The personal responsibility and work opportunities act changed single mothers’ lives by quizlet

Images of the Poor

What are some examples of the stereotypical images Americans hold of the poor?

Unemployed
Lazy
Dependent on public assistance
Homeless
Drug addicted
Having children out-of-wedlock

Images of the Poor

In reality, the poor are a diverse group of people in terms of race, ethnicity, occupation, family makeup, residence and other social characteristics.

This chapter explores two questions:

1. Who are the poor?
2. Why are they poor?

Poverty can be defined in 3 ways

Absolute Poverty
Relative Poverty
Official Poverty

Absolute Poverty

The poor in society are those who are unable to acquire the necessities of life.
This includes food, shelter, clothing, and access to minimum health care.
It is a socioeconomic condition where people cannot meet their basic needs.

Relative Poverty

What constitutes "necessity" is difficult to define and may differ based on society.
Poverty is often defined in relative terms whereby people are compared to others within their own society.
For example, is a telephone, computer, or transportation a necessity or a luxury? This depends on which society and what is needed.

Official Poverty

Government settles the argument about who is poor by creating a uniform yardstick for measuring poverty.

In 1964 President Johnson's War on Poverty determined what the poverty line would be based on the idea that families spend about 1/3 of their income on food.

Therefore the poverty line would be set at 3 times the cost of nutritionally adequate diet. Since then the formula has not changed.

Official Poverty

Official Poverty Line in the U.S.:

The poverty line is often criticized because of the way it is uniformly applied, without regard for regional differences.

Example - a family living in Washington, D.C. needs 2-3 times the income of a family in Des Moines, Iowa for basic expenses (rent, utilities, transportation, healthcare, child care, etc.)

Demographic Profile of the Poor

Although the poor come from a diverse set of
backgrounds, those who are statistically more
likely to live in poverty are:

Racial and ethnic minorities
Females
Young people
People who living in female-headed family households.

The Rediscovery of Poverty (1960's)

In the early 1960s American poverty was "rediscovered."

In 1962, political scientist Michael Harrington published The Other America which explained how the poor were often "invisible" and concentrated in urban and rural ghettos.

Poverty's rediscovery in conjunction with the Civil Rights Movement set off ambitious government efforts to address poverty through the creation and expansion of welfare programs.

The New Poverty (1980's)

The 1980's brought about a new category of the poor to the public consciousness - the homeless.

Although the homeless had always been a part of the American landscape, in the early 1980s their numbers increased.

Rising housing costs, particularly in urban areas, pushed many individuals and families to live in shelters and on the streets.

The New Poverty

Changes in the economy led to low-skill jobs that had previously been occupied by the poor, to be phased out or exported to other countries.
During the 1980's President Regan espoused a strong market-oriented approach to public policy that sought to reduce the role of government.
Measures enacted in the 1960's and 1970's designed to benefit the poor were criticized and said to be creating a culture of welfare dependency.

The Working Poor

They live paycheck to paycheck.
Commonly work on a part-time or temporary basis and often underemployed.
Their wages are low and they have a difficult time saving any of their income.
There incomes are very low, but may not fall below the poverty line so they are not eligible for government programs such as Medicaid.

Working Poor

Even if an individual works the equivalent of full-time hours (40hrs/week) at minimum wage, for 50 weeks of the year, their income would still put them below the poverty line.

Many of the working poor of course can't even get a steady 40hr work week or consistent work for 50 weeks of the year.

The Working Poor

Living on the Edge

The working poor are in a relentless struggle to make ends meet on bottom-level wages.
They can never be certain that their rent can be paid from one month to the next.
One unpredictable event - sick child, sudden job loss, marital rift, may thrust these families into distress.
They do not have money for unforeseen expenses such as dental care or car repairs.

The Working Poor

Living on the Edge

In No Shame in My Game, Harvard anthropologist Katherine Newman gives voice to a population for whom work, family, and self-esteem are top priorities despite all the factors that make earning a living next to impossible.

In their book The Missing Class, Newman and her colleague Victor Tan Chen explore people in the "missing class." They are families that fall are in between the working poor and the working class.

They are part of the labor force - bus drivers, daycare providers, hospital attendants, clerical assistants, etc. They struggle to get by with no public assistance.

