Welfare; History, Results and Reform
9/2/04
Red font indicates exact quotes from a reference. Comments are appreciated.
Excerpts/highlights summarized with accompanying news articles and (occasional) additional commentary include Summary with Chart Groups, Native Americans and Welfare, International Poverty Rates, Sweat Shops and Welfare, School Choice, African American Politics and Welfare, Appalachia, San Joaquin vs. Senator Welstone, Welfare in the Press Today, the Great Depression, Social Security and Welfare, Social Workers and Welfare, The Minimum Wage, John Kerry and Welfare Reform, Urban Institute Rhetoric, Bill Cosby and Welfare, and Poverty and Single Motherhood in Sweden, About this Research (Academic Bias), Early History of Welfare, Culture and Welfare, The Poor , The Children's Defense Fund. General news articles/links can also be found at the end of this page.
I first became interested in the subject of Welfare from reading various articles and commentary on the effects of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act. The reforms are generally claimed as being successful, but the lack of exploration and depth in which the media and even academic papers covered this was frustrating to me. How successful were they? What was the rhetoric of opponents and proponents before and after the bill passed and as the results came in? If Welfare Reform was so successful why was Welfare allowed to continue for so long? Was Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty a success? I have read Liberal studies that say it was and Conservative studies that say it wasn't. How does this issue fit into the platforms of the major parties? The opinion pieces I read were just that; opinion pieces, containing little factual information.
But the main reason I decided to write this was a curiosity awakened by Conservative rhetoric in the media and interesting findings in Conservative think tanks, which seemed to support a claim that Welfare and other government incentive/disincentive programs resulted in the establishment of poverty and the breakup of poor families, especially African American families.
However, what I found in the Conservative media circles and think tanks was unsatisfying. It was hard to believe that anti-poverty programs caused poverty or broke up families. Sure, there seemed to be correlations, but perhaps they were spinning the numbers, or leaving out other information; information that often came to light in Liberal think tanks and in numerous academic studies that were at odds with the Conservative conclusions. It seemed to me that any reasonable person, with a little common sense, should be able to answer this question rather easily, provided the proper data was available. I promised myself I would conduct a detailed investigation and lay out whatever findings and conclusions I arrived at for others to read.
I start out by giving a little background information and then display a series of charts and graphs to give a visual picture of the effects of welfare. I then write my conclusions from this information and answer some possible objections to my assertions. In this paper I try to isolate populations effected by welfare and cover Caucasian, Hispanic and Native American populations and attempt a particularly in-depth analysis on African Americans. I also examine the Swedish model. Near the end, I cover the political history of welfare, including voting records, press reports, civil rights groups, advocacy groups, and think tanks. I finish with a contrast to Education Reform and Social Security. Despite including 65 charts and graphs (and one especially humorous picture) and 257 citations, I have tried to make things as simple and strait-forward as possible. Enjoy!
Historical Analysis
For the greater part of American history there was no federally funded "Welfare" program. The poorest of the poor were aided by private organizations, churches and occasionally by small state programs.
In 1935, a bill containing the original provisions for "Welfare", AFDC (Aid For Dependant Children, after Welfare Reform called Temporary Aid for Needy Families: TANF), was signed by president Roosevelt and created the basic structure of the modern "Welfare" program. The bill allowed $18 per month for one child and $12 for each additional child. The bill expanded on the infrastructure of state programs that had been set up as 'widows funds'. Only single mothers received funds. At this time, just about 50% of those receiving AFDC were children supported by widows, 17% were children with an incapacitated father, 21% were supported by a woman who had been abandon by her husband and just 2% of children on the welfare rolls were supported by women who had never married. (click here for more on the Great Depression)
In any case, let us then view the history of AFDC/TANF (remember AFDC [abolished in 1996 by Welfare Reform] became TANF so they are basically the same program in that they both gave cash to poor families) in terms of total families receiving cash welfare during a given month, starting from welfare's conception and the percent of the total US population on welfare. (a large number of those on Welfare are children, 14% of all children in 1993 were on Welfare)
Total Families Receiving Aid (millions of families) % US Population Receiving Cash Welfare 1936-2003 Chart 1, (3), (4) 1960-2000 Chart 3 (231), (232):
Unfortunately, the graph on the right only goes back to 1960, but both graphs follow similar patterns. What accounts for odd shape of these graphs? Let's look at spending patterns.
How the states and the federal government paid for each welfare check varied, but they generally mirrored each other and are roughly equal (17). The graph below on the left is a graph of the total federal spending on cash welfare (ADFC/TANF) in red and food stamp spending in blue. Cash and Food is shown in both constant and current dollars (I know... I need to fix up this graph). Doubling this (by adding state money) will give approximately the total cost. The graph on the right shows the growth of all welfare/social programs. Keep in mind that in this graph roughly half of total welfare spending goes to families with children, most of which are single parent households. The other half goes largely to the elderly and to disabled adults (14). Pay special attention to the dark blue part, a large portion of this money goes to welfare families.
