Lies, damned lies and statistics
A couple of guys that work for The Heritage Foundation wrote this for the Washington Post:
Work: The Key to Welfare By Brian Riedl and Robert Rector
Should Congress make work requirements for welfare recipients stricter? That's what would happen under a bill the House of Representatives has passed. It would require more recipients to work 40 hours a week instead of the current 30 and stop vocational training from counting as "work."
Bad idea, the critics say. They claim that education and training programs lead to successful, high-paying careers, while putting welfare recipients to work immediately traps them in low-paying, dead-end jobs.
Wrong.
Welfare recipients assigned to immediate work see their earnings increase more than twice as fast over the following five years as those first placed in education-based programs, according to calculations we made using data from the Manpower Demonstration Research Corp., a New York-based nonprofit group. In fact, most government-run job training programs barely raise hourly wage rates at all, a report commissioned by the U.S. Labor Department reveals.
If the goal of welfare reform is to raise earnings while reducing dependency, then quickly moving welfare recipients into real jobs is the answer. Prolonged classroom training tends to be the dead end.
I'm prepared to agree with this as far as thsi quote goes. Real jobs are always better than welfare. Most welfare recipients would prefer it. The question is, where are these real jobs coming from? We just had a highly touted drop in the unemployment rate. Less highly touted is the fact that the number of jobs fell during the period under discussion. This rather counter-intuitive result means that the labor pool shrunk faster than the job pool.
I think if the mortality rate increased enough to account for this we'd have heard about it. Having heard no such thing, it's safe to assume the people represented by the difference between the current and previous numbers are still around and still not working.
Of course that reduction in the size of the job pool is an artifact of statistics. We know this so well we may not think about it, but this administraton…in fact, every administration…should be held accountable for the real numbers because people don't stop being hungry or needing to pay bills because they've been unemployed so long the bean counters don't want to count them anymore.
I, of course, am merely ranting. MB at Wampum does better than that. She hoists them with their own petard.
The unemployment shell game continuesThe unemployment rate dropped to 6.2% last month! Yippee!
[now comes the small print.]
The economy is still bleeding jobs; 44,000 net lost, with 71,000 in manufacturing and 16,000 in transportation. But, hey, there's a boom in temporary employment! Lose a good paying, good benefits, union factory job, and be happy with your new low paying, no bennies temp job. Sweet.
So how did the Administration do it? How did the economy lose jobs, and yet the unemployment rate managed to creep down two tenths of a percentage point?
Well, they shifted a record number of workers off the books; the civilian labor force decreased by 556,000.
Don't forget to scroll up a post and look at the graph detailing what she calls "real" unemployment: official unemployed, part-timers, and those "not in labor force". Nationally, that worked out to 12.3%. And given that unemployment in the Black communities runs at a fairly consistent twice the mainstream rate (which rate actually includes Black folks so it gets a little twisted thinking it through) a fair estimate would put roughly one in four Black folks in this condition.
Real JobsOur Heritage Foundation friends continue:
Before the 1996 welfare reforms, the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) safety net was just that -- a net not only catching but also trapping nearly all who fell into it. Welfare reform replaced AFDC with a program called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). This program was designed not as a net but as a trampoline, springing families back up to self-sufficiency by placing adults in permanent jobs.
The undeniable success of this approach is demonstrated by the more than 5 million people (including 3 million children) who have risen out of poverty since the law was enacted. After remaining static for nearly a quarter-century, the poverty rate of black children has dropped by a third and is now at the lowest point in U.S. history. The poverty rate for single mothers has plummeted in a similar manner since 1996; it, too, is at the lowest point in national history.
But welfare reform wasn't perfect. Today less than half of TANF adult recipients are employed or preparing for employment in any way. Most remain idle and continue to collect welfare checks.
Now, if the effort to employ welfare recipients was less than perfect back when there was a far greater number of jobs available, reason suggests that the economy needs more real jobs to maintain the improved state, much less extend it to others. This thought is supported by
the very study referenced in this Washington Post editorial.
The principle guiding the New Hope Project - a demonstration program that was implemented in two inner-city areas in Milwaukee from 1994 through 1998 - was that anyone who works full time should not be poor. New Hope offered low-income people who were willing to work full time several benefits, each of which was available for three years:
an earnings supplement to raise their income above the poverty level; subsidized health insurance; subsidized child care; and, for people who had difficulty finding full-time work, referral to a wage-paying community service job. The program was designed to increase employment and income as well as use of health insurance and licensed child care, and it was hoped that children would be the ultimate beneficiaries of these changes.
A team of researchers at MDRC and the University of Texas at Austin is examining New Hope's effects in a large scale random assignment study. This interim report from the study focuses on the families and children of the 745 sample members who had at least one child between the ages of 1 and 10 when they entered the study. The new findings draw on administrative records and survey data covering the period up to five years after study entry (Year 5), that is, two years after the program ended. A final report will examine New Hope's effects after eight years.
