The Family, the State and Social Policy
Attitudes to helping the poor are well ingrained in our society since the Elizabethan poor laws (of the 1600s). Public assistance has always been aimed at enforcing work among poor.
Distinction made between the “deserving” and “Undeserving” poor. Infants, the elderly and chronically ill were held incapable of working and therefore “deserving.” But older children and “able-bodied” adults. Second, the amount of assistance was kept lower than the prevailing wage in the are so that public aid would be less attractive than working. Third, assistance to the poor was administered by local, rather than national, authorities, on the theory that they knew best the local labor market conditions and need for workers.
In the United States, those principles characterized assistance to the poor throughout the 1800s and the first few decades of the 1900s.
Government Assistance in the United States
Originated with a number of programs developed under Franklin Roosevelt as a response to the Great Depression.
The Social Security Act of 1935 which included:
Unemployment compensation
AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children)
More programs were added in the 1960s to reduce hunger and malnutrition
Head Start
Food Stamps
ADFC was drastically reworked with the provision of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996; the portion that is particularly crucial is called TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families).
Current government assistance is available to all classes and income levels to help families: Examples:
In 1999, 7.2 million received cash assistance through TANF
In 1998, 19.8 million people received food stamps.
In 1999, 836,000 3 to 5 year olds were enrolled in Head Start (a readiness for school program)
In 1998, 27.5 million retried workers received Social Security payments.
In 1997 7.3 million workers received unemployment compensation.
In 1996 29.4 million federal income tax returns deducted the interest payment on home mortgages, a subsidy to homeowners that cost the federal government $54 billion in lost tax revenue.
Two-tier system - First tier Social Security, disability insurance, unemployment insurance, worker’s compensation, Medicare and so on. These types of social welfare are tied to working; these types also are sensitive to inflation, i.e. the amount paid increasing as the cost of living increases
Second tier – aid to the poor. Entitlement programs for the poor constitute only about 23 percent of all federal entitlement programs but accounted for 93% of the entitlement budget cuts enacted by Congress in 1996.
Focus of most programs is on a concern for the well being of children and the elderly (the public family)
On-going controversy over how involved government should be in people’s lives. How actively should the government, through law and social policy, regulate and support the family in its care and nurturing of children, the frail elderly, and the chronically ill? And how is the government to decide what kinds of interventions are best to provide?
Family and the State in the United States
Capitalist economic system is characteristic of Western nation-states, that is an economic system in which goods and services are privately produced and sold on a market for profit. Workers offer their labor to the owners of the means of production, such as factories, and accept the highest offer of wages they receive. The owners then try to sell their products at a price high enough to yield a profit after hey subtract the wages, rents, and other expenses they have paid.
Up until the Depression, the prevailing value in the U.S. was that government should not intervene in family affairs. Until the Great Depression, assistance was primarily in the form of charity and was private.
Welfare state – government enacts measures to protect workers and families from harsh effects of system –basis of current U.S. government assistance. Since the 1930s, the welfare state has grown. Social welfare measures expanded greatly in the 1950s and the 1960s.
The welfare state has treated husbands and fathers differently from wives and mothers. At the beginning of the 20th century, reformers campaigned for laws that would require employers to pay male workers enough (refer to lecture on historical perspective of the family) to support their families without their wives’ (and children’s) having to work for wages as well. During the same period, many women’s organizations and labor unions campaigned for protective legislation to limit the number of hours women could work for wages to “protect” them from having to work too long and hard outside the home and presumably to be banned from employment of high risk that would put fetuses at risk).
Together these different objectives for women and men supported the family wage system, a division of labor in which the husband earns enough money to support his family and the wife remains home to do housework and childcare. This system, which was the “bread-winner-homemaker” family, is now in decline, but we will see that much of social policy has been based on this particular model of family.
The ideology on which campaigns for the family wage system operated was that the family works best when men and women inhabit separates spheres (refer to lecture 1 “The Myth of Separate Worlds). Men should work for pay outside the home; women should work without pay inside the home caring for the house and children. We must remember that the family wage system was never a reality for most working class and minority families. In those groups, men could not earn a family wage. However, it was and has remained the dominant cultural view of the family.
