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FACING OUR HIDDEN WELFAR ISSUE
Peter Edelman, Dissent - Next year, welfare as we now know it is slated to come before Congress for reauthorization. By "welfare" I mean federally financed cash assistance to low-income mothers (and occasionally fathers) with children. Welfare as we used to know it was the program called Aid to Families with Dependent Children, in effect from 1935 to 1996. It was hardly generous (as well as being otherwise flawed), but it nonetheless succumbed in 1996 to three decades of conservative attack. The allegation was that it had created undue numbers of long-term recipients; it had fostered welfare dependency. The program was replaced by Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, which made it much harder to obtain assistance and imposed stringent time limits.
All this [stage] began with Governor Bill Clinton running for president on a platform of ending "welfare as we know it." Whatever his intention, the phrase opened the door to a radically conservative approach from the newly muscular and emboldened Republican-controlled Congress. Running for re-election in 1996, but also believing in the merits of TANF, Clinton signed the welfare reform bill into law.
The meta-message of the TANF legislation was that states had to pare their welfare rolls. The primary tool given them was the repeal of the legal entitlement to benefits and the transformation of the legal framework into a block grant. A block grant is flexible and can be used for good or ill. . .
Nonetheless, the main message was to downsize the rolls, and downsize they did. The palpable result thirteen years later is the virtual disappearance in many states of cash assistance for low-income mothers with children, with caseloads going down by well over 90 percent. Overall, the rolls shrank from 14.3 million mothers (and a few fathers) and children in 1994 to under four million in 2007. In 1995, nine million of the 14.5 million children then poor were in families that received welfare. By 2006, only four million of the 12.8 million poor children were in families getting TANF. That the gap bespeaks a failure to respond to legitimate need seems obvious.
These are the techniques of radical reduction: shut the front door almost completely; staff the back door with the equivalent of a tough nightclub bouncer; and, in between, hassle applicants to the point where they just give up and go away. . .
We cannot look at welfare in isolation. We need to ask why there is such a huge gap between top and bottom in this wealthy country and why there are so many people at the bottom. We need to ask why so many people with steady work don't make enough money to pay for basic living costs-which are in fact much higher than the unrealistic measure we call the poverty line.
But we especially need to look at people at the very bottom and to understand that a disproportionate number of these are children who, whatever the sins or failings of their parents, deserve a decent chance to succeed. And even more fundamentally, we need to ask why there is so much hostility toward a group of people who, if we provided a modicum of assistance, at a cost that is not astronomical, could at least avoid the very worst of conditions. . .
Ninety million is the number of people-30 percent of the population-who have incomes below twice the poverty line, or below about $35,000 for a family of three. These people are not "poor," but much research shows that this is the minimum income they need to pay their bills and go to a doctor if they have to without worrying about what other necessities they will have to forgo. (And this is true even if they have insurance, what with deductibles and coinsurance.) These ninety million present critically important policy issues that are not being addressed fully. . .
No one should suppose that the advent of President Barack Obama and large (but hardly overwhelming) Democratic majorities in Congress will result in completely revamping the block grant TANF framework. Welfare has never been popular. TANF took the public's hostility toward welfare off the front burner (at a considerable cost), but it is only dormant. Even in today's changed political world, bold ideas for cash assistance to the lowest income people in our nation would be met with ideological resistance. . .
What we should have and what we can reasonably hope to get in the world of welfare are two different things. My ideal framework would feature a minimum benefit (which could vary regionally based on the cost of living) and a clear connection between income support and work (based mainly on incentives rather than penalties). It should also be possible for a relatively small number of people, who are not legally disabled but have good reasons not to be in the job market, to receive cash assistance without an expectation that they will work outside the home. My framework would include good child care, continuing health coverage, relevant education and training, and strong support services to help new workers succeed in the workplace.
All this [stage] began with Governor Bill Clinton running for president on a platform of ending "welfare as we know it." Whatever his intention, the phrase opened the door to a radically conservative approach from the newly muscular and emboldened Republican-controlled Congress. Running for re-election in 1996, but also believing in the merits of TANF, Clinton signed the welfare reform bill into law.
The meta-message of the TANF legislation was that states had to pare their welfare rolls. The primary tool given them was the repeal of the legal entitlement to benefits and the transformation of the legal framework into a block grant. A block grant is flexible and can be used for good or ill. . .
Nonetheless, the main message was to downsize the rolls, and downsize they did. The palpable result thirteen years later is the virtual disappearance in many states of cash assistance for low-income mothers with children, with caseloads going down by well over 90 percent. Overall, the rolls shrank from 14.3 million mothers (and a few fathers) and children in 1994 to under four million in 2007. In 1995, nine million of the 14.5 million children then poor were in families that received welfare. By 2006, only four million of the 12.8 million poor children were in families getting TANF. That the gap bespeaks a failure to respond to legitimate need seems obvious.
These are the techniques of radical reduction: shut the front door almost completely; staff the back door with the equivalent of a tough nightclub bouncer; and, in between, hassle applicants to the point where they just give up and go away. . .
We cannot look at welfare in isolation. We need to ask why there is such a huge gap between top and bottom in this wealthy country and why there are so many people at the bottom. We need to ask why so many people with steady work don't make enough money to pay for basic living costs-which are in fact much higher than the unrealistic measure we call the poverty line.
But we especially need to look at people at the very bottom and to understand that a disproportionate number of these are children who, whatever the sins or failings of their parents, deserve a decent chance to succeed. And even more fundamentally, we need to ask why there is so much hostility toward a group of people who, if we provided a modicum of assistance, at a cost that is not astronomical, could at least avoid the very worst of conditions. . .
Ninety million is the number of people-30 percent of the population-who have incomes below twice the poverty line, or below about $35,000 for a family of three. These people are not "poor," but much research shows that this is the minimum income they need to pay their bills and go to a doctor if they have to without worrying about what other necessities they will have to forgo. (And this is true even if they have insurance, what with deductibles and coinsurance.) These ninety million present critically important policy issues that are not being addressed fully. . .
No one should suppose that the advent of President Barack Obama and large (but hardly overwhelming) Democratic majorities in Congress will result in completely revamping the block grant TANF framework. Welfare has never been popular. TANF took the public's hostility toward welfare off the front burner (at a considerable cost), but it is only dormant. Even in today's changed political world, bold ideas for cash assistance to the lowest income people in our nation would be met with ideological resistance. . .
What we should have and what we can reasonably hope to get in the world of welfare are two different things. My ideal framework would feature a minimum benefit (which could vary regionally based on the cost of living) and a clear connection between income support and work (based mainly on incentives rather than penalties). It should also be possible for a relatively small number of people, who are not legally disabled but have good reasons not to be in the job market, to receive cash assistance without an expectation that they will work outside the home. My framework would include good child care, continuing health coverage, relevant education and training, and strong support services to help new workers succeed in the workplace.
1 Comments:
First, the vast majority of people on government assistance ARE NOT CITIZENS. Don't believe me? Go work in a grocery store for a month. You'll see. If "welfare" really was ONLY available to ONLY American Citizens, it would have much much more support.
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