(Constant $2002 adjusts for inflation) Total Federal Spending Chart 2 (12): Chart 7 (14):
Both of these graphs show big increases in spending in the late 60s early 70s, when we saw the large increase in the number and percent of families on welfare. But these graphs are quite untidy. The graph above on the left is Federal spending only and the one on the right is all social spending. What we need is to isolate the spending.
Total Federal and State Welfare Spending on . Cash, Food And Housing Aid Total Families Receiving Aid (millions of families) Per low Income Person (lowest Quartile)
. 1936-2003 Chart 1, (3), (4) (1993) 1930-1993 Chart 40 (55):
Thus far, spending and persons on the welfare rolls seems pretty closely correlated (unfortunately the right graph ends at 1993). What were the political developments at this time?
The dip at the end (above left graph) coincides with the 1996 Personal Responsibility Act (from here on referred to as Welfare Reform) passed in a compromise between President Clinton, the Senate, and the Republican House. The impetus for reform came out of moderately successful state driven reform movements (that had begun a few years earlier in 1992 (11)), the Republican House "Contract with America", President Clinton's promise to "end welfare as we know it", and the rightward shift in the political center of the country following Ronald Reagan's presidency.
The increase of the welfare rolls in the late 60's and early 70s mirror the 'War on Poverty'/'Great Society' increase in spending and loosening of welfare eligibility under President Lyndon Johnson and the Congressional Democrats.
The growth of the rolls in the late 80s, and early 90s came at the same time as big funding increases for a variety of other government entitlement programs for the poor such as food stamps, Medicaid, public housing etc.. President Bush (Senior) and the Congressional Democrats presided over this.
As the next graph shows, cash payments per family have been decreasing steadily since their high in 1969. In order to carefully measure the effect of this, we need to take into account the number of children per family and the average family size. The graph below on the left is color coded. The yellow line is the average monthly payment per AFDC/TANF family, the pink line is the average family size of AFDC/TANF recipients, and the blue line represents the average children per AFDC/TANF family. The chart on the right shows the national average children per family.
Chart 4 (8), (9), (6), (7) Average Monthly Payment per Family Chart 5 (10): Average Family Size/ average Children (2002 Constant $)
The average family size stays close to one unit more than the average number of children. This because ADFC was originally created to aid single mothers with children. In comparing the average sizes of families and children to the monthly payments, it appears there is some correlation, but we would expect there to be because the government conditionally increases the payment per extra child. The odd thing is that they don't seem to be perfectly correlated and they aren't scalar. Something else is going on. The average monthly payments increases faster before the other two lines, but also decreases a bit after the other lines.
If we compare the four different lines from Chart 4 and Chart 5 we have four different peaks:
1. National average children per family peak: 1957
2. Average Payment per family peak: 1969
3. Average ADFC/TANF family size peak: 1965
4. Average children per ADFC/TANF family peak: 1965
Why are the blue lines closer to the average payment per family peak than the national fertility peak? Could it be these ADFC families are influenced by government checks? Just based on this evidence we can't make any solid conclusions, but it is a question worth considering. Chart 57 (233):
The above graph seems to show that the higher cash payments shown in Chart 4 may have had a slight effect on the number of children that Welfare mothers had, but no real evidence supporting the proliferation of "welfare queens". On average, in 1996 welfare mothers had less children then other mothers in poverty.
Recall that I considered the fact that the average family size was close to 1 unit more than the average number of children (as shown by Chart 4) and pondered how many single mothers were on ADFC. As we might expect, the vast majority of welfare recipient families are headed by single mothers. Chart 6 (13):
AFDC/TANF Families Receiving Income Assistance
Basic families are single parent families. Almost all of these are headed by a single female. UP families are unemployed two parent families. The unemployment fund was created in 1961. Total families combine both types. Pink represents a period of economic contraction. Unfortunately, I could not get statistics before 1959, but one would guess it would look similar to Chart 1.
Notice that there is little correlation between economic contractions and growth of the welfare rolls. There are numerous instances where the welfare rolls grew during periods of economic growth! A much better correlation of this growth is seen if we return to Chart 2 and Chart 4: the largest rise in government cash comes where the slope of growth is strongest from about 1968 to 1972.
Let's stay cautious and just note that at three different points the number of families on the welfare roll changed dramatically:
1. In the late 60s, when eligibilities are lowered and there is a large increase of cash payments per family, rolls surged.
2. Starting with state welfare reform in the mid 90s and cumulating with the 96 federal law cutting off cash benefits, rolls plunged.
