myths about welfare

Five Media Myths About Welfare1. Poor women have more children because of the "financial incentives" of welfare benefits.Repeated studies show no correlation between benefit levels and women's choice to have children. (See, for example, Urban Institute Policy andResearch Report, Fall/93.) States providing relatively higher benefits do not show higher birth rates among recipients.In any case, welfare allowances are far too low to serve as any kind of "incentive": A mother on welfare can expect about $90 in additional AFDC(Aid to Families with Dependent Children) benefits if she has another child.Furthermore, the real value of AFDC benefits, which do not rise with inflation, has fallen 37 percent during the last two decades (The Nation,12/12/94). Birth rates among poor women have not dropped correspondingly.The average family receiving AFDC has 1.9 children -- about the same as the national average.2. We don't subsidize middle-class families.Much of the welfare debate has centered around the idea of "family caps"--denying additional benefits to women who have children while receiving aid. This is often presented as simple justice: "A family that works does not get a raise for having a child. Why then should a family that doesn't work?" columnist Ellen Goodman wrote in the Boston Globe(4/16/92).In fact, of course, families do receive a premium for additional children,in the form of a $2,450 tax deduction. There are also tax credits to partially cover child care expenses, up to a maximum of $2,400 per child. No pundit has suggested that middle-class families base their decision to have children on these "perks."3. The public is fed up with spending money on the poor."The suspicion that poorer people are getting something for nothing is much harder to bear than the visible good fortune of the richer," wrotecolumnist Mary McGrory (Washington Post, 1/15/95). But contrary to suchclaims from media pundits, the general public is not so hard-hearted. In aDecember 1994 poll by the Center for the Study of Policy Attitudes (CSPA),80 percent of respondents agreed that the government has "a responsibility to try to do away with poverty." (Fighting Poverty in America: A Study of American Attitudes, CSPA)Support for "welfare" is lower than support for "assistance to the poor, "but when CSPA asked people about their support for AFDC, described as "thefederal welfare program which provides financial support for unemployed poor single mothers with children," only 21 percent said funding should be cut, while 29 percent said it should be increased.4. We've spent over $5 trillion on welfare since the '60s and it hasn't worked.Conservatives and liberals alike use this claim as proof that federal poverty programs don't work, since after all that "lavish" spending, people are still poor. But spending on AFDC, the program normally referred to as welfare, totaled less than $500 billion from 1964 to 1994--less than 1.5percent of federal outlays for that period, and about what the Pentagon spends in two years.To get the $5 trillion figure, "welfare spending" must be defined to include all means-tested programs, including Medicaid, food stamps, student lunches, scholarship aid and many other programs. Medicaid, which is by far the largest component of the $5 trillion, goes mostly to the elderly and disabled; only about 16 percent of Medicaid spending goes to health carefor AFDC recipients. ("What Do We Spend on 'Welfare'?," Center for Budget and Policy Priorities)Furthermore, the poverty rate did fall between 1964 and 1973, from 19 percent to 11 percent, with the advent of "Great Society" programs. Since the 1970s, economic forces like declining real wages as well as reduced benefit levels have contributed to rising poverty rates.5. Anyone who wants to get off welfare can just get a job.Many welfare recipients do work to supplement meager benefits (Harper's,4/94). But workforce discrimination and the lack of affordable child caremake working outside the home difficult for single mothers. And thelow-wage, no-benefit jobs available to most AFDC recipients simply do notpay enough to lift a family out of poverty.Although it is almost never mentioned in conjunction with the welfare debate, the U.S. Federal Reserve has an official policy of raising interestrates whenever unemployment falls below a certain point--now about 6.2 percent (Extra!, 9-10/94). In other words, if all the unemployed women onwelfare were to find jobs, currently employed people would have to bethrown out of work to keep the economy from "overheating."

In another thread, randman made a claim something along the lines of; that ADC payments (Welfare) was encouraging young poor inner city women to become pregnant and have children out of wedlock because of all of the great benefits they would get.He did not back up this assertion with any reliable sources.

I posted the following referenced article explaining how his claim is actually untrue. He handwaved away this information, claiming that I was "twisting" stats, and simply repeated his original, unsupported claim.I would ask randman to please explain exactly, and in detail, how the stats are "twisted", and also to provide evidence for his further claims that

1) there really was an increase in poor young single women becoming mothers since ADC began.2) That this increase can conclusively be linked primarily or solely to the existence of ADC, and couldn't possibly be due to any other factors, such as a reduction of sex education in schools, reduction in the promotion or availability of birth control, etc.

If you really want this debate to go forward, then try to find an independent source for statistics, not one making a claim, and present rates of illegimaticy prior to Aid to Dependant Children in the African-American community and rates afterwards, and we can discuss the potential reasons involved.

I would ask randman to please explain exactly, and in detail, how the stats are "twisted",

and also to provide evidence for his further claims that1) there really was an increase in poor young single women becoming mothers since ADC began.2) That this increase can conclusively be linked primarily or solely to the existence of ADC, and couldn't possibly be due to any other factors, such as a reduction of sex education in schools, reduction in the promotion or availability of birth control, etc.

1) there really was an increase in poor young single women becoming mothers since ADC began.2) That this increase can conclusively be linked primarily or solely to the existence of ADC, and couldn't possibly be due to any other factors, such as a reduction of sex education in schools, reduction in the promotion or availability of birth control, etc.