Return to Welfare; History, Results and Reform
More About this Research
(More about this site and history) Several people have emailed me asking permission to cite this article. Permission is granted with pleasure as long as credit is given. I would be curious to read the research you complete. Also, see Academic Bias.
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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 63 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!
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5. Seems interesting, but how do you know all this and how do I know that you and/or your sources aren't biased or twisted?
Well, I spent a great deal of time researching and reading up on this subject and tried to do it with an open mind. I wrote in the beginning that my reason for researching and writing this piece was to find the truth and brush away the rhetoric from all sides. Almost all of my sources are from non partisan government agencies. I have every chart and graph linked at the bottom of the page and have tried to fully document the sources for the charts I have had to create.
The most frequently cited source, besides the Census bureau and other government data sources was the Wisconsin Institute on Poverty, which posses a vast array of academic studies and papers. In my review of their papers I found many differing points of view. I believe in the past they were considered to have liberal leanings.
I have used some studies and charts from Conservative groups, such as the Heritage Foundation, but these generally have a good academic reputations (although, of course, this depends on who you ask :) ) and come down hard on both Republicans and Democrats. I often collaborated their findings with other sources. Sometimes a source will 'put into words' or 'put into picture', or provide an example of a point/concept that captures what I had been trying to express in this paper.
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7. What about other academic research? Has anyone else come to the same conclusions as you independently?
Yes. The general themes in this paper have been argued in other literature for some time, but there is a noted air of caution in academia, which exists for a number of reasons.
First, without the stark results of Welfare Reform you only see 'one side' of the rising curves, which makes it easy to argue that other factors are involved. Only recent papers can show the new effects. I have been somewhat hobbled by this, as you might have seen, many of the graphs I found ended before the effects of Welfare Reform could be shown.
Secondly, for unknown reasons, much research seems to concentrate on limited time periods and attempt to certify specific correlations and thus ignores the 'big picture'. A number of papers have been written comparing state programs and contrasting single motherhood with benefits, but these have limitations, as I discuss later. The Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty found:
The attention given to the issue of births outside of marriage in the political debate over welfare reform is growing, but its relevance is controversial. Shortly after the passage of WRA (Work and Responsibility Act) in June 1994, a group of 79 prominent scholars in fields related to poverty and welfare reform issued a statement denying that welfare programs are among the “primary reasons” for trends in out-of-wedlock births. They argued that the link between welfare and such births is belied by two facts: (1) nonmarital birth rates have been rising as welfare benefits have been falling, and (2) state-to-state variation in AFDC payments is not closely linked to state-to-state variation in out-of-wedlock childbearing. (69)
Thirdly, the subject is controversial and I am free to be as blunt and plain spoken as I desire without worrying about who I offend. I can draw conclusions that other researchers might believe, but can't publicly state without overwhelming evidence. This is one of the reasons why I often cite multiple examples and may sometimes go into more detail then the average reader thinks is necessary - I want to make my reasoning and conclusions as solid as possible.
Fourthly, reducing the language and methods of this paper to simple terms and writing for a general audience, may offer advantages arising from this new perspective (neoperspective). Being able to cut through the perquisite red tape and goggly glooup found in academic papers was refreshing. This freedom also enabled me to pull together disparate examples of welfare having the same effect on different groups (more on this further on).
Fifthly, the well documented leftward tilt (politically) of researchers, academics and social workers may dictate where their investigations take them. I cannot imagine such strong conclusions would be very popular in some quarters.
Currently, most researchers do agree with my general findings,
but unlike myself, are not prepared to say that welfare was almost solely responsible for the
gradual dissolution/breakup of poorer families. The previous Wisconsin Institute for Research on
Poverty study added (69)
The independent role of AFDC as a cause of rising single parenthood is a much
discussed issue.
Dr. Liz Dunn, a professor at the University of Oswego states:
It has been estimated that welfare benefits caused a 10 to 50% reduction in work hours among recipients;
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In my research I used left of center sources, such as the Brookings institute and Urban Institute, and have found that they generally agree with my basic premises, like the success of Welfare Reform (although, as we will see, they didn't support it at the time). I treated these sources the same way as my more Conservative sources: Trust but Verify.
I always have found it annoying when quotes are selectively snipped and so I have refrained from doing this even if the rest of what someone is saying is unrelated. If you find I am selectively quoting sources or misrepresenting any findings please leave a comment and, if your point is valid, or I am unclear in an explanation, I will change or modify your particular concern. If I relied on that specific concern to make conclusions, I may reevaluate those conclusions in light of the new evidence. As the notoriously flip-flopping economist John Maynard Keynes explained:
When my information changes, I change my opinion. What do you do, Sir? (68)
But, if my conclusions or 'tone' seem to tilt toward the Conservative view of welfare, I make no apologies because that is where the facts point. I will not tamper my criticism of those who perpetuated and, to this day, demagogue this very, very important issue. This was not written to find a 'compromise' and come up with 'fair' conclusions in the ideological middle. To do so would not be intellectually honest.
Also, see Academic Bias.
Return to Welfare; History, Results and Reform