3. More ambiguously, rolls rose in the late 80s and early 90s as spending for other non-cash programs surged.
The Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty found non-cash payments, especially food stamps, can be significant. :
The decline in AFDC [cash] benefits was in part offset by food stamps. The food stamp benefit is based on income from all sources, including AFDC. As a result, when AFDC benefits go
down, part of the decline (about 30 cents per dollar) is offset by increasing food stamps. Food stamp benefits are indexed for price changes, and benefits change to adjust for prices at the beginning of each federal fiscal year (October 1). If food stamps are added in, the decline in median benefit between 1985 and 1994 is reduced to about 5.5 percent, from $696 to $658 in constant dollars. (69)These three conclusions have been backed all of them up with references, graphs and background information. However, there are still pictures of the puzzle missing. Where did all these single mothers come from? Let's examine these single mothers more closely. Chart 9 (16), (17), (18):
% Percent of all Children in families headed by Single Mothers (1960-1998)
What percent of these female households are receiving cash welfare benefits (AFDC/TANF)? The data is spotty, but a study done at Harvard contained a very interesting graph. The table on the right is from a different source and is discussed below.
AFDC participation rates among . Female heads of Families with . Children, Chart 58 (20):
Chart 10 (19):
The high rate of 70% in the late 60s early 70s can be accounted for by either welfare families increasing or single mothers decreasing (relative to each other). Since we know that welfare families and single mothers are both increasing, this leads us to believe that an increasingly large percent of existing or new single mothers are going on Welfare. It turns out the above graph fairly accurately depicts the percentage of single female mothers on welfare (the graph is a few percentage points higher at most). A University of Wisconsin study backed up these findings (chart upper right), although the scope was narrower (20).
It is amazing that these numbers are so high because there are an awful lot of divorced and widowed women out there, many of whom do quite well financially. Considering Chart 9 and Chart 10, there are only three possible ways to account for the large increase in single female family headship and the resulting increase of female headed families on the welfare rolls:
1. More women are being widowed.
2. More women are getting divorced.
3. More women are having kids out-of-wedlock.
We can immediately discount the first option by just using common sense, a massacre of this proportion would be beyond any national tragedy we have ever known. Referring to Chart 1, some 2 million men would have had to be slaughtered in about 5 years for the numbers to add up! It is true Vietnam was taking place at this time, but there were only 47,000 battle deaths and most of those were unmarried draftees (21). Also, life expectancy and medical care were advancing not declining.
At first glance, the second scenario looks plausible. Divorce rates did soar in the late 60s early 70s, as demonstrated by Chart 11 (22), (23):
This chart might make one wonder if women, realizing they would be making more money on welfare, divorced their husbands! It is difficult to measure exactly how many women did this, but this sharp peak is hard to ignore. The so-called 'marriage penalty' also fell on those in the middle and upper classes, as a result of the convoluted tax system. Remember the couple, the Boyters, that became famous for divorcing every April (before tax filing) and then remarrying every May?
The Boyters generated national publicity and media
attention (as well as some negative attention from the IRS) in the 1970s by marrying and divorcing
three times in order to avoid the marriage penalty. After each divorce they used the money they
saved in taxes to pay for a
After the IRS set new regulations preventing the Boyter's antics, they just stayed divorced. Here is some of their somewhat humorous testimony before the Senate Finance Committee in 1980:
Senator Dole: "You are divorced now?"
Mr. Boyter: "We are divorced now and have been for several years."
Senator Dole: "You live together, though?"
Mr. Boyter: "That is right. The IRS told us that that was preferable to getting remarried every year and divorced."
Mrs. Boyter: "My mother did not think so, but the IRS did." (57)
Getting back on topic...it may have been true that some women would make more money being on welfare than with their husbands, but we must also take into account that some of these women who divorced soon remarried. [Chart 56 further down sheds more light.] Our next chart, Chart 12, leads us to a possible conclusion....(24) (65 corroborates):
Here we see that the group increasing fastest is the never-married parent. This (loosely) suggests that the third option, women having kids out of wedlock, was a driving force (along with rising divorces) behind the increase in welfare families (Chart 1), female headed families (Chart 9) and female headed welfare families (Chart 6). Taking this conclusion one step further, we might assume that the majority of these out-of-wedlock births would be to younger women (who generally are already unmarried). Sure enough, looking at Chart 13 (14):
Figure BIRTH 1.
Percentage of Births to Unmarried Women, by Age Group: 1940-2002
This is the first time we don't see the characteristic dip after 1994-96 and the slope doesn't seem quite as sharp around 1970 as some of our other graphs, but the general increase is still there. We must realize that these figures may be somewhat skewed because women are steadily marrying older, which means less married births for younger women, which results in a higher percentage of unmarried births.
