Ending Welfare, Continuing Poverty

...On top of that, federal policy requires states to demonstrate that increasing numbers of welfare recipients work-25 percent by 1997 and 50 percent by 2002...

...This is more true now than ever, as our increasingly global, technologydriven economy requires more advanced skills than the old industrial economy...

...The new program fails to deliver on the promise that we as a nation "put work first...

...We know that all jobs are not created equal...

...The tenacious grip of work on the American mind makes it difficult for welfare advocates—even in times of economic crisis—to build a case for government assistance...

...The Johns Hopkins study also found that employed former recipients typically earn less than they received while on welfare...

...And yet many political officials act as if poor people don't have these same considerations and are better off working regardless of pay or whether they can afford child care or transportation, and of whether the job provides benefits such as health insurance or paid sick leave...

...Getting people into just any job doesn't make them self-sufficient...

...The CDF study found that less than a third of working former recipients received help paying for child care, only half of working families with very low incomes received food stamps, and almost a third of such families include a member without health insurance— and this under the best possible economic conditions...

...Not surprisingly, more education and better health translated into higher earnings and increased rates of employment among those interviewed for the study: welfare leavers with a high school degree or high school equivalency (GED) were employed 78 percent of the time in the year preceding their interview, as compared to 61 percent for women without a high school degree or GED, and welfare leavers in very good or excellent health were employed 83 percent of the previous year, as compared with 60 percent for women in poor or fair health...

...What the country needs now is a paradigm shift toward a new understanding of self-sufficiency...

...According to the study, 91 percent of welfare leavers without a high school diploma or GED lived in poverty compared to 64 percent of those with a high school degree...

...actually moved from welfare dependency to relative independence from welfare...

...As a recent Children's Defense Fund (CDF) study put it, "Families who were 'pushed off' the welfare rolls for non-compliance with the new rules were more likely to be burdened by educational deficiencies and health problems than current recipients...

...A recent Johns Hopkins University study of welfare leavers in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio found that 63 percent of women who have left TANF in those three cities found jobs...

...Welfare Leavers Even before Bill Clinton ended welfare as we knew it, caseloads had begun to fall...

...The remaining portion reported that they had left for other reasons, including that another member of the household became employed and having childsupport money...

...Simply having a caseworker who provides information about health care services and child care assistance greatly increases the odds that individuals get such assistance, but one in four former recipients told CDF that their caseworker had not given them help with medical coverage, and two in five said their caseworker had not provided information about child care...

...What often gets lost as Democrats and Republicans talk up welfare reform is that those who have been placed in the most vulnerable position by this new system are children, who often live in substandard housing, in impoverished neighborhoods, and attend underfunded schools unaffected by vouchers, choice, and empowerment zones...

...A 1999 U.S...

...Rather than bolstering the life chances of those in need, the system now places the poorest among us in an even more vulnerable position...

...In addition, despite overall income growth, the average income of the poorest fifth of the population didn't increase at all between 1989 and 1999...

...large numbers of Americans believe that any such provision must be earned...

...However, only 30 percent of those classified as working in each state can count vocational education "toward the work activity quota...

...Earnings of those with less education are about half of those with more education, and earnings of those in poor or fair health are about half of those in very good to excellent health...

...Lack of child care ranks high on the list of reasons many recipients give for not finding or keeping jobs, and yet few states provide adequate, affordable child care...

...Putting TANF Dollars to Work...

...In 1998, 43 percent of poor children received TANF money, whereas 62 percent received AFDC in 1994...

...Administrative hassles, according to the study, account for another portion of those who no longer receive food stamps...

...On average, fewer sanctioned women found jobs (57 percent versus 76 percent for those who hadn't been sanctioned) in the year before their interview for the study...

...According to the State Policy Documentation Project of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, twentytwo states permit recipients to enroll in postsecondary programs for longer than the twelve months allowed by federal law...

...In addition, 89 percent of those who had been sanctioned remained poor after leaving TANF, compared to 71 percent of those who hadn't been sanctioned...

...Center for Policy Alternatives, 2000 (www.cfpa.org/issues/workfamily/tanf/index.cfm...

...Moreover, fewer poor children receive assistance now than in the past...

...Not surprisingly, studies find that former recipients struggle with the same issues as most working Americans: how to afford child care, how to pay for their children's health needs if they don't qualify for Medicaid, and transportation to work...

...According to the Center for Policy Alternatives, states had eight billion dollars in TANF funds that they had not yet spent or earmarked for spending as of one year ago...