The Working Poor

Invisible Poverty

The poverty of the working poor is not only "invisible," but so too is their labor and the contribution they make to society.

They are the individuals who serve food, pick up our garbage, tend to elderly relatives, make our beds in hotels, and clean our bathrooms.

The working poor make life easier and more comfortable for the non-poor, providing services that others take for granted.

The Underclass

While the majority of poor people work, the "underclass" is made up of a small portion of poor people who have little education or job skills and face chronic unemployment.

Two characteristics define the underclass:

Poverty that is chronic, not temporary
Social and economic isolation

The Underclass

The Makeup of the Underclass

Those who do not participate in the general labor force.
Depend to some degree on government welfare.
May engage in the underground economy to make money (ranging from selling clothing and household items on the street to illegal drug dealing and prostitution).
Include troubled individuals who are drifters (living on people's couches) to the homeless.

The Underclass

The Makeup of the Underclass

They commonly live in urban ghettos.

Though racial and ethnic composition varies, they are disproportionately African American and Hispanic.

Journalist Jonathan Kozal talks about how these individuals live in "a separate America" where their daily conditions of life are alien to most in society.

The Underclass

Example Underclass Neighborhood
Ward 8 of Washington, D.C.

Median household income is $22,000
More than 1/3 of people are living below the poverty line.
Over 1/3 of adults lack a high school education.
37% of families rely on food stamps.
Violent crime is extremely high.

The Underclass Debate

The Underclass Debate: Since the 1960's there has been a debate over the "underclass" population and chronic poverty. It is a debate between:

Individual Explanations of Poverty -
members of the underclass are biologically or
culturally deficient and their lifestyle and values
go against mainstream society.

Structural Explanations Poverty - members
of the underclass lack educational and economic
opportunities. Proponents of this position also
view the term "underclass" as derogatory.

Individual Explanations of Poverty

members of the underclass are biologically or
culturally deficient and their lifestyle and values
go against mainstream society.

Biological Explanations

Individual Focused Explanations - Biology:

During most of the 19th and early 20th century a widely held theory of why people were poor was explained in biological terms.

The poor were viewed as genetically handicapped and less fit than others in society.

Referred to as social Darwinism, this view holds that one's wealth or poverty is a demonstration of one's inherent capabilities.

Bell Curve

Individual Focused Explanations - Biology:

Today social Darwinism is an idea that does not hold weight among social scientists or the general public.

However in 1994 Richard Herrnstein (Harvard Psychologist) and Charles Murray (political scientist at the American Enterprise Institute) published a controversial book called The Bell Curve.

Their book claimed that those with lower IQ had a greater proclivity toward poverty, crime, illegitimacy, and poor educational performance.

Bell Curve

Individual Focused Explanations - Biology:

The findings of The Bell Curve were met with outrage by academics who claimed that the methods, data, and reasoning was flawed.

Over fifty different scholars around the country dropped what they were doing to address the book and tear apart piece by piece the book's faulty research and arguments.

In a subsequent book, Losing Ground, Charles Murray suggested that welfare programs encouraged women to have children out-of-wedlock so that they could qualify for welfare. This book was also met with considerable criticism from academics.

Social Darwinism

Social Darwinism, this view holds that one's wealth or poverty is a demonstration of one's inherent capabilities.

Individual Focused Explanations

Individual Focused Explanations - Culture:

While many people dismiss biological arguments that are made to explain poverty, cultural arguments are very common.

The culture of poverty argument says
that poverty is the result of a set of norms
and values that are held by poor people that
are not compatible with the society's
dominant culture.

Oscar Lewis - Culture of Poverty

The culture of poverty argument says
that poverty is the result of a set of norms
and values that are held by poor people that
are not compatible with the society's
dominant culture.

Oscar Lewis - Culture of Poverty

Oscar Lewis
The idea of a "culture of poverty" was first put forth in the early 1960's by anthropologist Oscar Lewis who studied poor people in Mexico City and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
He argued that the poor had a present orientation (rather than future orientation like the middle class), a fatalistic view of the world, a high rate of abandonment of wives and children, family violence, a belief in male superiority, and a martyr complex among women.

Edward Banfield

Edward Banfield

He was a political scientist who wrote the book The Un-heavenly City in 1968 which focused on the lives of the urban poor.