What could be the cause of this sudden increase in single motherhood? Was it coincidence that this took place right at the time when welfare spending was shooting up, or might it be due to a variety of causes?
A 1997 study done at the University of Wisconsin contained the following table, which demonstrates the short term economic gain young women received from welfare. Chart 14 (25):
The money listed in the columns is in 1976 dollars, the study compiled this data from 1968-1985.
It appears there is a financial advantage for having a baby as a teen up to age 20. The government gives you more than you would otherwise receiving working, and you don't have to work. Unfortunately, the youngest age looked at on the above table is 19. If we were to look at a 14-16 year old we would doubtlessly see an even more slanted pattern, with an accumulative windfall totaling thousands of dollar if the birth occurred at a very young age. Obviously some of this money is spent on raising the baby, but Medicaid and food stamps would pay for medical care and such things as baby food etc... Imagine yourself in the shoes of a young girl; you have the chance to be thousands of dollars richer then your friends by age 20 - all without working. But after 20, this short term gain turns into long term ruin and earnings are reduced.
The study found:
Interestingly,
Why would this be true? At this time, 1968-1985, more Africans Americans were poor or in poverty. Remember, desegregation, civil rights, and equal employment laws were recent events or, in some places, still ongoing. Racism and discrimination were still widespread, especially in the 60s. So, although their 'gain' from normal work was reduced, welfare checks never 'discriminated' (at least during this time period), thus the added incentive for African Americans to enroll in AFDC.
If this is the case then one would think think we would be able to see the effects of welfare most clearly through the African American community. For example, let's examine the out-of-wedlock birth rate for young African Americans girls (notice the uncanny similarity to previously shown Chart 10).
Percentage of All Births to Unmarried Teens
Ages 15 to 19, by Race and Ethnicity 1940-2002
Chart 15 (26):
Chart 10 (19): 
The pattern of non-white/black births matches the reoccurring pattern we've been seeing almost perfectly. Indeed, breaking down Chart 58 (20) by race confirms that a large percentage of African American single mothers were on Welfare.
Returning to the findings shown by the table in Chart 14, we would predict that if we could flesh out this 15-19 year old group even further, the findings might be even more pronounced in the younger age group. Chart(s) 16 (26):
NON-MARITAL BIRTH RISK FACTOR 3.
UNMARRIED TEEN BIRTH RATES WITHIN AGE GROUPS
All of these Charts, especially the younger 15-17 age group have significant drops right around the time Welfare Reform kicks in. How did these events effect the black family?
The following two graphs show the rise in African American single motherhood. They don't match exactly because one is measuring percentages of female householders and one female headed families (which are defined slightly differently by the Census Bureau), but for all intents and purposes they show the same thing.
Chart 17 ( 28): Chart 18 (18):
In sum, we see the same pattern here again, a sharp increase in the late 60s early 70s and then a decline after Welfare Reform. Unfortunately, the above graph on the right ends in 1998, perhaps the decline would be even more pronounced if we had more current data. It is pretty amazing to see an increase from 20% of all black children living with a female mother in the 50s to over 50% in the early 90s. The charts below corroborate the two charts above:
Chart 19 (28): (ends 1994) Chart 20 (58):
Returning to the divorce rates, when we isolate them by race, we see a clearer trend in the Chart below. Again, we see a rise in the late 60s early 70s and a fall in the mid 90s.
Chart 56 (202):
So far we have shown that young poorer girls, especially those of color, had the most incentive to go on welfare. We have also shown the rise in out-of-wedlock births, especially amongst African Americans. We now need to tie all of this together. The following graph below on the left is from a hodgepodge collection of data sources, which attempts to document the percent of AFDC/TANF caseload families that are African American.
% Percent of total AFDC/TANF caseload that are African American Chart 22 (34):
Chart 21 (30), (31), (32)
Keep in mind when viewing both Chart 21 and Chart 22 that African Americans made up only 10-13 percent of the entire population. This is why the effects of welfare are seen so clearly through the prism of the black family.
On the left graph, the dip after 1990 is partially due to the growing number of Hispanic participants. Notice that when the rolls went up by some 2.5 million people in the early 60s, late 70s that the percentage of African American recipients stayed the same.
When Federal welfare was first established it was difficult for minorities to get on the rolls because of prevailing racism, although some of the Welfare type programs that were created before and during the Great Depression existed for far more insidious purposes, as we will discuss later. Money earmarked for counties and states was often controlled by those with prejudices and often fell under sway of local politics. As this 'discrimination' began to be corrected with tougher federal laws and social activism, the rolls consumed a larger and larger portion of the African American population (31). (discrimination is in quotes here for reasons that will become apparent later)
The chart on the left illustrates the percentage of black families on welfare at any given time. The percentage of black families with children would be even higher. This data ends in 1980. It is interesting to compare this to the Chart on the left.
