New Black Renaissance by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9781317255505
Google: TBweCwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-12-03T06:00:26+00:00

WORK FOR PERMANENT LIFE IMPROVEMENTS

Welfare reform has forced many people onto an economic precipice with fewer options than ever for support in dire times. With rampant benefit reductions, sanctions, forced employment in jobs that do not lead to permanent paid employment, and lack of educational opportunity, overall quality of life for poor and working-class people is acutely compromised. The fabric of life is frayed. As welfare caseloads rise again due to the weak economy, the situation threatens to worsen.

Research participants reported that they often were unable to buy food, they skipped meals, and relied on food pantries. No matter their race or ethnicity, all survey respondents suffered from such food insecurity, but the rate of blacks being unable to buy food was nearly twice that of whites. One woman who once received $300 a month in food stamps was forced, under welfare reform, to buy food for her family of four with $70 in food stamps. Another woman living in a homeless shelter received $118 a month in food stamps for herself and her two daughters.

Respondents also reported increased challenges in meeting daily expenses and paying bills. Overall, 69 percent of survey-takers found paying bills harder in the previous year than in years past, and 58 percent said they had been unable to pay at least some bills at all. Blacks and Latinos reported having the hardest time paying bills—70 percent and 77 percent, respectively, compared to 46 percent of whites. One woman, when asked about paying bills, said, “What’s a bill? I can’t afford to make a bill. I don’t buy new things. I only get $137 a month in cash assistance.”

Welfare reform is up for reauthorization in 2004, and the issue of work participation rates and decreased access to education and training sit squarely at the center of the debate. What is not part of the debate are the voices of the people like those described above. Their stories magnify the nuances of policy as it is lived in Manhattan. Although they may not be representative of the nation’s entire population of welfare recipients, they certainly express one reality about the effects of welfare reform that reaches far beyond the well-worn success stories.

Working off assistance does not represent a mutual exchange. How can it when workers are paid the equivalent of $1.80 an hour? How can it when the work people do and the training they receive cannot—and does not seem designed to—lift them out of poverty?

There is no single solution to the colossal challenges of poverty. There are, however, certainly better solutions than those found in welfare reform. The workfare concept shifts the focus away from the strategies that could truly assist people, such as earning a living wage through full employment. A policy of full employment would mean that nearly everyone who wants a job has one. It does not mean that the unemployment rate is zero, but rather that the supply of and demand for labor are in equilibrium and the labor force is fully utilized.

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