Welfare Reform Proposals Research Articles

Us Antipoverty Policy and Reform

Despite decades of a war on poverty that came with proliferating programs and ballooning budgets, the official poverty rate in the United States has stubbornly refused to break from its narrow historical range. This failure stems largely from the methods used to pursue the alleviation of poverty, including a complex and chaotic welfare system that strips the poor of their dignity and their incentive to work. Welfare reform proposals are generally dominated by income support programs such as universal basic income. Although those proposals would indeed simplify the United States’ overwhelming welfare system, experiments with such guaranteed income schemes reveal complex problems with incentives and with a potential for politicization that could be damaging. Policymakers should instead turn to block grants to states, a policy that has real-world empirical support and that would alleviate the knowledge problem suffered by the federal government. States, in turn, should administer income support programs tailored to the individual causes of poverty, implementing work requirements for people who are temporarily disadvantaged and providing direct income to people who are truly unable to work.

Catholic Cacophony: Richard Nixon, the Church, and Welfare Reform

President Richard Nixon’s 1969 welfare reform proposal, the Family Assistance Plan (FAP), debuted to rave reviews from conservatives (who appreciated its work requirement) and liberals (who lauded its minimum income). The two-thirds of Americans who approved of FAP included many Catholics and their bishops. However, Nixon ran out of enthusiasm, and Congress ran out of time. By 1972, the bishops had turned left, insisting on a higher income floor and a work incentive rather than a mandate, whereas many of their congregants had turned right. Nixon stopped courting the bishops and started wooing their flock, helping to ensure his re-election victory and FAP’s legislative defeat.

A 'new politics' of austerity, workfare and gender? The UK coalition government's welfare reform proposals

This paper considers the UK coalition government’s austerity drive, which attempts to garner public support for the reduction or withdrawal of welfare entitlements through appeals to frugality, self-sufficiency and fiscal prudence. In particular, the paper considers the recasting of the former Labour government’s work incentives and welfare disincentives amidst mounting pressures on public expenditure. The reorientation of state assistance towards work, coupled with the proposed simplification of working-age benefits and tax credits, is argued to present a particular challenge to the financial security and autonomy of women, signalling the end of the process of modernizing the welfare system that was forged around the single earner family model in the period of post-war austerity.

Campaigning on expertise: how the OECD framed EU welfare and labour market policies – and why success could trigger failure

This article explains how the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) assumed a leadership role in creating and disseminating liberal welfare reform and labour market policy proposals between 1994 and 2001. The article first sketches the increased Europeanization of welfare and labour market policies throughout the 1990s. The second part examines how international organizations such as the OECD influence agenda-setting at different levels of policy-making by providing a controlled environment for the creation, development and dissemination of political discourse. The OECD’s influence on policy-making can be explained through an analysis of the specific features of its ‘organizational discourse’, dominated by liberal economists, and characterized by the exclusion of interest groups. The third part takes the OECD Jobs Study (1994)as an exemplary case of its organizational discourse and demonstrates how the OECD utilized this study to bridge the gap between abstract liberal economic beliefs and concrete agenda-setting efforts. It underlines the high degree of influence of the Jobs Study on the EU’s subsequent European Employment Strategy (EES). The conclusion poses the question: to what extent could the OECD’s ‘campaigning on expertise’ potentially weaken its long-term institutional interests if the EU chooses to ‘take over’ OECD discourses wholesale – thereby leaving less organizational space for the OECD in the future?

Reforming Social Welfare as We Know It? A Microsimulation Study for Germany

Social assistance and unemployment assistance, which provide means tested income support (social welfare) without pre-specified time limits, are viewed as one important reason for the persistently high level of unemployment in Germany by many economists. In order to increase work incentives and, at the same time, reduce social expenditures there have been various proposals to reform social welfare in the recent German policy debate. We analyse a specific reform proposal with the following components: (i) an integration of unemployment assistance and social assistance; (ii) a substantial reduction of the social assistance level for employable persons who choose not to work; (iii) improved incentives to take up work by a combination of a reduction of the social assistance withdrawal rate and an earnings-related tax credit. The expected employment and fiscal effects of this welfare reform proposal are simulated on the basis of an econometrically estimated partialequilibrium labour supply/demand model embedded in a detailed tax-benefit microsimulation model. We find that the reductions in net social expenditures may be substantial, although the expected labour supply and employment effects of this reform are much smaller than is typically assumed by contributors to recent discussions on the potential labour market effects of welfare reforms in Germany. Furthermore, these employment gains come at the cost of a substantial expansion of public-works jobs.