Chart 24 (31): Chart 17 ( 28):
The data is poor, but it seems the numbers generally continued their slow decline, perhaps following the standard pattern. The U.S. Bureau of the Census reported in 1995 that 25 percent of black mothers and 7 percent of white mothers between the ages of 15 and 44 received payments from AFDC (36). In just eight years, the percent of black families on welfare increased from 10% in 1965 to over 30% in 1973!
The Welfare system was especially punishing because once one began receiving benefits it became very difficult to get out of. We have all heard of the so-called 'cycle of poverty'. I'm not sure what the official definition is, but 'cycling' occurred because the welfare system effectively punished those seeking to escape it. Benefits, [cash, food stamps, housing and Medicaid], were often cut off if the mother went to work and made over a certain amount. This often drove welfare mothers seeking employment to look for it under the table, so as not to report it and loose their benefits. Incredibly, a welfare mother could actually loose money or break even just by taking a job! This gave rise to 'cycling', an attempt to break free from poverty, only to be overwhelmed by the unpaid bills that came when the welfare checks stopped coming.
The Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan did a study which illustrated the sheer pervasiveness in which children, especially in the black community, were effected by welfare. The study looked at children born in the late 60s and early 70s and examined their records up to 17 years of age and attempts to measure how many of them were touched by different forms of welfare during their youth. The study defines welfare rather broadly and includes, AFDC cash, food stamps, Social Security and other welfare, including local general assistance (some of these programs can serve two parent families). Chart 25 (35):
A high of 43 percent of total children and 88 percent of African American children received some form of public assistance and 30% of African American children spent 11-16 years of their 17 child years on Welfare. As shown by the above chart, most people who utilized welfare were not on it for any long period of time, but a sizeable number became permanently dependant on it. Others remained in the vicious cycle described in the previous paragraphs. This burden again fell most harshly on African Americans who were most tempted to remain on welfare because of the more formidable cost/benefit barrier they faced. This was especially difficult for those previously mentioned out-of-wedlock mothers, a growing number of whom dropped out of high school. Chart 26 (37):
In fact, before welfare became entrenched in the black community, black women, including those with only no more than a high school education worked more than their white counterparts. Chart 27 (38):
The Hispanic work rate for women is low because of cultural emphasis on stay-at-home mothers, although there are also a significant number on welfare. Notice that after welfare reform black female employment is statistically equal to white female employment. In comparing this graph to Chart 24, notice that in 1969 when 65.8 percent of black women with no more than a high school degree worked, only about 15 percent of black families were receiving AFDC, while in 1975, when the white employment rate passed the black rate, over 30 percent of black families were receiving cash welfare. In breaking down the female employment rates, we might predict never married mothers would have the lowest employment rates (as one would think they would constitute a significant portion of those on Welfare). This is the case, as shown by Chart 28, (40):
This is a good illustration showing the barriers and incentives against work for single mothers and how young never married mothers become 'trapped' in the cycle of welfare. When work requirements were added after Welfare Reform, never married mothers increased the most.
In fact, if we look at unemployment over the entire period:
Chart 41 (60): Chart 29 (41):
The stagnation of employment of those on the welfare rolls is shown on the chart to the right. Even after welfare reform, when standards were changed so that people could remain, for at least some time, on the welfare rolls while employed, only about a quarter of all adults worked. Welfare Reform gave a person two years of consecutive public assistance and a 5 year lifetime guarantee before being cut off. Also, the number of unemployed two parent families (remember this feature was added in 1961) receiving welfare increased as a percentage of total families receiving welfare because single parent users (especially long term users) were forced off.
