfare as a, if not the, central domestic issue is not surprising, for welfare and the lack of incentive synonomous with 'gift' aid have been highly controversial since their conception and initial appearance in the Social Security Act of 1937.

Numerous welfare programs have been put into action since that time, most notably during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. But few seem to be able to rid the concept of the main criticism leveled at it--that it fails to fit the individual into a stimulating and vital role.

Critics argue that the dole does little to stimulate a welfare recipient, while general manpower or rehabiliation programs oftentimes attempt to educate a group en masse and thus again defeat their own purpose by avoiding the problems of the individual.

In an effort to change these circumstances the federal government, at the end of the Johnson days, decided to employ a Nixon type of solution in the Work Incentive Program (WIN). Enacted under the most flexible manpower act in the history of welfare, the program's function is to "increase the basic educational skills and employability of people under Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC)."

WIN, through both vocational and basic adult education, is attempting to fulfill Nixon's pledge of moving the poor off welfare onto an independent payroll.

Under the direction of the Departments of Labor and Health, Education and Welfare, the national pilot team was set-up in Boston in August, 1968. Consisting of five members, each WIN group includes a counselor, a manpower specialist, a coach and a work and training specialist.

Under the supervision of a WIN team a client selects the field of training that has the most appeal, i.e. hair-styling, key punch operation, etc.

A "contract is than drawn up between the client and the WIN team, which provides for training from an authorized school for the client, continued vocational counseling from WIN, a supplemental allowance beyond the normal welfare check and child care facilities.

If a client's educational level is found to be too low to contract him out to a regular school, he is sent to the second set of Win specialist--the Adult Basic Education (ABE) team. Again stressing an individualized program, the team assists the satisfied that he has achieved his objectives, which will support his employment goals.

Working on a one to one basis, the client remains in training until he is satisled that he has achieved his objectives and the team feels he is capable of employability or further vocational training.

By acting as "a creation of the community it serves, WIN represents the most basic form of community self-help, that of improving employment opportunities", and thereby hopes to overcome the standardization and impersonality of other welfare programs.

Since the first group's establishment last fall, seven others have been set-up in the Boston area and 11 elsewhere in the state.

But the increase in teams does not denote success or an increase in participants in the program. Just the opposite has occurred; WIN has had less then minimal participation--due to both the recipients themselves and, ironically, to the Department of Welfare, which recruits clients.