Introduction
Welfare Is Not the Problem-Poverty Is the Problem
In 1996, President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) into law. PRWORA replaced existing AID to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS), and Emergency Assistance programs. In their stead, PRWORA established cash welfare block grants for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and made significant changes in programs dealing with supplemental security income, food stamps, and public assistance benefits for noncitizens.
In response, the American Psychological Association's Division of the Psychology of Women formed a Task Force on Women, Poverty, and Public Assistance. The division was concerned with the psychological, social, and economic effects of welfare reform on the lives and futures of poor women and their families. Everyone, including recipients, agreed that reforms were needed. However, turning a federal program that entitles assistance to those who qualify into a program that gives states a set sum of money does not necessarily constitute reform. Reform is not reform when assistance is denied to needy individuals or families, including mothers and their children fleeing domestic violence. These policy changes were based on the mistaken premise that welfare is the problem. Welfare is not the problem-poverty is the problem. The economic gap between poor and rich is now larger than it has ever been. In 1993, the top 20 percent of U.S. households received 48.9 percent of the total income, but those households in the bottom 20 percent shared only 3.6 percent. Yet the national debate continues to focus on the "welfare problem" rather than on the "income distribution problem" or the "wealth concentration" problem.
Children and single mothers, especially those of color, have suffered the most. The National Women's Law Center reported in 1995 that almost 70 percent of U.S. working women earn less than $20,000 yearly, and nearly 40 percent earn less than $10,000. More than 10 million women are the sole support for their children and families (National Women's Law Center, 1996). The expansion of a service economy, fewer jobs in government, and curtailment of civil rights has significantly limited job opportunities for poor women and people of color. Economists and historians have long noted how the gender-based division of labor and the corresponding low wages paid for women's work have made many women poor (Feldberg, 1986). Comprehensive welfare reform must take into account the larger economic and social biases that cause women's poverty.
In this report we take aim at some common myths about welfare. We look at the real causes of poverty among women and what the scientific research tells us about issues such as domestic violence, education and training, the structure of work and workplace benefits, child care, and physical and mental health care. All of these issues must be successfully addressed before women can move out of poverty. We include specific recommendations policymakers can use today to build programs that work. Our recommendations, which are highlighted at the end of each topic, deal with obstacles faced by poor women that are not acknowledged in the welfare reform legislation. It is our hope we can work together with policymakers towards helping women move out of poverty into the national workforce, and succeed in staying there.
Psychology has a critical role to play in the reform of welfare
Psychology's particular advantage among health care professions is that it is both a scientifically grounded academic discipline and a service-oriented health care service profession. Indeed, the direct link and integration of science and practice is a primary strength of psychologists. Moreover, it is becoming evident that many welfare recipients suffer from mental health problems that could interfere with their abilities to obtain and maintain a job (DeParle, 1997).
In this report, the task force disseminates critical scientific research about women and welfare and recommends key supportive structures that must be in place for women to move out of poverty and into real work. Throughout this report we highlight this critical research-the data on which our recommendations are based. This data has been accumulated with the help of many organizations very active in collecting and analyzing research on the impact of poverty and welfare reform on poor women and their families. For additional information on women and welfare reform, we refer readers to the organizations and sources cited.
"Human capital" versus "work first"
The data we cite herein support recommendations based on a human capital approach, that is, an approach that emphasizes investment in the education, training, and productive skills of a national workforce that includes poor women. In the rush to get more mothers on welfare employed, little attention has been paid to the impact of the welfare-to-work transition for poor families. To encourage work among current welfare recipients, significant resources must be amassed to promote employability and retention.
Work success for mothers on welfare cannot be accomplished without concomitant services such as quality child care, education and relevant job skills training, available jobs that pay more than welfare and provide family friendly benefits, and support services that promote retention such as transportation, appropriate attire, and encouragement from the home environment (Lerman, 1995). For women, obstacles such as violence from partners and mental and physical health problems must also be addressed.
Historically, it was believed that mothers, especially if the children were young, should stay home and care for their children. More recently, however, policymakers and citizens have come to believe that the welfare system prevented long-term economic self-sufficiency and that mothers on welfare should be required to participate in work and employment activities rather than stay at home (Wilson, Ellwood, & Brooks-Gunn, 1995). However, the many barriers to successful welfare-to-work transition for poor women are considerable and formidable.
The new welfare law, by contrast, emphasizes a "work first" approach. This approach assumes a lack of personal responsibility as the principal cause of poverty and unemployment among welfare mothers, which disregards the very real larger economic and social biases at work-many women are poor in part because they are women. The "work first" approach also ignores individual variation; that is, although many welfare recipients will be able to get and maintain paying jobs, others will be so significantly disadvantaged, medically, personally, and/or socially, that they have very little hope of being placed in what most would consider an adequate, paying job (R.K. Weaver & Dickens, 1995). Officials in Oregon, which has had one of the nation's sharpest caseload declines (50 percent in 3 years), estimate that 75 percent of those left on the rolls suffer from mental health problems that could interfere with a job (DeParle, 1997).
Despite widespread debate with respect to whether welfare fosters dependency, very little data have been collected that explain why women remain on welfare or how psychosocial factors such as violence, abuse, poor housing, dangerous neighborhoods, and limited support affect welfare-to-work transitions (Salomon, Bassuk, & Brooks, 1996). There is only limited literature on what attitudes and social structures may support welfare-to-work transition. For example, recent research has shown that having other adults in the home and having a support system reinforces expectations about working and increases work participation for mothers on welfare (Wolfe & Hull, 1993). This finding suggests that far more psychological research needs to be directed toward identifying women's personal strength and resiliency factors as well as the well-known structural factors such as adequate child care and meaningful education and job training that help mothers on welfare succeed in the workplace.
PRWORA does not focus on solving the critical problems poor women face but emphasizes instead short-term savings by denying and reducing welfare benefits, setting strict time limits, and focusing only on strategies to quickly immerse welfare recipients into the labor market. The failure to include in successful welfare-to-work strategies such factors as transportation, child care, clothing, and other structural supports often perpetuates a cycle of poor job preparation and a return to a need for public assistance (Handler, 1995). A long-term macro approach is critical.
The human capital approach sees addressing education and skill deficits as ultimately a more successful means of reducing poverty and unemployment, and underscores the country's need for investment in a well-trained and educated workforce. The human capital approach is not antithetical to an emphasis on work; in fact, success in the workplace is more likely if needs are acknowledged and addressed appropriately, that is, if flexible and comprehensive services, supportive infrastructure, and opportunities for continuing education and training are made an integral part of the package.
Misperceptions About Welfare Recipients
Ambivalence about the benefits of welfare programs, modest gains in income for recipients of Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC), and negative myths and stereotypes about AFDC recipients have been cited as reasons for the recent shift in public policy, which was codified in PRWORA. These popular prejudices hold firm in the face of research that clearly documents the fallacy of these perceptions. Despite the well-known failures of welfare, the lives of poor women would have been significantly worse without income assistance. While the social welfare programs prior to 1981 had not eliminated poverty, they had gradually increased the income for poor persons. The recessions of the 1980s, however, were devastating to poor families, and the massive AFDC reductions under the Reagan administration unfortunately reversed the decline in poverty rates (Bassuk, Browne, & Buckner, 1996b; Cloward, 1994; Haverman & Scholz, 1994; K. Phillips, 1990).
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