...Besides having the money and authority to provide much-needed help to people moving from welfare to work, states also have public support to do so...

...This ingrained individualism, coupled with our system of federalism and long-standing fears about concentrated authority, have guided the development of American politics, keeping the central government small, especially when compared to our European counterparts...

...It does, however, remove the one safety net—inadequate though it was—that the nation had provided for them since 1935...

...What the researchers could not determine is whether families left the Food Stamp Program because they thought they had become ineligible or whether they were told they were ineligible...

...TANF HIGHLIGHTS both the emphasis on work in American political culture and the limited nature of the American commitment to providing jobs for those in need...

...Department of Education analysis found that welfare-to-work participation in such programs declined significantly in the seven states it examined...

...Instead, TANF makes it increasingly difficult for individuals to receive the education they need to find and hold decent jobs, and it fails to help the many working Americans who remain impoverished...

...When the economy slows, community service jobs should be provided as part of a broader antipoverty policy...

...As FDR knew, people aren't truly free when they are captive to the vicissitudes of the market...

...With the caseload drop, states currently have a surplus of TANF dollars that they must spend or risk losing once Congress reauthorizes the program next year...

...Some states also have money to spend on education and training...

...Families doing the best under the current system have benefited from a good economy and often receive additional government support...

...In fact, the most significant portion of those leaving the Food Stamp Program are families with children, according to a recent DOA study...

...Now, according to the Education Commission of the States, "allowable postsecondary coursework for recipients is limited to 12 months of vocational education...

...Recent studies looking at Illinois and the Phoenix, Arizona, area, sponsored by the Department of Agriculture, reported that one of every three such individuals has experienced 92 n DISSENT / Fall 2001 moderate to severe hunger...

...As a result, some of these "laboratories of innovation" have chosen to be more generous while others have gone in the other direction, requiring individuals to work after only thirty days and instituting a two-year lifetime benefit limit...

...Despite the hoopla about getting people off welfare, only 19 percent supported moving people into the first job available, irrespective of advancement...

...This will become increasingly obvious as the economy continues to falter and more and more people find themselves laid off, ineligible for unemployment compensation, and unable to find new jobs...

...TANF seems unable—and not seriously intended—to help those women make the transition into the workforce...

...Many of these changes are coming up for congressional reauthorization in 2002, increasing the need for policymakers, academics, and citizens to press Congress to show us the compassion George W. Bush talked about during the election...

...Never mind that this history lesson leaves many pages unturned—most Americans believe that work provides the basic structure around which successful lives are built...

...Conference of Mayors survey of twenty-six large cities, the need for emergency shelter rose 12 percent and the need for food at pantries rose 18 percent between 1998 and 1999...

...Poverty Rate Lowest in 20 Years, Household Income at Record High," Census Bureau Reports...

...Health and education levels had a large impact on women's employment history...

...Cuts in the Food Stamp Program also make able-bodied, childless adults eligible for food stamps for only three months out of every three years...

...Federal TANF funds can be used for a variety of purposes, including postsecondary programs, child care, transportation, and other necessary support services...

...As the Johns Hopkins study points out, "Only one-half (48 percent) of conventional leavers are dependency leavers—that is, only one-half of 'leavers...

...DISSENT / Fall 2001 n 9 5...

...It may be time for those who envision a comprehensive antpoverty system to revisit it...

...The Effect of Sanctions Sanctions remain a controversial component of TANF...

...Of the 965 children of former welfare recipients in the CDF study: • 366 children lived in families that could not pay the rent, • 320 children lived in families that could not buy food, • 216 children had to change their school as a result of changing homes, • 205 children lived in families that could not pay for the child's health care, • 202 children lived in families that were evicted from their home, • 178 children lived in families whose phone had been cut off, and • 103 children lived in families whose electricity had been disconnected...

...While the poverty rate declined to a twenty-year low in 1999, not all groups benefited equally...

...However, the programs need to focus more on the specific needs of low-income individuals, especially single parents...

...Moreover, federal welfare-to-work grants and the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 have given a boost to community colleges that have 94 n DISSENT I Fall 2001 programs for TANF recipients and leavers...

...Children's Defense Fund (www.childrensdefense.org/pdf/CMPreport.pdf...

...These numbers are consistent with the employment rate of 50 percent to 70 percent for welfare leavers identified by studies in different states...

...In the year preceding their interview for the study, about 28 percent of women with less education hadn't worked at all, while only 13 percent of those with more education hadn't found work...

...Lack of education, experience, and job skills hamper their efforts to find and keep jobs...