Returning the employment charts, (3 charts up - Chart 27), notice the drop in employment among black males with no more than a high school degree. In 1968 there was no statistical difference between these black and white employment rates and the graph shows Hispanic employment was never any different than white employment. After 1968 we see a sharp drop in black employment. Was this a secondary effect of welfare? We all hear the jokes about married men 'settling down' and the 'moderating' influence of a wife and children. Benjamin Franklin once said, "One good Husband is worth two good Wives; for the scarcer things are, the more they're valued." (230) :)
The resulting emotional attachments and added responsibility of providing for a family and raising children can only be, with small exception, beneficial for a young man. With the rise of single motherhood, what became of the men who would have otherwise been their husbands and how did the children growing up in a single parent home fare? The following chart demonstrates that right as the welfare transition was occurring, remarkable changes were taking place in the black male labor market. Chart 30 (39):
This difference is even more interesting when one considers that the civil rights movement was in full force in the 60s and many segregationist and discriminatory practices were (supposedly) ending. One would have expected the above graph to show almost the exact opposite. It would be interesting to look at the rates since welfare reform, but no figures/charts are available. Why would these differences occur? Relieved from the responsibility of having to provide for a family, perhaps some black men worked less? I realize this is just speculation, but it is worth considering. A more likely cause might be raises in the minimum wage which, counter-intuitively, hurt the populations most people think they were designed to help. (101), (102)
In the mid 1950s the minimum wage laws were changed to apply to all sectors of the economy, not just manufacturing (251), and were drastically raised, until they reached their peak in the late 1960s (ironically, right around the time when Welfare spending and payments were also at an all time high). When employers are required to pay their employees higher wages then they are less likely to hire, and more likely to fire, leading to higher unemployment (example: present day Europe (252)). Worse, the lowest wage earners, stereotypically young unskilled African Americans in high crime areas, are priced out of the job market because any employer that hires them takes a 'loss' every hour they are on the job because the employer is forced to pay them more then he/she believes their labor is really worth. Eliminating these 'entry level' type jobs also eliminates opportunity for future advancement and skill learning. This is more clearly seen by contrasting the following 4 Charts:
Chart 30 (39): Chart 61 (253):
Chart 62 (254): Chart 63 (255):
Around 1980, when the minimum wage begins to decline, the rate of black unemployment begins to move back towards the rate of white unemployment. Notice the white teenage employment rate is also adversely affected (Chart 62) and that, as we might predict, the effects are most pronounced as the age of the worker declines (Chart 30). In 1999 black and white teenage unemployment reached at a 30 year low and the income gap has narrowed (can't find exact statistics for the present). (258)
But, what about the children of these young (or divorced) single black mothers? Judging by the past charts (Chart 17 and Chart 18, we see that from 1965-1975 the largest number of African American single mothers were forming. So, the children of these mothers would be 17 years old from 1982-1992. Chart 25 tells us that over 80% of black children born (roughly) in this era experienced some form of welfare (recall, this 'welfare' is broadly defined) by age 17. Compare the time period when these children would be 17 (1982-1992) to the following chart on prison admissions, Chart 31, (42):
What explains the skyrocketing rate of African American incarceration? It is so sharp and sudden there must be an explanation. I will offer a possible hypothesis:
The exponential growth in single motherhood that began in the late 60s/early 70s was a double headed monster. First, the men who would have been married to these women were not tied down by family responsibilities, and did not develop strong emotional ties with their wives and children and thus led more erratic lifestyles that ended some in trouble with the law. Secondly, the children raised by these single mothers suffered from poverty that their mothers were unable to escape because of the previously mentioned work penalties imposed by the government. This was not severe poverty, because the government provided nearly everything essential, but a poverty in which there was little financial freedom. Children must also have been influenced by the mother's conflicted mental state; she hated being dependant on the government, and perhaps regretted her single mother status, but was unable to achieve financial freedom because whenever she came close, her basic essentials were snatched away en-mass by the government. This frustrated slide of self-esteem and shrinking dignity may have rubbed off on her children. Boys, who had no father figure to model, only had their peers, or perhaps they found a family friend or neighborhood figure to model. They were found it increasingly hard to find jobs, due to the rising minimum wage. Failing schools, poor neighborhoods, the proliferation of public housing units (which tended to congregate/centralize recipients of public assistance), and a broken family structure made these boys more likely to become involved in drugs, gangs and criminal activities, which often ended them in jail. A young girl, faced with the same deteriorating conditions as her brother and despite warnings by her mother, was at higher risk (some studies say between 100-200% higher (243)) for engaging in risky sexual activity and continuing the cycle with a premarital pregnancy (consider the stagnating wages of these areas and the financial cost/benefit statistics from Chart 14).
The Heritage foundation, using 1992-1993 data, found interesting correlations between crime and single motherhood, Chart 32 (43) :
What has happened to the crime rates since Welfare Reform? Chart 33 (51):
Thus far in this analysis we've left out what is arguably the most important part: poverty. Poverty was the whole reason these government programs were concocted in the first place. Despite what we've seen so far, if millions of poorer (especially minorities) were thrown into poverty following Welfare Reform we could not declare it a success. In the same sense if the spending in the late 60s early 70s lifted people out of poverty then we might declare President Johnson's war on poverty a success. But, everywhere we look we find the opposite of what we might expect. In fact, the following graphs (especially Chart 58) suggests that the poverty rates stopped dropping as government programs to combat poverty kicked in! Chart Group 1:
Chart 58 (233): Chart 33 (45):
Percentage of Persons in Poverty, by age:1959-2002 Chart 38 (64): AFDC rolls Chart 6 (13):
Notice the drop in black poverty from 1994 to 2000, over a 10% reduction to it's lowest level ever (Chart 33, upper right), due in large part to Welfare Reform. The small increase of 2001-02 may have been influenced by the recession (see Chart 34 below).
