Where there's a Will there's a won't
Not a catchy a phrase as "welfare reform," I know. But I don't want to talk about welfare reform. I want to talk about helping people get into the economic mainstream.
I've had a few days to consider why George Will wrote that editorial that annoyed me so much and I think I figured out why.
The book that set him off, American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation's Drive to End Welfare by Jason Deparle, is an indictment of the assumptions that underlay much of the thinking in "welfare reform" as well as its actual implementation. You see, "welfare reform" was punitive, not supportive, in nature and it turns out all the assumptions that justified that punitive nature are in error. The proof of the error is simple: it didn't work.
Our most recent national tactic, after decades of failed federal-assistance programs, is what supporters see as a tough-love approach. Its centerpiece: “The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act,” passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton in October 1996. This “welfare reform” act shifted authority for administering public assistance to the individual states. Broadly, it ended the concept of “entitlements,” placing strict lifetime limits on the receipt of benefits and requiring recipients to work in exchange for assistance. The rationale is to force people now getting welfare — mostly women, many of them unmarried and almost all with dependent children — to take responsibility for working themselves out of poverty.
In narrow economic terms, the act has been a striking success. Between 1995 and 2000, the national welfare rolls were reduced by half. Over a million young mothers found at least part-time employment. On the other hand, two-thirds of these former welfare recipients report earnings that are below poverty level. And 40 percent of those women who have been removed from the rolls have not managed to find jobs.
So the debate continues. Is welfare reform really helping to eradicate poverty? What kind of impact, positive or negative, is this major shift in policy having on the lives of struggling families?
To come up with any kind of meaningful answer, Burton argues, you have to dig beyond the political rhetoric and the stereotypes. You have to observe, as closely as possible, the complex reality of people’s lives.
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