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The Presidential Politics of Welfare Reform
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20719 |
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Section : |
SPECIAL SECTION
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1992 |
1,978 Words |
| Author
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Neil Patel
Neil Patel is a program officer at the National Forum
Foundation Washington, D.C. |
The morning after the riots erupted in Los Angeles this spring, many of the streets in the south-central part of the city were deserted. The threat of drive-by shootings and random violence kept most citizens indoors. In one part of the troubled area, however, a queue was forming. At the Hancock Station Post Office on South Vermont Avenue, hundreds of people waited to pick up their government checks. Many Los Angeles mailmen had decided that while snow, rain, heat, or gloom of night might be fine riots were just too dangerous; as a result, home delivery was suspended in much the city. Nothing, however, could deter the people in this crowd from receiving their primary means of support: welfare.
American welfare policy has been a dismal failure. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson kicked off the War on Poverty with the following words: "Today for the first time in all the history of the human race a great nation is able to make and is willing to make a commitment to eradicate poverty among its people." Twenty-eight years later, the percentage of poor Americans remains the same, as it was when Johnson was president. Worse, the permanent underclass has grown exponentially. In 1965, one black family in twenty was welfare; now one in five black families is one the dole. Almost one out of seven children receives Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and 10 percent of Americans get food stamps. What started as a means to support widows and orphans has blossomed into the biggest employer in large sections of American cities. Today, according to Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan, only about 2 percent of women receiving AFDC are widows. Many of the rest are members of families who have been on welfare for generations.
Widespread dependency on government has had unintended but devastating consequences. The national, and particularly black, illegitimacy rate has skyrocketed, with its myriad attendant social ills. Metro sections of papers across the country keep a running tally of the consequences of the disintegration of poor families: homicide, drug addiction, and crime. In 1960 only 5 percent of babies born in America were illegitimate. By 1992 the percentage had climbed to 26. In many black neighborhoods, more than 65 percent of children grow up without a father. A 1990 study at the University of Washington concluded that illegitimate births among teenagers are proportionally related to the amount of welfare benefits they receive. The study showed that an additional $200 a month in benefits produced a 150 percent increase in illegitimacy. Increased benefits also make it difficult for recipients to extricate themselves from the welfare trap. Studies have shown that every dollar of
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