Policies, Principles, and Polls: Bill Clinton’s Third Way Welfare Politics 1992–1996

Bill Clinton in his 1992 presidential campaign promised that, if elected, he would bring about the “end of welfare as we know it.” This catchy election pledge aimed to address middle class concerns about so–called welfare dependency while also arguing that the government had an important role to play in fighting poverty and unemployment. Clinton’s Third Way position, at best, offered a way out of the liberal/conservative impasse on how to effectively reform America’s welfare system. At worst, Clinton’s position undermined the concept of welfare entitlements that the Democratic Party had established in America. As it turned out, in 1996 during the lead up to that year’s presidential election, President Clinton signed into law the most significant federal welfare Act since the 1960s. However, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) that Clinton signed had largely been drafted by congressional Republicans. This article draws on interviews with three of Clinton’s senior welfare advisers to examine his welfare reform proposals and politics. It concludes that the failure of Clinton’s Third Way welfare agenda opened the way for more conservative reforms. This experience is illustrative of the pitfalls of Third Way politics with its mix of post–entitlement welfare policies and hard–nosed electoral positioning.

Third way social policy: Clinton’s legacy?

English This article examines the success of the Clinton administration in developing a distinctive third way agenda in social policy by studying the record of the administration through the lens of ‘pre-emptive presidential leadership’ as outlined by Stephen Skowronek. Skowronek sees this as a leadership style which is decidedly instrumental in its outlook, and which is thus unlikely to develop a lasting ideological legacy. Clinton’s initial healthcare and welfare reform proposals, however, did have certain third way characteristics as they combined elements of liberal and conservative discourse. This, though, was their undoing as the proposals were too politically ambiguous to make legislative progress. The healthcare plan was denounced as big government liberalism and welfare reform took a distinctly rightward turn. Clinton thus failed to create an ideological space for third way ideas and eventually resorted to the more straightforward use of social policy questions for immediate political advantage.

Compensatory Justice and Basic Income

What is the most plausible and feasible conception of compensatory justice (CJ)? What conditions are required to achieve it? The general assertion of this chapter is that the more favorable the conditions under which people can freely choose their labor market careers, the more scope there is for CJ. More specifically, an economy with an unconditional basic income (BI) – one sufficient to cover the basic needs according to the prevailing standard of living – fulfills the conditions required from the (economist’s) viewpoint of CJ, and is better than a conditional system of social security with a guaranteed social minimum at the same or even somewhat higher level. This topic is of interest for welfare state reform proposals in both Europe (characterized by high unemployment, modest income inequality and generous social benefits) and the US (low unemployment, high and increasing income inequality along with the rise of the working poor). If CJ is considered as an important ideal, then the present move from lax welfare to workfare (see Figure 1 in the Introduction) in both Europe and the US is not the right way. In the same vein, to top up the income of the working poor by means of an EITC as is the case in the US, or to give employers marginal wage subsidies to raise the demand for low wage workers, does not improve the bargaining position of workers towards employers, and hence does not help to achieve CJ.

Nixon's Welfare Reform: Enacting Historical Contradictions of Poverty Discourses

This essay examines a 1969 speech by President Nixon that introduced Americans to his Family Assistance Plan, a welfare reform proposal that would have provided poor families with a minimum income guarantee. I argue that historical contradictions of poverty discourses informed Nixon's speech and frustrated his attempt to articulate a new approach to federal welfare policy.

The Politics of Welfare Reform in Wisconsin

Past research on welfare politics is mostly about why the liberal welfare reform proposals of the 1960s and 1970s were defeated. The politics of the more conservative 1980s and 1990s, less studied, include several messy compromises between the parties and a clear-cut conservative backlash-the 1996 federal welfare reform. Wisconsin, home of the nation's most radical reform, suggests a more promising pattern-bipartisan concordat. The state imposed severe work requirements on welfare adults while, at the same time, providing unprecedented subsidies for the working poor. The political basis was unusual agreement among the parties coupled with the weakness of outside veto groups. Background factors included Wisconsin's conservative society and a masterful government, the heir of Progressivism. In Wisconsin, liberals accepted the end of entitlement, while conservatives accepted an expanded antipoverty policy. If other states, or the nation, did likewise, the welfare state would be more strongly founded.