...Nonetheless, many former recipients have found jobs...

...And the new system provides no escape routes for these children...

...To gain a better understanding of the factors that contribute to the employment rates of women who have left TANF, the researchers looked closely at the impact of education and health status on employment and income...

...An Urban Institute report on the Food Stamp Program caseload decline found that 72 percent of welfare leavers said they no longer receive food stamps because of increased earnings— even when they may remain eligible...

...How much should those in need be required to work...

...As Robert Kennedy pointed out many years ago, a real antipoverty strategy requires meaningful community economic development, education and training, and family support...

...Declining poverty rather than falling welfare caseloads should be our measure of success...

...ENDING WELFARE Schoolchildren are taught these ideas through Horatio Alger-like, rags-to-riches stories in which individuals overcome great odds to achieve the American dream...

...In addition to replacing Aid to Families with Dependent Children with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 altered many programs designed to assist poor children and families, including child support and child care programs, disability benefits, immigrant eligibility for benefits, and the Food Stamp Program...

...Between August 1996 and June 1999, caseloads nationwide fell about 44 percent, although they did not diminish evenly across the nation...

...States could enroll more TANF recipients in postsecondary programs for longer periods of time...

...We are reared to understand ourselves as rugged individuals, whose parents and grandparents worked hard to get ahead and provide something better for their progeny...

...Women who left the rolls because they had been sanctioned fared worse than those who had not been sanctioned...

...According to a 1999 U.S...

...This helps explain, at least in part, how the AFDC program—which constituted no more than 1 percent of the national budget annually from its inception in 1935 to its demise in 1996— came to be painted by conservatives as government largesse gone astray...

...Forcing individuals into the only jobs they can find does not strengthen families, foster economic mobility, or protect children...

...CDF—whose mission is to speak on behalf of these children and their families— provides a vivid snapshot of life for so many young Americans in the world of "welfare-to-work...

...Some argue that sanctions enable states to enforce compliance with work requirements, but there is growing evidence that sanctioned women—and their children—are often the most vulnerable, meaning that they need more, not less, assistance to make the transition to self-sufficiency...

...Rather than focus on poverty rates and the support low-income adults and children desperately need, debates about welfare reform typically revolve around a discussion of work: What is the proper relation between public assistance and employment...

...And yet many liberals and conservatives sing the praises of welfare reform simply because women who were once on welfare no longer are...

...By late 1996, TANF policy changes began pushing many more off the rolls, either into jobs or simply out of the system because of rules infractions or paperwork errors...

...Many families of former recipients lack much-needed services because their income levels are just past the regulated cutoff or because they don't know what's available...

...Studies indicate that many children of mothers who have received welfare have a chronic illness...

...Acres of trees have been cut down to provide paper for the countless studies that confirm this point...

...Poverty declined among Hispanics and AfricanAmericans, but one in three female-headed families lives below the poverty line, as does one in four of all Latino and African-American families, according to the Center for Policy Alternatives...

...Although many former recipients have held ENDING WELFARE on to jobs and the rolls have continued to drop, a number of indicators suggest that, overall, poor families are doing worse, not better...

...The new law got rid of the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Program, which—as a supplement to AFDC—allowed a number of welfare recipients to enroll in job training programs as well as in two- and four-year degree programs while still receiving public assistance...

...As Bruce Katz and Katherine Allen of the Brookings Institution point out, welfare rolls declined more slowly in cities...

...Dept...

...In other words, work doesn't actually come first...

...of Commerce press release, May 16, 2001...

...Johns Hopkins University, 2000 (www.jhu.edut--welfare/welfare publications.html...

...Sources for this article include the following: "Families Struggling to Make It in the Workforce: A Post Welfare Report...

...Health status is the most striking: 31 percent of welfare leavers in poor to fair health were not working in the year prior to the interview, compared to only 6 percent of women in very good to excellent health...

...According to a survey conducted last year for Jobs for the Future, 77 percent of Americans "feel the government should help people moving from welfare to work to get training and find jobs that offer opportunities for advancement so that they increase their chances of building careers and remaining selfsufficient...

...More than thirty-four million Americans— many of whom work—remain in poverty...

...Why We Put Work First Work has a special place in the American mind...

...STUDIES HAVE also confirmed what anecdotal evidence has suggested for several years—that demand for emergency food and shelter has increased markedly since welfare reform...

...The reasons for these declines remain somewhat unclear...

...The Diversity of Welfare Leavers: A Three City Study," by Robert Moffit and Jennifer Roff...