The Social Security Act of 1935 was based on this ideology. It provided old-age pensions only to persons who “earned” them by working a certain number of years in the paid labor force. Moreover, it originally only covered industrial and commercial workers. The clear expectation was that covered workers were men.
Whereas Social Security was a national program in which the federal government merely issued checks, the AFDC program still followed many of the old principles of assistance to the poor. AFDC was administered at the state rather than the national level, with each state free to set the amount of its benefits. In general states with lower wages set their benefits rates lower. After the state established its benefit level, the federal government agreed to pay about half of the cost of the program. AFDC also excluded two-parent families because men were viewed as capable of working supporting their families.
1939 – allowed widows of Social Security recipients to receive continued benefit after their husbands died.
Here – but some of the major amendments to the Social Security Act.
Women whose husbands were absent for other reasons, and who were still raising children, were eligible for the Aid to Dependent Children program – but only if their income was below a certain level.
Congress did not anticipate that large numbers of women raising children might need assistance because they were divorced from their husbands or had never had a husband. It did not anticipate that large numbers of women would qualify for Social Security benefits themselves by working outside the home.
Throughout the prosperous 1950s, the family wage system remained the cultural ideal.
Through the 1960s, the government paid little attention to the family. Rather the 1960s was the decade of the War on Poverty. Under President Johnson, Congress imitated and enlarged numerous programs in aid of the poor. Nevertheless, some of these programs had important effects on families. Substantial increases in Social Security benefits and the creation of a health insurance system for the elderly (Medicare) greatly improved the economic well being of older Americans, making them more independent of their children.
The number of single-parent families on the AFDC rose sharply in the late 1960s as benefit levels were increased and eligibility standards loosened. The 1964 Civil Rights Act and subsequent Supreme Court decisions banned discrimination against women in hiring and in wages, thus weakening the family wage system.
Family Policy Debates
It was not until the mid-1970s that politicians began to talk specifically about “family policy.” During the 1970s, changes in family structure were becoming evident to everyone. The divorce rate doubled, married women with children were entering the workforce at a rapid rate. The proportion of children born outside marriage rose sharply. (11% among white and 55% percent among blacks by 1980).
President Jimmy Carter planned to hold a White House Conference to discuss “specific ways we can better support and strengthen our families.” This conference became a battleground for conservatives and liberals. They could not agreed even on the title of the conference. The conservatives wanted the conference to be called “The Conference on the American Family” (meaning the breadwinner-homemaker family); liberals wanted it to be called “The Conference on American Families” thus recognizing that there were dual-earner and single-parent families.
This conference illustrates the first of two kinds of conflicts that have underpinned any major public issue concerning families: the conflict over women’s autonomy and the conflict over income assistance.
Conflict #1 Conflict over women’s autonomy – both in economic independence and in the abortion debate.
Cherlin reminds us that the public debates about family issues have often been based on different visions of women’s family roles. For some, women should be relatively independent of men, i.e. they should have enough earning potential to support themselves and they should control over their reproductive systems. Others believe that women should be more dependent on men. Men should earn the money and women should specialize in housework and raising children. Furthermore, tied to this other belief is the belief that the issue of abortion is joint decision between husband and wife and the state has an interest in this decision.
Women’s Economic Independence
Some of the advocates of the breadwinner-homemaker family believe it to be God-given or biologically designed. They argue that a strict division of labor and male dominance is natural. They believe that the moral worth of men and women depends on how well they each perform their distinct roles- husband as provider, wife as caregiver. Another group of advocates concedes that the breadwinner-homemaker family may not be natural in a religious or biological sense, but they nevertheless believe it to be the most preferable form. Although they acknowledge the historical variation in families, they argue that the breadwinner-homemaker family has been the backbone of capitalist prosperity and democracy. It is said to support prosperity, in part, because it provides a small, self-sufficient unit that can move to where the job opportunities are in an industrial society; it is not tied to one city by linkages to a network of extended kin. It encourages prosperity by creating self-reliant individuals. The small conjugal family provided for rest and spiritual renewal into the domestic sphere of privacy it creates. In fact the sociologists, Peter and Brigitte Berger believe that the breadwinner-homemaker family is essential to democracy because it is a mediating structure. That can give individuals the support they need to resist the dictates of the nation-state. The two-parent family is said to be a mediating structure because the authority of the father and the emotional bonds among the member create a “countervailing power." Glendon that protects individuals form abuses of power by the state.