Making Women and Children Matter

This interdisciplinary article analyzes recent federal welfare legislation and welfare reform proposals at the state level from the perspective of feminist ethics. Drawing on feminist social theory and welfare regime analysis, it critically explores the presuppositions about economic value, dependence, and the common good which underlie conservative, liberal and progressive proposals. The work of feminist scholars and activists is the basis for principles for public policy based on interdependence, shared responsibility, and valuing care-giving activities, which more adequately promote the well-being of women, children, and families than current programs.

Clinton's Domestic Policy Makers

The concept of “welfare dependency” is a hot topic in political circles. Although pending Republican plans have seized much attention, the reform stage was recently occupied by President Clinton. This paper examines Clinton's welfare reform proposal (the 1994 Work and Responsibility Act). The article reviews the Act's objectives before it explores the process in which the Act was formed. Moreover, the paper focuses on the variable of “decision making inclusiveness.” Driven by the “who wrote the policy” question, the study inspects the social backgrounds of Clinton's domestic policy makers. In the end, this analysis shows that the policy formation process was governed by an elite group of corporate executives, tliink tank intellectuals, and establishment lawyers.

Teenage Childbearing and Personal Responsibility: An Alternative View

The introduction to this article which reexamines assumptions about the social costs of adolescent child-bearing in the US notes that proposals to create incentives and punishments to alter adolescent child-bearing behavior are receiving wide support from disparate political groups while diverting energy from searching debate about the nature of poverty. The article then describes the influence of assumptions about adolescent child-bearing on recent welfare reform proposals and legislation. A hard look at the consequences of adolescent child-bearing follows and reveals that the scientific evidence of a causal relationship between adolescent child-bearing and welfare dependency or between adolescent child-bearing and the health and development of the children of teen-age mothers is more modest and equivocal than commonly believed. Next claims of enormous social costs associated with adolescent parenting are debunked as exaggerations and it is noted that a full and careful accounting of the social costs remains to be performed. Such an accounting may in fact reveal higher social costs if these mothers delayed child-bearing. The article continues by reconstructing the popularized image that presents the adolescent mother as a single parent. In fact most teenage mothers are 18-19 years old about 40% are married and those who are not married benefit from the support and guidance of others. The life prospects of adolescents living in poverty are then contrasted with middle-income adolescents to show that most poor teenagers have little to gain by postponing parenthood. Finally the article spells out an alternative view of the rationality of adolescent child-bearing and questions the value of making reduction of teenage child-bearing an important goal of welfare reform instead of developing more effective general antipoverty policies.

The Ideology of Welfare Reform: Deconstructing Stigma

Recent welfare reform proposals (in particular, Personal Responsibility Act of 1995) are grounded in a neoconservative critique of welfare (Gilder, 1995; Murray, 1984/1994). These legislative proposals are centered around recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) rather than focused on economic structural reform. The Personal Responsibility Act of 1995 (H.R. 4) and Republican Party's Contract with America (Gingrich et al., 1994) assume that defects in AFDC mothers, not welfare state or structure of U.S. economy, are to blame for expansion of AFDC rolls and growing number of people living below poverty line: Isn't it time for government to encourage work rather than rewarding dependency? The Great Society has had unintended consequence of snaring millions of Americans into welfare trap. Government programs designed to give a helping hand to neediest of Americans have instead bred illegitimacy, crime, illiteracy, and more poverty. Our Contract with America will change this destructive social behavior by requiring welfare recipients to take personal responsibility for decisions they make. (p. 65) This article argues that labels associated with AFDC recipiency and rooted in these neoconservative ideas continue to serve as a political tool for current welfare reform movement to promote a regressive welfare reform system. This article deconstructs those labels, particularly those used in Personal Responsibility Act of 1995. In this article, deconstruction refers to process of analyzing stigma into its component concepts, exposing these concepts as mere prejudice, and leaving a path open to reinterpret (that is, to construct) a new paradigm. This deconstruction has practical implications for social work because it widens parameters of welfare reform debate and suggests alternative interpretations of needs of AFDC mothers. Deconstructing Stigma The stigma paradigm hinges on use of concepts of dependence, addiction, and illegitimacy and promiscuity to describe single mothers and children whose fathers are absent. The terms' impact on development of welfare programs is not new; however, stigma has become more difficult to expose in an era in which women are alleged to have made significant gains in economic and social equality. Deconstructing Dependence The concept of dependence has been used by advocates of restrictive welfare policies to refer to moral and psychological deficiencies. Dependence is a sufficient condition for being considered mentally unfit. Independence is a necessary condition for being considered mentally fit. Murray (1984/1994) even referred to those who are self-sufficient as the good people. The genealogy of dependence-independence dichotomy was traced by Fraser and Gordon (1994), who found that concept of dependence changed from a social and economic category in preindustrial society to a moral and psychological category in postindustrial society. During this shift single-earner family was phased out; women were expected to become wage earners: The combined results of these developments is to increase stigma of dependency. With all legal and political dependency now illegitimate, and with wives' economic dependency now contested, there is no longer any self-evidently good adult dependency in post-industrial society. Rather, all dependency is suspect, and independence is enjoined upon everyone. Independence, however, remains identified with wage labor. (p. 324) Dependence did not always carry a stigma. Aid to Dependent Children (ADC), established in 1935, and an earlier version of AFDC program discouraged participation of women in labor force by reducing working recipient's grant by 100 percent of earnings. Proper motherhood and control of women's sexuality - not self-sufficiency - were goals. …

