The Poverty of Welfare Reform.

• Author: Crooms, Lisa A.

[P]erhaps most important, we are gaining ground in restoring fundamental values. The crime rate, the welfare and food stamp rolls, the poverty rate and the teen pregnancy rate are all down. And as they go down, prospects for America's future go up. We live in an age of possibility."(1)

On January 23, 1996, President Bill Clinton so delivered his fourth State of the Union address. In it, he defined "our first challenge: to cherish our children and strengthen the American family."(2) Clinton continued: "For too long our welfare system has undermined the values of family and work instead of supporting them . . . . I challenge people on welfare to make the most of this opportunity for independence. And I challenge American businesses to give people on welfare the chance."(3)

Clinton's remarks illustrate how the current bipartisan discourse about welfare reform frames the issue of poverty as one of moral failure and personal irresponsibility fueled by the financial incentives of public assistance.(4) Those who view poverty in this way believe that the social contract imposes on members of society a duty to "contribute . . . by supporting themselves and their families if they can" (Handler, p. 3), and they see one's ability to fulfill this duty largely as a matter of individual effort.(5) For the able-bodied, failure to discharge this duty raises an irrebuttable presumption of personal and civic irresponsibility that strips them of their right to human dignity.(6)

This term of the social contact, the defining conundrum of U.S. social welfare policy, rests between two conflicting sets of principles. On the one hand, individualism, opportunity, and liberty lie at the center of the liberal foundation of U.S. national identity. "Throughout . . . history, Americans have enthusiastically embraced individualism [and the c]losly associated . . . concept of self-reliance."(7) These ideas are coupled with "the widely shared belief that the United States is a land where opportunities exist for all who are willing to work for them and that individual virtue and talent can overshadow the constraints of class, race or ethnicity" (Rank, p. 200). On the other hand, real need and poverty, most starkly evidenced by the severe maldistribution of wealth, exist in this regime that legally protects the rights of property holders while affording no parallel legal right to fulfillment of one's basic needs.(8) Within this context, the poor and images of poverty control the behavior of the nonpoor and make them honor the terms of the social contract (Handler, p. 148).

Against this backdrop social welfare policy makers construct proposals purportedly designed to respond to real need and suffering without threatening the fundamental values of work, family, and social order (Handler, p. 2). To them, public assistance must satisfy three requirements: (1) it must not encourage able-bodied workers, particularly those in low-wage jobs, to abandon their employment;(9) (2) it must not encourage recipients to abandon proper gender roles;(10) and (3) it must not facilitate the anarchy and lawlessness that lie in the wake of the loss of social order (Handler, p. 2).

Whether these requirements have anything to do with eradicating poverty depends entirely on one's views about poverty and its causes.(11) For those who see poverty as a question of moral failure, placing such requirements on welfare recipients seems completely warranted.(12) For those who see it as a combination of structural flaws and individual behavior, focusing on moral failure misses the point.(13) This essay considers two books about the current social welfare policy discourse which adopt the latter view of poverty and critize the former. Joel F. Handler(14) and Mark Robert Rank(15) pose similar questions in order to expose the illusory "logic" of the current welfare reform rhetoric. They ask, "Why [is] there so much anger [against welfare recipients] with so little evidence to justify it?"(16) "Why does society cling to the basic assumptions that underlie welfare policy when it is so clear that they do not comport with reality? ... What is this incessant need to blame the victim?" (Handler, p. 8).

Both books address these questions, but they do so from different perspectives. Handler criticizes the current Democratic and Republican proposals to reform the welfare system. He argues that these proposals affirm "majoritarian values through the creation of deviants" and hold "[t]he poor ... hostage to make sure that the rest of us behave" (Handler, p. 9). Rank functions as ethnographer, providing a true sense of welfare recipients and proving that they are "not that different from you or me -- no better, no worse."(17) He sets his sights on the much-maligned welfare queen, determined to challenge her primacy in mainstream social welfare policy discourse.(18) Read together, these authors provide an interlocking explanation and critique of the current mainstream social welfare policy proposals.(19)