Until recently, those who favor the breadwinner-homemaker family tended to oppose social welfare programs that they view as encouraging women’s economic independence. For example, social conservatives have opposed legislation that would subsidize the cost of out-of-home car for the children of employed parents. They argued that assistance to employed parents encourages more mothers to take jobs outside the home, which erodes the breadwinner-homemaker family. Others support programs that would benefit families with stay-at-home wives as well as those with employed wives, such as an increase in the tax deduction any family can claim per child.
But critics of the breadwinner-homemaker family ask “self-reliance and autonomy for whom?” Women by and large, do not share equally in the autonomy this family for creates; their talents and desires for work outside the home are stifled. They are asked to sacrifice their individuality on behalf of the male member of their families. Barrie Thorne, “ this family ideal denies women individualism, equality and full access to economic and political resources.”
Critics believe that the defenders of the breadwinner-homemaker family are asking women to pay a high price in lost autonomy to maintain a family form that is neither more natural nor more desirable than other forms. This stance translates into political support for measures that increase the economic equality of women and make it easier for mothers to work outside the home, for example, childcare and work leaves to care for newborn children or seriously ill relatives.
Abortion debate. There are two visions of women’s roles; one that emphasizes childbearing and mothering versus one that emphasizes autonomy and employment. Kristen Luker says pro-choice advocates share a worldview in which women and men are equal and deserve equal opportunity to work outside home. Pro-life share a worldview in which women and men are fundamentally different and women’s primary role is to raise children.
But believe that they are defending the family, but as Cherlin points out it’s not the same family.
1976 legislation prohibited the use of government funds to pay for abortions. This ban was made abortion a class-related issue.
1998 – 44% of adults polled said that abortion was an issue of a woman’s ability to control her body, 45% said it was an issue involving the life of a fetus.
Conflict #2 -Conflict over income assistance
Public opinion in the United States favors assistance to the poor that enhances independence and self-reliance; there is much less support for cash assistance to people thought to be capable of working.
Since cash assistance such as AFDC was mainly available to single-parent families, critics of the program charged that it was an important cause of the growth of single-parent families over the past few decades. Charles Murray noted that during the 1960s, AFDC benefit levels increased and so did the number of single-parent families. The implication is that more generous benefits encourage more single-parent families. However, Cherlin points out the value of the benefit package of AFDC plus food stamps stayed roughly the same but the number of single-parent families continued to increase in number.
Defenders of income assistance programs such as AFDC and food stamps argue that the social benefits of the programs exceed the costs. They note that cash assistance substantially improves the well being of American children – one in five of whom lives in a family with an income below the poverty level.
1996 Welfare Reform Law and its implications
Background:
Both AFDC and Social Security were created as entitlement programs in which the government is obligated to provide benefits to anyone who qualifies, regardless of the total cost of the program.
In 1950 Congress increased the AFDC benefit level in the hope that poor mothers would be able to say home and care for their children.
About 1970s, Congress passed a series of laws that encourage and late required mothers receiving AFDC to take jobs and leave their children in the care of others.
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996
What are the characteristics of TANF? (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families)
It repealed the principle of an entitlement in benefits. Federal government expenses are limited because each states received a fixed amount of funds, called a block grant. States may add more their own funds to the program, but the federal government will not provide more.
States can use federal funds to pay for only five years of benefits for a family. States may enforce a shorter time limit if they wish. If states want to pay for more than five years of benefits, they may do so if they use only their own sate funds.
