A crisis of caring: a Catholic critique of American welfare reform.

• Author: Rougeau, Vincent D.

INTRODUCTION

The current deterioration of the American economy is bringing new attention to the problem of poverty in the United States. After falling over the last few years, the number of Americans living in poverty has begun to rise once again. (1) Notwithstanding the achievements of recent "welfare reforms," the American poor continue to be numerous by any measure.

Unfortunately, decades of affluence have exacerbated American tendencies to view liberal concepts such as freedom, autonomy, tolerance, and choice in ways that accentuate personal autonomy over community integration. These liberal values have been increasingly unhinged from strong countervailing principles like duty and responsibility, and many Americans feel no strong impetus to sacrifice in order to help the weakest members of their society.

This situation continues unabated as a lack of common purpose in American life and a materialistic vision of society have made it extremely difficult for American law and public policy to confront poverty in the United States in a meaningful way. After explaining how strong propensities toward materialism and individualism in American culture have affected views toward welfare in the United States, I will explain how current American reforms of economic assistance for the poor are creatures of a political rendering of poverty that fails to take seriously the low regard in which many Americans hold the poor. From this it becomes clear that, in the long run little should be expected from American welfare reform. For an alternative vision, I will draw on Catholic social thought and David Hollenbach's recent work in Christian ethics to argue that the principles of solidarity and the common good as understood in Catholic social thought would: (1) offer the poor a more integrated role in American society, (2) function as a corrective to the ongoing erosion of a sense of communal responsibility in American culture, and (3) provide the theoretical foundation for a more comprehensive structure of income and social support for the American poor.

1. MORE PRECIOUS FOR WHAT THEY HAVE THAN FOR WHO THEY ARE: WELFARE REFORM IN A MATERIAL WORLD

   The trend toward an excessively inward looking and materialistic culture has a long history in the United States. As early as the 1950s a trend was identified, and the tragic effects it would have on the lives of the American poor were recognized. In 1957, Catholic theologian John Courtney Murray wrote that human dignity was severely threatened by what he termed American "practical materialism." (3) As increasing numbers of Americans adopted the belief that the accumulation of material goods and wealth was the highest attainment of human endeavor, Murray feared that deeper understandings of human dignity and purpose in American life would be destroyed:

   [American practical materialism] has had, in fact, one dominating ideal: the conquest of the material world.... It has made one promise: a more abundant life for the ordinary man and woman, the abundance being ultimately in physical comfort. It has had one technique of social progress: the exploitation, for all they are worth in cold hard cash, of the resources of the land and forest and stream, and of the mechanical inventiveness of its citizens. It has recognized one supreme law: supply and demand. It has had one standard of value: the quantitative, that judges that best which is biggest. It has aimed at one order: the economic. It confers one accolade on those who serve it: wealth. It knows one evil: poverty. (4) In an American society obsessed with material consumption and wealth creation, the existence of the poor and the intractable nature of poverty are discomforting signs of the limits of the nation's materialistic ethos. It also reveals that core ideologies, such as unfettered individual liberty, and the inevitability of American-style capitalism and political democracy have failed to realize an end to poverty. But rather than question these shibboleths, Americans instead have become more cynical and less compassionate toward the poor. (5) Poverty is seen as a failure of personal virtue, as opposed to a statement on the limits of an economic and social structure that exalts atomized individualism and consistently devalues communal sacrifice and sharing. (6) Indeed, commentators abroad have looked with increasing concern at these directions in American culture; the United States is virtually alone in the industrialized world in the degree to which it abandons the individual to the whims of the economy and in its rejection of traditional community checks on individual freedom of action. (7)

   An intense American focus on individual freedom and free market liberalism has distorted the way Americans view the poor and the impact of poverty within American society. By and large, Americans take a relatively uncritical view of the current state of American economic life and the costs the economic system exacts from the nation's social fabric. One way Americans cope with the economic and social stress inherent in capitalism is by viewing one's ability to avoid poverty and dependence as a mark of strength and moral superiority. The poor thus become weak, morally flawed, and ultimately, responsible for their own problems. In his book, The War Against the Poor, Herbert Gans termed this the "ideology of undeservingness." (8) One important consequence of this ideology is that:

   [i]f poor people do not behave according to the rules set by mainstream America, they must be undeserving. They are undeserving because they believe in and therefore practice bad values, suggesting that they do not want to be part of mainstream America culturally or socially. As a result of bad values and practices, undeservingness has become a major cause of contemporary poverty. If poor people gave up these values, their poverty would decline automatically, and mainstream Americans would be ready to help them, as they help other, "deserving" poor people. (9) The passage into law of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 ("PRWORA") (10) has revealed this ideology in full flower, most particularly in the view that participation in the paid labor force should be a key indicator of whether a poor person deserves help from the state. (11) Even the key terms in the title of the legislation--"personal responsibility" and "work opportunity"--demonstrate the centrality of individualistic and market-oriented values in American welfare policy. Upon its passage, President Clinton hailed the PRWORA as the "end of welfare as we know it." (12) What ended was the political consensus that supported the concept of welfare as an entitlement provided by the federal government. (13)

   1. "Personal Responsibility" and "Work Opportunity"

      By the mid-1990s, the social and economic changes of the 1960s and 1970s and the conservative political reaction these changes produced in the 1980s had revealed important flaws and tensions in the American system of economic provision for the poor. (14) These social changes, however, ought to have suggested to members of Congress that it was time for a broad review of the American system of entitlements. Instead, Depression-era and post-World War II entitlements that benefited those of middle- and upper-income, such as the home mortgage interest deduction, farm subsidies, and Social Security became sacred cows while the target for reduction in spending was aid to the poor. "[A]lthough government spending on the non-poor far exceeds expenditures directed to the poor, it is the entitlement programs aimed at the poor which have received the scrutiny of the budget-cutters and provided the ammunition to the enemies of big government." (15) These elements of the welfare system continued to have profound impact on the mid-1990s reforms, helping to shape the structure of the PRWORA.

      The details of the PRWORA are complex, but a focus on the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families ("TANF") program highlights several key aspects of the legislation that are particularly significant. TANF ended welfare as a federal entitlement, (16) turning over the reins to the states. TANF is funded through a "block grant" or lump-sum payment to each state, and the states are given wide discretion to set their own criteria for eligibility. TANF also created a block grant to support childcare for low-income families. Adults receiving benefits were required to begin working within two years of receiving aid with certain exceptions for parents of children under a year of age. (17)

      Despite the wide discretion given to states in administering the program, certain limits placed on the use of money are particularly notable for their role in furthering the legislation's stated goals of achieving independence through work, reducing out-of-wedlock pregnancies, and encouraging the creation of two-parent families. (18) The money from these block grants cannot be used for any welfare recipient who has received welfare for more than five years, though up to 20% of a state's welfare caseload can be exempted from this time limit. No funds may be used for a recipient who does not work after two years. Failure to comply with these and other work requirements means that a state's block grant will be reduced. States have the option to deny benefits to children born to welfare recipients, individuals convicted of drug-related felonies, and unwed parents under age 18 who do not live with an adult or attend school. In addition, newcomers from states with lower benefit amounts can be given the lower amount for up to twelve months. (19)

      Much has been made of the success of the TANF programs in getting welfare recipients into jobs and off the welfare rolls. In recent legislative proposals to reauthorize TANF, Congress found that: (1) there had been dramatic increases in the employment and earnings of current and former welfare recipients, (2) welfare...