Key Findings
- Employment and Income. Parents in the New Hope group worked more and earned more than did parents in the control group. Although the effects diminished after Year 3, when the program ended, they did persist for some parents. The provision of community service jobs was important to increasing employment: 30 percent of program group members worked in a community service job while in New Hope. The program reduced poverty rates through Year 5.
- Parents' Well-Being. Although New Hope had few effects on levels of material and financial hardship, it did increase parents' instrumental and coping skills. Program group members were more aware of "helping" resources in the community, such as where to find assistance with energy costs or housing problems, and more of them knew about the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). They also reported better physical health and fewer signs of depression than did control group members.
- Parenting and Children's Activities. Although New Hope had few effects on parenting, it did increase children's time in formal center-based child care and after-school programs. Even in Year 5, after eligibility for New Hope's child care subsidies had ended, children in New Hope families spent more time than their control group counterparts in center-based child care and after-school programs and correspondingly less time in home-based and unsupervised care. New Hope also increased adolescents' participation in structured out of school activities, such as youth groups and clubs.
- Children's Outcomes. At the end of both Year 2 and Year 5, children in the New Hope group performed better than control group children on several measures of academic achievement, and their parents reported that the children got higher grades in reading and literacy skills. New Hope also improved children's positive social behavior. All these effects were more pronounced for boys than for girls.
The New Hope findings
support the wisdom of recent expansions in work supports for poor families, including increases in the value of the EITC and greater eligibility for Medicaid and child care subsidies. The program's lasting effects on children also have special relevance to the redesign of the nation's income support system. Language proposed in the 2003 reauthorization of the 1996 federal welfare reform legislation would establish improving the well-being of poor children as the law's overarching purpose. The present findings show that fulfilling this purpose need not be at odds with the goal of moving parents to work.
Take a good look at the items I've emphasized. Income supplements to bring the participants up above the poverty level. Health care and child care. Community service jobs for 30 percent of the participants…jobs that served the community, creating these jobs would not be a selfless gesture.
Look at the benefits they gained. Not a major increase in creature comforts but better knowledge of the programs that enabled them to make ends meet…being above the poverty level does not mean you can afford to meet your needs without assistance—the very kinds of assistance that are at risk at the hands of the current administration and its congressional allies. They made greater use of supervised after school care, which resulted in better social behavior among their children and increased educational skills. And the reduced stress these changes brought about improved the parents health. All major benefits. None of which the families could bring about by their own agency. All the results of utilizing programs the support of which are simply not on the Compassionate Conservative© agenda. Which means it is incredibly hypocritical for the Heritage Foundation to spin this report in support of its agenda…
President Bush and his congressional allies want to strengthen welfare reform by increasing the TANF work-participation rate to 70 percent; opponents seem content excluding millions of families from working or even preparing to work. Yet those who would enact legislation that leaves hundreds of thousands of welfare recipients in idle dependence are clearly harming those they wish to help.
…and that is why it's no surprise they would continue with this disingenuous accusation.
Truth and ConsequencesIf real jobs were available, almost everyone would prefer them. But with jobs becoming the chief American export, with people being moved from work to unemployment to subemployment it almost seems like this administration and its allies are trying to drive everyone earning less than $30,000 per year into extinction.
Rather than accept the Heritage Foundation's characterization of its political opposition's motives, I suggest visiting
The Coalition on Human Needs. And equally important is to get a look at the reality of welfare, both socially and monetarily. The American Psychological Association tells us in its report
Making 'Welfare to Work' Really Work:
Myth: Poverty Results From a Lack of Responsibility
Fact: Poverty Results From Low Wages
Myth: A Huge Chunk of My Tax Dollars Supports Welfare Recipients
Fact: Welfare Costs 1 Percent of the Federal Budget
Myth: People on Welfare Become Permanently Dependent on the Support
Fact: Movement off Welfare Rolls Is Frequent
Myth: Most Welfare Recipients Are African American Women
Fact: Most Welfare Recipients Are Children-Most Women on Welfare Are White
Myth: Welfare Encourages Out-of-Wedlock Births and Large Families
Fact: The Average Welfare Family Is No Bigger Than the Average Nonwelfare Family
Myth: Welfare Families Use Their Benefits to Fund Extravagance
Fact: Welfare Families Live Far Below the Poverty Line
So what, exactly, is the problem? Why exactly is the administration and its allies so focused on a "problem" that barely impacts the size and budget expenditure of federal government?
posted by Prometheus 6 at 8/5/2003 03:36:47 AM |
Posted by P6 at August 5, 2003 03:36 AM
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