He argued that European immigrants of earlier decades were poor, had high crime rates, unstable families, and low school performance, but eventually assimilated into dominant culture.

He argued that poor Blacks were experiencing the same process of transition and their problems would go away once they embraced middle-class values.

Criticism of Culture of Poverty Explanations

Critics argue that cultural explanations ignore broader economic factors as well as factors of institutional racism and discrimination.

Critics say that the culture of poverty thesis has it backwards. That the unstable behavior of the poor is a reaction to poverty rather than a cause of poverty.

Researchers argue that the majority of poor families have much in common with mainstream society. In fact the majority of families in poverty are pro-education and pro-work.

Structure Focused (Sociological) Explanations of Poverty

Focus on the way in which society's social and economic institutions shape people's life chances and opportunities of living in poverty.

Sociologists who study poverty use structural explanations of poverty and find individual explanations limited and flawed to explain aggregate (group level) behavior.

Neighborhood

Low income neighborhoods have
poverty schools which do not prepare students.

Education

low levels of education correspond to
low-level jobs, which corresponds to low-levels of income.

Income

forces people to live in poorest
neighborhoods where schools are ill equipped to
prepare students for high-level jobs.

Classism and Racism

Cycle of Poverty - Racism and Classism

Racism and classism further restrict the neighborhoods that people can live in.

Poor minorities are therefore more likely to live in neighborhoods with impoverished schools.

Efforts to build public and affordable housing in middle class suburban neighborhoods is frequently met with resistance.

Politicians and residents argue that public housing will bring crime, drugs and other social pathologies.

High Cost of Living

Cycle of Poverty - High Cost of Living

The cost of living is proportionately higher for the poor than it is for other classes.

In purchasing basic necessities - rent , food, transportation, the poor are presented with few choices and higher prices.

A study of U.S. metropolitan areas revealed that lower-income families pay more for check cashing, cars/car insurance, furniture, appliances, home loans, and groceries than those who live in middle class suburbs.

The Political Economy of Capitalism

Cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit that once had thriving manufacturing industries that employed thousands of people with a high school education or less, no longer have those types of jobs.

As businesses and middle class residents leave, they take with them their wealth and taxes they pay to support public services such as police, transportation, and schools.

Those left behind are not economically capable of moving and left in deteriorating communities.

William J. Wilson

William J. Wilson: A prominent Harvard University
sociologist who describes how society's economic structure have made lower-class, unskilled people an excess labor force that is becoming a permanent underclass.

The labor market today calls for jobs requiring technical and educational skills for which many people don't qualify.

He argues that the exodus of working class and middle class people from the cities in the 1970's and 1980's exacerbated neighborhood issues of high rates of joblessness, school dropouts, crime, teenage motherhood.

Herbert Gans

Sociologist Herbert Gans - The functions of the poor:

Argues that poverty can be explained as a social phenomenon that serves certain societal functions for the non-poor.

The undeserving poor is a label that is assigned to many of the poor by others in society. The undeserving poor are those who appear to be able-bodied but who are unemployed and receiving welfare benefits of one kind or another.

The function of the "undeserving poor" is that they can be used as scapegoats and blamed for virtually every thing wrong in society.

Herbert Gans

Sociologist Herbert Gans - The functions of the poor:

The "undeserving poor" also serve as suppliers of illegal goods (ex. drugs) to the non-poor.

The "undeserving poor" also create jobs for many in the better-off population such as social workers, police, and prison guards.

Gans argues that eliminating poverty would require that poverty become dysfunctional for the people who benefit from it: the non-poor.

Popular Views of Poverty

Popular Views of Poverty
In the minds of many Americans, the poor
are divided into two groups:
1. Deserving Poor
2. Underserving Poor

The Deserving Poor

the disabled, elderly, widows, children, those who work steadily but do not earn enough.

The Undeserving Poor

people who lack ambition, are irresponsible, morally weak, and lazy. Those who should work regularly but don't.

Liberty View vs. Equity View

How does society deal with poverty?

Liberty View:

Government (tax dollars) should play no role in helping the poor.
The market should determine winners and losers.
Private charities should be responsible for giving help to the poor who make at least some effort to help themselves.