Welfare vs “Cyberfare”

Abstract Due to the continual reliance on an outdated paradigm, current welfare reform proposals fail to adequately address the fundamental problems behind the welfare system itself. Obstacles to welfare reform abound, yet are not insurmountable with a redefinition of the federal role and a new overall way of thinking. Through the reexamination of current and past policies and existing cultural mores, the welfare system could, be recreated to rely on a new paradigm: cyberfare. Cyberfare is an economic and social support system which addresses the issues associated with an information/technology age, global economy, and the changing role of families and social institutions. Although the incorporation of cyberfare and the reforming of the welfare system is not without its challenges, it is vital to solving the poverty problem in American society.

Welfare Reform and Nutrition Education: Alternative Strategies to Address the Challenges of the Future

Legislative actions related to welfare reform may affect the future of nutrition education. Three important elements of welfare reform proposals are work requirements, federal spending limits, and delegation of program responsibility to the states. These elements could affect nutrition educators through changes in the funding and organizational structure of client services, a decline in economic conditions for some low-income households, and greater difficulties in reaching some high-risk clients. This article reviews such issues and suggests alternative strategies for nutritionists to use in addressing the challenges of the future.

Welfare reform in the United States: A background paper

Abstract A remarkable convergence of political developments produced a major change in the U.S. welfare system in 1996: the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. This article reviews recent welfare policy history in the United States, surveys the major issues in welfare reform, outlines Democratic and Republican proposals, and summarizes the new legislation. It is argued that the new initiative will increase the hardship experienced by the poor over at least the next few years. The act's changes in federal funding for public assistance plus state responses to new fiscal incentives the legislation creates are likely over time to increase, rather than reduce, the federal role in welfare finance, if not administration. The new welfare system presents an administrative and political challenge to governors and indirectly to political leadership in the nation's cities. Despite reduced federal regulation of public assistance, the federal government still has an important role in progra...

Programs and Policies for Working Poor Families: Major Trends and Some Research Issues

Major welfare reform proposals focus on moving recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) from economic dependency to self-sufficiency through employment. Success in reaching this goal depends on whether recipients can secure adequately paying, permanent employment. This seems unlikely for many in that, even if they find jobs, they may well join the ranks of the working poor. This article provides a critical overview of studies concerning the working poor and recent federal legislation that seeks to reduce their problems. Further legislation, research, and careful consideration of welfare reform self-sufficiency goals for AFDC recipients are proposed.

Why can't we care for our own children?

This is a response to the welfare reform proposal put forward by the Economists' Policy Group for Women's Issues. It argues that their policy proposal will not solve the economic problems of AFDC recipients because: many recipients lack the education and skills necessary for work that will support their families; the minimum wage is too low; and there is an undersupply of jobs that will support a family.

Fashioning a Work-Based Strategy for Welfare Reform Based on International Human Rights Doctrine

The role of work in debates over welfare reform in the United States is analyzed. Five issues are identified and discussed under this heading, with special emphasis on the question of whether enough jobs exist to make it possible for all able-bodied welfare recipients to find paid employment in the regular labor market. It is argued that there are not enough jobs available--not even low-wage jobs--to make this a reasonable goal, and that neither conservatives nor liberals have faced up to the dilemma posed by this job shortage. International human rights doctrine concerning the availability of work at decent wages is cited in support of the proposition that the government should be held accountable for filling this job gap, not only for welfare recipients but for all other job-seekers as well. The costs of a hypothetical jobs program capable of achieving this goal are assessed, with the surprising result that it might actually save the public money. It is suggested that such a program could constitute an effective alternative to current welfare reform proposals.