Let's examine a graph of total poverty, Chart 34 (46):
Poverty rates are difficult to measure objectively; the Census Bureau didn't officially define it as it is used today, by amount spent on food, until 1959. Below is the standard history of poverty in the United States during this century.
Increases in real wages permitted many blue-collar Americans to cross the poverty line during the first quarter of the century, but the Great Depression reversed the gains that had been made. When Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed, in 1937, that "one-third" of the nation was "ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished," he was understating the problem: in fact, the poverty rate was probably closer to 40 or 45 percent. After the Great Depression, however, the proportion of Americans living in poverty dropped sharply: according to government statistics, the figure stood at 30 percent in 1950, 20 percent in 1960, 13 percent in 1968, and 11 percent in 1973. Although these percentages meant that millions of people remained poor (23 million lived in official poverty in 1973), they suggested that the extraordinary growth of the economy between 1940 and the early 1970s was gradually eradicating the problem. Unfortunately, this benign statistical trend came to a halt in the 1970s and reversed itself after 1980. During the depression of the early 1980s, the poverty rate rose above 15 percent; in 1988, well after the depression had ended, it stood at 13 percent, reflecting the poverty of 32 million people—8 million more than had been officially poor a decade earlier. (44) (emphasis mine)
Ho! Why would this come to a halt in the 70s? I thought that's when the "War on Poverty" would be kicking into high gear and the "Great Society" would be forming?
When Lyndon Johnson left the presidency in 1969, he left behind the legacy of a transformed federal government. At the end of the Eisenhower presidency in 1961, there were only 45 domestic social programs. By 1969 the number had climbed to 435. Federal social spending, excluding Social Security, rose from $9.9 billion in 1960 to $25.6 billion in 1968. Johnson's "war on poverty" represented the broadest attack Americans had ever waged on the special problems facing poor and disadvantaged families. It declared decisively that the problems of the poor--problems of housing, income, employment, and health--were ultimately a federal responsibility. (47)
After Welfare Reform one would think that wages at the bottom would go down a bit as more people entered the job market. Somewhat surprisingly, that was not the case. An article in businessweek online (critical of Welfare Reform) lets slip:
Recall that the full-employment economy of the late 1990s reduced the ranks of the working poor. Five years of a 4% jobless rate bid up wages across the board. That brought a healthy cumulative 14% pay hike, after inflation, to those in the bottom fifth between 1995 and 2003, when they averaged $8.46 an hour, according to an analysis of Census data by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a liberal Washington research group. (247)
Let's do some quick comparisons with the numbers given from source 44. From the tables used to make Chart 1 we know that in 1988 there were just under 3.8 million families on welfare. Tables from Chart 4 indicate the average family size was just over 2.9. Multiplying these gives 11 million total recipients. Source 44 says 32 million people were in poverty in 1988, so almost a third of those in poverty are on welfare. As demonstrated by Chart 25, welfare families are constantly cycling on and off welfare and so it it probable that most of those in poverty have received public assistance at some point. In fact, we find the same 'cycling' pattern in the poverty rate.
The Census Bureau did a study from 1996-1999. They found that 51% of those in poverty at some point during those 48 months were only in poverty for 2-4 months. Only 2% of the United States population was in poverty for the full 48 months. Of the total number of full time workers in the United States, only .1% were in poverty for the full 48 months. Of the total number of part time workers, only .5% were in poverty for the full time period. Revealingly, 10.6% of all those receiving public assistance of any kind were in poverty for the full 48 months and 11.7% of all Medicaid recipients were impoverished for the full time period. Keep in mind that this is during Welfare Reform, when the rolls were falling by over 50%. (62)
We must also consider that the poverty rate might include recent immigrants, college kids, temporary unemployed, and those who choose to be poor. But even factoring these people in, it still seems like the majority of people who remain in poverty for long periods of time are primarily those on public assistance.
Even so, there are many discontent with the
way the Census Bureau measures poverty. The Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty says:
The existing official measure of poverty has been widely criticized. Under the procedures by which the official poverty rate is calculated, only cash income is counted in determining whether a family is poor; cash welfare programs count, but benefits from noncash programs, such as food stamps, medical care, social services, education and training, and housing are not included. Taxes paid, such as social security payroll taxes, and tax credits, such as the Earned Income Credit, are also excluded from poverty calculations. Because government spending on means-tested noncash benefits and tax credits has increased more rapidly than spending on means-tested cash benefits over the years, ignoring noncash benefits is an increasingly serious omission if we want a broad picture of the impact of government programs on poverty. (48)
This raises serious questions about the true plight of those in poverty. The Heritage Foundation did a study of those considered poor (61):
For a more accurate assessment of poverty, let's turn to the Heritage Foundation (a Conservative think tank):
But
what is more remarkable is the story behind the Census figures: The actual living conditions of the
individuals the government deems to be poor. For most Americans the word "poverty"
suggests destitution: an inability to provide a family with nutritious food, clothing and reasonable
shelter. But only a small number of the 35 million persons classified as "poor" by the
Census Bureau fit that description.