...Researchers found that about 74 percent of those who have left welfare live in poverty—this number would be even higher without the additional earnings of others in the household and without such government programs as Medicaid and subsidized housing...

...AMY D. BURKE is a freelance writer and doctoral candidate in politics at Brandeis University...

...In addition, 94 percent agree that "as a country, we should make sure that people who work full time should be able to earn enough to keep their families out of poverty...

...The growing economy coupled with Earned Income Tax Credit expansions in the early 1990s greatly increased the number of single mothers in the workforce...

...People who can work must be given access to education and training and then must be guaranteed a job, along with the support they need to keep it...

...Many former recipients no longer receive Medicaid and food stamps, although they remain eligible...

...We want people to work, but we don't want to guarantee them a job...

...Education and training are necessary first steps if we are truly serious about moving people off welfare and into good jobs...

...There is some leeway...

...TANF codifies the twin ideas that public assistance should be limited in nature and that those in need should be required to work, regardless of their particular life circumstances and the vicissitudes of the economy...

...During the Great Depression, when a third of Americans had lost their livelihoods through no fault of their own, most recipients of assistance felt demeaned by their situation...

...Not surprisingly, the new welfare system makes it more difficult for states to count participation in postsecondary programs as work...

...As a result, the new system is really a work rather than a welfare program, but it is a work program sorely in need of improvement...

...And 90 percent of respondents believed that government should help pay for education and training for those leaving welfare...

...Despite what was until recently a very strong economy, most former recipients, including those who work, are struggling to get by...

...Currently, about 60 percent of all TANF recipients live in eighty-nine urban counties...

...Instead, it often locks them into lowwage employment without benefits or advancement...

...Overall, the poverty rate for all children dropped to a twenty-year low of 16.9 percent, but this figure doesn't tell the whole story...

...Under the new welfare system, states can sanction women who receive DISSENT / Fall 2001 n 9 I ENDING WELFARE TANF for a variety of reasons, including missing a meeting with a caseworker and failing to follow certain administrative rules...

...Although instituting a more punitive policy at the national level—the five-year lifetime assistance limit and the requirement that individuals be engaged in work-related activity within two years—TANF does gives states considerable flexibility...

...Those who found work earn an average hourly wage of $7.50, 60 percent work full time rather than part time, and only 36 percent of those with jobs received health insurance...

...Even before TANF went into effect, accordDISSENT / Fall 2001 n 93 ENDING WELFARE ing to CLASP, the "work first" ethos that has swept the nation led states to shift their emphasis from training to rapid employment...

...Access to postsecondary education and training is key to helping former recipients and other low-income individuals make their way in the new economy...

...According to research summa ENDING WELFARE rized in a recent update published by the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), "Fortyone percent of mothers who have been on welfare for more than two years in the past and 32 percent of mothers who have been on welfare for two years or less have at least one child with a chronic condition whose health and developmental needs they must address, compared with 21 percent of mothers who have never been on welfare...

...Of those welfare leavers interviewed, 65 percent said they left because they found a job, 14 percent said they left because they had been sanctioned, and 6 percent reported that they had reached a program time limit...

...Only about 12 percent of families with eligible children receive a child care subsidy, according to the National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support but President Bush's budget proposed cutting the Child Care Development Block Grant by $200 million...

...Sanctioned leavers also earned less per month—$327 compared to $558...

...The poverty rate for children under six who live in households headed by a female is a staggering 50.3 percent...

...All Jobs Are Not Created Equal Ending welfare and putting work first does not occur in a void, although much political rhetoric would have us believe it does...

...When non-poor people consider job options for themselves, they weigh which combination of salary and benefits will best enable them to take care of themselves and their families...

...Franklin Delano Roosevelt failed to make permanent our nation's boldest experiment with a public jobs program—the Works Progress Administration...

...Among the essential elements of a "healthy and strong democracy," he told the American people on January 6, 1941, are "jobs for those who can work and security for those who need it...

...And then there are the hardest to help: those with serious obstacles to work, either because they are too ill or because they lack the education, skills, and training needed to get and keep a job in our high-skilled, competitive economy...

...Women who had previously been most dependent on welfare (the so-called "welfare queens" who received benefits for long periods of time) have a harder time getting and keeping jobs...

...This contrasts to 9 percent for children under six who live in marriedcouple families...

...Adding to this research, the CDF study found that only women with at least a vocational or two-year postsecondary degree were likely to lift themselves and their children out of poverty after leaving welfare...

...And how long should assistance be available to those 90 n DISSENT / Fall 2001 seemingly unable or unwilling to stay employed...