From Welfare to Working Poor: Prioritizing Practice in Research on Employment-Training Programs for the Poor

Abstract

In an effort to better understand relationships among poverty, education, and work, this article uses data from an ethnographic study of two companies in which welfare recipients obtained employment to examine the move from welfare to work. The analysis delineates 23 men's and women's transitions from welfare poor to working poor, and focuses on the ways welfare-generated identities shaped employment training pedagogies, the social organization of the workplaces, and individuals' resistance and accommodation practices at work. Prioritizing Practice While the need to reform welfare is a common topic of conversation these days, little attention has been focused on the welfare recipients who move from welfare to full-time jobs after participating in government-funded employment-training initiatives. One or two men and women, cast as role models in the press, may find a few moments of public recognition, but for most former welfare recipients, the successful transition from welfare makes them invisible in conversations about welfare reform. Yet without a clearer understanding of their circumstances after welfare, moving from the welfare rolls remains the stuff of newspaper anecdotes. This article uses data from ethnographic research on the lived cultural experience of 23 former welfare recipients who left the welfare rolls via government-funded employment-training initiatives to foreground their proffered words and experiences. It gives voice to men and women who have been silenced by their own successful actions, and informs conversations about welfare by examining the role the adult education and training programs played in their move from the welfare rolls to the status of working poor. Welfare Poor to Working Poor: I think they only pay for training when it leads to a poor-paying job