While real material hardship certainly does occur, it is limited in scope and severity. The bulk of
the "poor" live in material conditions that would have been judged as comfortable or
well-off just a few generations ago. Today, the expenditures per person of the lowest income
one-fifth (or quintile) of households equal those of the median American household in the early
1970s, after adjusting for inflation.
The following
are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau, taken from various
government reports:
·
Forty-six per cent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home
owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one and a
half baths, a garage and porch or patio.
·
Seventy-six per cent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago only
36% of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
·
Only 6% of poor households are overcrowded. More than two thirds have more than two rooms per
person.
·
Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30% own two or more cars.
·
Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television. [by
the way, I don't own a color television or any television for that matter]
Over half own two or more color televisions. Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player.
Sixty-two percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
· Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens; more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.
Chart 64 (61):
·
The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris,
London, Vienna, Athens and other cities throughout Europe. (Note: These comparisons are to the average
citizens in foreign countries not to those classified as poor.)
Chart 65 (61):
As a group the poor are far from being chronically undernourished. The average consumption of
protein, vitamins and minerals is virtually the same for poor and middle-class children, and in most
cases is well above recommended norms. Poor children actually consume more meat than do
higher-income children and have average protein intakes 100% above recommended levels. Most poor
children today are in fact super-nourished, on average growing up to be one inch taller and ten
pounds heavier than the GIs who stormed the beaches of Normandy in World War II.
Still,
"poverty", even as defined by the broad standards of the Census Bureau, can be reduced
further, particularly among children. There are two main reasons American children are poor: Their
parents don’t work much, and fathers are absent from the home. In good economic times or bad, the
typical poor family with children is supported by only 800 hours of work during a year—that
amounts to 16 hours of work per week. If work in each family were raised to 2,000 hours per
year—the equivalent of one adult working 40 hours per week through the year—nearly 75% of poor
children would be lifted out of official poverty.
Not having a dad around is another reliable pathway down into poverty. Nearly two-thirds of poor
children reside in single-parent homes. Each year an additional 1.3 million children are born
out-of-wedlock. If poor mothers married the fathers of their children, almost three quarters would
immediately be lifted out of poverty.
While work and marriage are steady ladders out of poverty, the welfare system perversely remains
hostile to both. Major programs such as Food Stamps, public housing, and Medicaid continue to reward
idleness and penalize marriage. If welfare could be turned around to encourage work and marriage,
remaining poverty would drop quickly.
(61)
Two things catch my eye in the Heritage analysis. First, each family in
poverty is only supported by 16 hours of work a week! I realize this figure might be higher if one
considers that some work might be done 'under the table', but even so, this doesn't represent the
single mother working three jobs trying to make ends meet that is often portrayed in the media.
Second, in the rush to portray European countries as more 'caring' and 'civilized' and,
especially, more 'equal', we often forget how much more prosperous then Europe we are. Because
76% of those in poverty have air conditioning (those that don't probably live in the northern
states) we would never see a story like this one, seen in the Associated Press during the Summer of 2003
(49):
France's longest and hottest heat wave, with temperatures that topped 104 in the first two weeks of August, probably caused about 10,000 deaths, said Hubert Falco, secretary of state for the elderly.
While other European governments have not reported the huge death toll of France, signs are emerging of significant spikes in deaths in several countries.
The Central Bureau for Statistics said the heat claimed 500 to 1,000 lives in the Netherlands, and Portugal's Health Ministry estimated more than 1,300 dead.
Italy's Health Ministry has refused to give figures, but calls to several major cities found marked increases in deaths compared with last year. Genoa had 693 in the first 18 days of August, compared with 475 in the whole month last year. In Turin, 732 died, more than 500 of them over 70, compared with 388 last year. (49)
The Heritage study also notes that two thirds of children in poverty are in single parent homes. The following graph illustrates this and also shows that back married families, have close to the same poverty rate as white married families. The larger difference between the poverty rates of single mothers is probably because a larger proportion of black single mothers (around 60% - see Chart 58) were 'trapped' on welfare. The last year shown is 1995. Chart 34 (43):
In many of our charts we've seen positive developments since Welfare Reform, falling unemployment, falling out-of-wedlock births and falling poverty. Are they all due to Welfare Reform or something else? The following graphs take a closer look at Welfare Reform. Remember state reform was implemented around 1992-1994 and national Welfare Reform passed in 1996. Chart Group 2:
Chart 63 (source unknown)
Chart 35 (50):
Income, Earnings, Welfare Use, and Poverty for all Female-Headed Families: 1990—1999