The remainder of this essay is divided into five parts. Part I considers the marriage of morality and law within the context of social welfare policy, in general, and the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, in particular. Part II discusses Handler's views of the welfare reform "Consensus" and "the culture of poverty" thesis it embraces as evidenced by the assumptions on which the Consensus is based. Part III focuses on the Consensus' "work versus welfare" paradigm and seeks to expose the myths on which this paradigm relies. These myths include not only that welfare recipients do not work for wages but also that if welfare recipients are forced to work for wages, then their economic well-being will be enhanced significantly as illustrated by "successful" welfare-to-work programs as implemented by states such as California. Part IV analyzes both the Consensus' desire to modify the behavior of welfare recipients and Rank's claims that such a desire is unwarranted because, contrary to popular belief, the poor are no different from the non-poor. Finally, it concludes with some thoughts about the stigma of negritude and its impact on the apparent "logic" of the Consensus, its assumptions and its proposed welfare reforms.

1. MORALITY, LAW, AND WELFARE

   Social welfare policy arises at the intersection of morality with law and policy -- the point at which both Handler and Rank center their analyses of the current mainstream welfare-reform debate.(20) Focusing on the AFDC(21) program, Handler characterizes the mainstream's proposals to reform the program as a series of "right-flanking" moves by political liberals and conservatives at both the national and the state level out of which emerged bipartisan consensus.(22) Both authors recognize the public ambivalence towards AFDC, an ambivalence that reflects the perceived immorality of AFDC recipients and their apparent unwillingness to abide by the social norms of mainstream life (Handler, pp. 90-94). This ambivalence leads to policy initiatives designed to make individuals more responsible but that pay little attention to the structural forces that prevent the poor from escaping poverty.(23)

   Handler predicts that the current round of reforms, the latest installment in an ongoing struggle, will meet a fate no different from that of its misguided and ill-conceived predecessors (Handler, p. 112). The mainstream's discourse reiterates the same themes, issues, and choices raised over the centuries as societies have considered their own needs.(24) In most instances the resolution of this issue becomes inextricably linked to morality as societies seek to uphold the obligation of each man to support himself and his family. This link has grown especially strong in the United States, where "the notion that there are no socioeconomic systemic flaws that produce poverty" is "[f]undamental to our cultural order."(25) Indeed, the "enthusiastic[] celebrat[ion of] ... the Horatio Algers, the Abraham Lincolns, or the Clarence Thomases of this country" seems crucial to maintaing our collective faith in "the American dream ... of opportunity" (Rank, pp. 200-01). In this context "individual flaws merely produce the appearance of system failure," and people become scapegoats for conditions and circumstances largely beyond their control.(26) Those who do not succeed are thought to deserve the punitive measures designed to make them conform (Rank, p. 171). Their apparent immorality permits policy makers to propose draconian and arguably illegal measures in the name of reforming their "deviant" and intolerable ways. Handler observes, however, that despite these efforts to reform welfare, "for the vast majority of [AFDC recipients] life will go on much as before, unless dramatic changes take place in America's labor markets and the larger environment."(27)

2. HANDLER'S CONSENSUS AND THE "CULTURE OF POVERTY"

   Handler's work confronts four "key assumptions" about the nature of poverty and its cures: (1) welfare dependency is a moral issue; (2) welfare destroys the work ethic; (3) welfare should modify individual behavior to comport with mainstream norms; and (4) reform efforts should be directed at adults (Handler, p. 4). For Handler, these assumptions best capture the apparent "logic" of the Consensus position as well as its false dichotomy between work and welfare.(28) The Consensus not only frames the issue as one of welfare versus work but also diagnoses a "culture of poverty" that drives the poor.(29)

   The culture-of-poverty theory, which preoccupies the current mainstream discourse, views the black ghetto underclass as the metaphor for all the problems of welfare. Specifically, the image of the black single mother living in a devastated inner-city community figures prominently in the mainstream welfare reform discourse.(30) As Rank comments, "Welfare dependency is viewed as part of a cultural process in which children learn from their parents and...