Equity View:

Government should play a major role and provide welfare to all in need at the maximum level. This would insure that the "have-nots" receive their share of society's wealth.

How do we find an acceptable balance between the two views?

Social Insurance Programs

Social Insurance Programs: financed through payroll taxes, all people in society, regardless of their economic status, are beneficiaries of these
programs.

What are some examples of social insurance programs?
Social Security
Medicare
Unemployment Insurance
Workers Compensation

Public Assistance Programs

Public Assistance Programs: financed through federal taxes and require that recipients demonstrate a need in order to qualify for them.

What are some examples of Public Assistance Programs?

PELL Grants
Head Start (Pre-school program)
National School Breakfast & Lunch Program
Food Stamps/SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program)
WIC (Women, Infants, and Children)
Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)
TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families)
Housing Subsidies (Public Housing, Section 8 Housing)
Medicaid
SSI (Supplemental Security Income - for those with physical and mental disabilities)

History of AFDC

History of AFDC

AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children), the predecessor to TANF was created by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression.

It was designed to provide temporary assistance to families that had suffered the loss of a parent, particularly through death or incarceration. However it also went to women whose husbands abandoned them.

By the 1960's recipients had become mostly young unmarried women with children. As such this program became the target of critics who strongly opposed the welfare system.

History of AFDC

History of AFDC

Opponents of AFDC argued that it caused a "culture of dependency" that had formed around welfare recipients.

Debunking Myths about Welfare

Most single-mothers receiving welfare have two children and 70% leave the welfare system in 2 years or less, 90% in 5 years or less.

Saying that welfare encourages "out of wedlock" births isn't consistent with the finding that welfare benefits are much higher in Europe yet they have a lower "out-of-wedlock" birth rate.

Additionally single-motherhood is a trend in all social classes in the U.S., not just among the poor.

Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (Welfare Reform)

1996 (under President Clinton) - The Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act:

55 billion in federal aid to the poor cut
AFDC became TANF
States administer welfare through block grants.
Federal money given to states capped.
Work is required within two years.
Unmarried teen parents must live at home and go to school to receive assistance.
Public benefits denied to undocumented immigrants.
Legal immigrants must live in the U.S. for 5 years before becoming eligible for benefits.

Results of Welfare Reform (Positives and Negatives)

What are the results of Welfare Reform?
Positives:

The number of people on welfare declined sharply.
Many former recipients were placed in the workforce.
Welfare did not lead to a significant increase in child poverty, as many feared.

Results of Welfare Reform (Positives and Negatives)

What are the results of Welfare Reform?
Negatives:

Although millions of former welfare recipients found work, most were unable to earn wages to boost them above the poverty line.

In the haste to move people quickly into work, many were not given the education and training key to retaining good jobs. The work requirement made it more difficult for women to go to school (GED, college) and find child care.

Working mothers could not find affordable daycare for their children.

Public Views on Welfare

Public Views on Welfare

The individualistic American ideology is focused on separating the "deserving poor" from the "undeserving poor."

It is the negative and inaccurate image of the welfare recipient in media and politics that has made many Americans believe that most poor people are undeserving.

Studies have found that the media has historically used race to promote the image of welfare dependency. In particular using stereotypes of African Americans as lazy and irresponsible.

Alternative Strategies Going Forward

Alternative welfare strategies going forward
Expanding the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit):

This program reduces taxes for people who work for low wages.

Reviving the WPA (Works Project Administration)

Put into place by FDR in the 1930's. It would put people to work restoring and building roads, bridges, schools, post offices, and other public facilities. It would provide people with skills and get people out of isolated environments.

U.S. Compared to Other Nations

U.S. Compared to All Other Countries

When compared to most countries around the world the U.S. does not have nearly the level of poverty of other nations. In these nations people cannot find enough food to survive on a daily basis.

U.S. Compared to Other Nations

U.S. Compared to Other Developed Industrialized Nations

Despite being the wealthiest nation in the world, when compared with other developed nations, the U.S. has the highest poverty rate.
The extent of poverty is also more severe with a higher percentage of children in the U.S. living in poverty compared to other nations.

What resulted from the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act quizlet?

What was an outcome of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act quizlet?

What is the major purpose of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act?

Which statement best describes the impact of the 1996 welfare reforms?