Adults are required to work within 24 months after they receive assistance. Overall, 25% of the families in each state were required to be working by 1997, increasing to 50% by 2002.
What caused such sweeping changes in social policy toward poor families?
Attitudes toward women’s roles. First, attitudes toward women’s roles had changed greatly. The goal of the legislation that created AADDC was consistent with the prevailing value of the era; namely that women’s place was I the home. The legislation was an attempt to extend to poor, single mothers the same that nonpoor mothers were supposed to play. By the 1990s a majority of mothers were working outside the home. It seemed less punitive to require that poor, single mothers attempt to find jobs when the majority of middle-class mothers were employed as well. Encouraging self-reliance and independence among poor mothers seemed consistent with emerging values for nonpoor women.
Characteristics of welfare recipients have undergone change. Second the characteristic of welfare recipients had so changed. No longer are most widows; rather, the vast majority are separated, divorced or never married. These women are not seen as the deserving poor as were widows. They are viewed as being irresponsible.
Not only the marital status about also the racial composition of the AFDC population had changed since the early days of the program. African-American single-parent families are heavily over represented among the persistently poor. African Americans who constituted 37% of the TANF rolls were over represented compared with their percentage of the total US population that is 13%. 21% were Hispanics. Racial animosity may underlie some of the public opposition to welfare spending. Both Heclo and Katz argue that whites in the 1960s came to identify antipoverty policy with African Americans because of the civil rights movement, the activities of welfare rights organizations, the urban riots and the largely black bureaucracy that arose to administer the antipoverty programs.
Concern about dependency on welfare.
The third reason for the policy reversal is the spread of the idea that welfare-receiving poor had become too dependent upon public assistance. According to this line of reasoning, usually advanced by conservatives, people who receive public assistance for years and years often lose their initiative to find jobs. If they took a job, they would lose many of benefits but also incur other costs such as childcare, transportation and clothing costs and health benefits.
Moreover the welfare critics state, children who grow up this environment often become dependent on welfare themselves, thus perpetuating dependency from generation to generation. The PRWORA also strengthened enforcement of the obligations of absent fathers to support their children. Tough child support enforcement was a way to enforce responsibility and work discipline on lower-class men.
Concern about the costs of welfare. Welfare was imposing too much of a tax burden on workers, even though AFDC cost far less than several other government social programs. For example in 1994, total federal and state expenditures for AFDC, job training for AAADC recipients, and child care for AFDC recipients and ex-recipients were $28.5 billion. In contrast, Social Security benefits for 1994 cost $316.6 billion. Medicaid, the program of health insurance benefits for the non-aged poor and for the elderly in nursing homes cost $143.6 billion. Food benefits, including food stamps and programs such as school breakfasts and lunches, cost $3.1 billion.
Thus the title of the act: The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996
Some social conservatives also argue that government agencies cannot do a good job of moving people from welfare to work. Rather than maintain religious organizations and other private agencies should take a greater role in assisting the poor just as they did prior to 1935. Under George W. Bush, a new Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives was established with John Dillulio as director. The conservatives have pushed for this because they believe that government welfare programs do not make moral demands on them.
The critics of an expansion of private agencies argue that private agencies are already receiving dollars; e.g. 22% of the budgets of the 100 largest charitable organizations in 1993 came from federal state or local government. Second they argue that private donations could not compensate for the loss of government programs. Economist Rebecca Blank estimates to replace, TANF, Food stamps and supplemental security income every one the 258,000 churches, synagogues and mosques in the United States would have to raise an additional $350,000 per year and spend that money entirely on the poor.
Others who believe that welfare use is a response to poverty, not a cause, contest this critical view of welfare. They argue that ending cash assistance is a step that will further impoverish many poor children and their parents. They argue that what is being passed down is not a culture of poverty but rather social disadvantage.
What are the themes that conservative and liberate stress in debating family issues?
