Alas, a Blog

A good article in the New York Review of Books reviews the book American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation’s Drive to End Welfare by Jason Deparle.

As the article points out, the existing welfare system during Clinton – Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) – was severely flawed, and had earned its widespread unpopularity:

Many liberals felt betrayed by Clinton’s decision to sign the welfare reform bill and blamed public hostility to AFDC on racism, which was certainly a factor. About two fifths of AFDC recipients were black, and the proportion was much higher in the large metropolitan areas, where the most influential newspapers and TV networks are located. Nonetheless, racism was not the only reason for the program’s unpopularity.

AFDC was at odds with three widely shared American views. First, instead of encouraging unmarried couples to marry if they conceived a child, it seemed to be rewarding them for not marrying, because marriage usually made couples ineligible for AFDC payments. Second, instead of encouraging recipients to work, AFDC reduced their benefits by about seventy cents for every dollar they earned. As a result, an unskilled mother who had to pay for child care if she worked was usually better off staying home. Third, AFDC seldom paid recipients enough to cover even the most basic expenses. As a result, most mothers supplemented their benefits by working “off the books” and getting money under the table from boyfriends or relatives. A program that encouraged unwed motherhood, idleness, and dishonesty was bound to be unpopular, even in places where all the recipients were white.

During the Clinton administration, “welfare reform” was implimented to the despair of liberals and the relief of conservatives. Both camp’s expectations were overblown, however:

After spending eight years observing the effects of welfare reform, DeParle concludes that it moved a good many single mothers off the welfare rolls but that nearly all are still struggling to live on meager incomes. Every study I have seen supports that view.

In retrospect, it looks as if both the proponents and opponents of welfare reform overestimated its likely impact. Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned that abolishing AFDC would lead to large numbers of children “sleeping on grates,” and many other liberals made similar prophecies. Nothing like that has happened. If anything, material hardship among single mothers and their children has fallen slightly. Those who supported welfare reform also seem to have overestimated its benefits. More single mothers have entered the labor force, but because most mothers were already working the increase was hardly a social revolution. Thus far there is little evidence that making more mothers work has had much effect either way on children. Nor has it saved money, at least so far.

Deparle’s book also includes in-depth profiles of three mothers and how they deal with welfare reform.

From Deparle’s book:

So how had the new law changed [Angie’s] life? Had ending welfare worked? While I had posed versions of the question before, they never seemed to grab her, and I was starting to understand why. On welfare, Angie was a low-income single mother, raising her children in a dangerous neighborhood in a household roiled by chaos. She couldn’t pay the bills. She drank lots of beer. And her kids needed a father. Off welfare, she was a low-income single mother, raising her children in a dangerous neighborhood in a household roiled by chaos. She couldn’t pay the bills. She drank lots of beer. And her kids needed a father. “We’re surviving!” is all Angie said. “‘Cause that’s what we have to do.”

Were her kids proud that she works? It was a question that often arose when I talked about Angie with middle-class friends, most of whom took it as an article of faith that the answer was yes. Angie paused. “I don’t think the kids think about that,” she said. “They’d like it if I’d just sit around with them all day.” She raised her voice to mimic a squeal: “‘Why you always at work?’ Shoot! Why you think I gotta work? Ain’t none a you got a job!” It was possible, of course, that the kids felt prouder of her than she knew and that the power of the example she set would become clearer with time. I asked her if she thought her struggles to grind out a low-wage living would encourage the kids to stay in school. “Do I think they’re going to finish high school? Hell, no!” Angie said.

At the time, like most feminists, I was convinced that welfare reform would be a disaster. By now it’s clear I was mistaken. In retrospect, it’s not surprising that welfare reform didn’t end up making much difference, for two reasons.

First of all, AFDC was simply never that generous anyway – at its best, it was still miserly compared to what most wealthy western nations do for welfare. The reduction of a program that was small to start with can’t be expected to make an enourmous difference.

Second of all, welfare reform more-or-less coincided with a significant growth in the Earned Income Tax Credit; during the Clinton years, the EITC went from being a $9 billion dollar program to a $30 billion dollar program. So it seems likely that some effects of welfare reform were mitigated by EITC growth.

As well as the above-quoted review, I’d also highly recommend this review of American Dreams by David Glenn in Dissent. (Hat tip: Crooked Timber).