In debates over family policy, conservatives often claim that they want to keep the government from intruding into family life. But the government has already intervened in family life; social welfare legislation from the 1930s through the 1950s was designed to support the breadwinner-homemaker family. Liberals on the other hand, tend to propose measures that would benefit single parent and married couples in which wives work outside the home than they would benefit breadwinner-homemaker families.
There have been some practical compromises between conservatives and liberals.
Besides welfare reform, Congress allowed several pieces of legislation to be enacted, including multiple expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit, childcare legislation and family leave legislation. Conservatives are reluctantly accepting the legitimacy of government programs to assist mothers who work outside the home. Liberals are reluctantly accepting the principle that assistance to the poor should not be unconditional.
What has been the outcome of the PRWORA – By September 1999, the number of families receiving TANF had fallen by a remarkable 44%.
However, the information provided by Cherlin was 3 years later, in strong economic times.
It is commonly believed that the pre-1996 welfare system discouraged marriage, encouraged divorce and encouraged childbearing outside of marriage among the poor. The reason was that a married couple could not receive welfare payments. Despite the plausibility of these consequences of the welfare system, the social scientific evidence suggests that the effects on marriage are of moderate size, at most,
Before 1996 a recipient’s benefits were increased if she had another child while on the rolls. During the deliberations on the welfare law, some members of Congress proposed a “family cap,” under which a mother who is already receiving welfare benefits and who has another child would not receive an increase in benefits. The family cap provision was deleted from the federal bill before its passage, but the law did allow states to institute family caps if they wished; and by 1998, 23 states had done so. A study of the New Jersey family cap estimated that it had reduced births to women receiving welfare by 14,000 abut also increased the number of abortions to women on welfare by 1,4000 and denied benefits to 28,000 newborns. The evidence from other states is inconclusive.
One reason why the effects of welfare on marriage and childbearing may be smaller than commonly thought is that the value of the average AFDC benefit declined sharply between the 1970s and 1990s. The decline occurred because most state legislature refused to increase the benefit level even though inflation eroded its purchasing power. If welfare benefits were a strong influence on marriage and fertility, one would expect that this drop in welfare benefits would have made marriage more attractive and childbearing outside of marriage less. Yet divorce, cohabitation, and the percentage of births that occurred outside of marriage all increased during this period
Since the early 1970s, the earning power of young men without college educations has lessened because of falling wages in the manufacturing sector of the economy. This trend might have made young men reluctant to marry and it might have made young women skeptical of finding a partner with enough earning power to help sustain a family. A poor young women who sees little prospect of finding a suitable husband is probably more likely to go ahead and have a child without marrying. In addition broad cultural shift away from marriage and toward individual fulfillment was occurring among all social classes.
The consequences for children
Don’t know the effects. On the negative side possibilities include:
Children’s families could nave lower incomes if mothers leave the welfare program for work at very low wages.
Children could be placed in low-quality day care.
Mothers may be less effective parents because of increased responsibilities of combining paid work with childrearing.
Positive effects might be:
Mothers may be better parents because paid work will give them more self-esteem and satisfaction.
Paid work imposes a daily routine.
Employed parents may make better role models.
The consequences for immigrant families.
The 1996 law also contained sharp restrictions on the receipt of other government benefits. A complex series of provisions drastically educed the benefits that immigrants legally in the United States can receive. Many new immigrants who enter the country legally are now ineligible for TANF, food stamps or other federally funded benefits until they become citizens, which take a minimum of fiver years.
A national telephone survey conducted in 1997 by the Urban Institute found that 61% of individuals who had left welfare in the previous two years were employed. Their wages were comparable to the earnings of workers in low-income families that had not been on welfare at all in the two previous years. Still 20% of those who left the rolls in the Urban Institute sample were neither working, in a family in which someone else was working, nor receiving government disability. Almost tow in five said that there had been a time during the previous year when they were not able to pay mortgage, rent utility bills. One-third said that sometime during the previous year they had had to cut the size of meals or skip meals because there wasn’t enough food.
The opponents of PRWORA argue that we will not be able to judge its effectiveness until the next time the economy falters and the demand for workers declines. This is happening now.
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