Flat
broke with children in America
Sociologist Sharon
Hays -- whose 1996 book, The Cultural Contradictions
of Motherhood, stands as the definitive work on the ideological
construction of “intensive” motherhood" -- undertook
a three-year study of welfare reform and its impact on the women
most likely to be affected by it: caseworkers and welfare recipients.
Over the course of the project, Hays logged over 600 hours in the
field and spent time with over 50 caseworkers and about 130 welfare
mothers. The purpose of her research was not so much to determine
whether welfare reform has been successful as a social program,
but to sort out the “cultural norms, beliefs, and values”
threaded through the laws and regulations governing the allocation
of TANF.
As Hays states in the opening chapter of Flat Broke
With Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform,
“A nation’s laws reflect a nation’s values.”
She found that the Personal Responsibility Act -- in its content,
cultural context and implementation -- is an unusually rich
site for exploring the conflicting values of work and family life
in America. As Hays methodically unpacks her subject, she reveals
that "welfare reform" is not an innovative and effective
anti-poverty measure -- although much has been made of the
fifty-percent reduction in welfare rolls since PRWORA was enacted,
fewer people on welfare has not translated into fewer people in
poverty -- but a “social experiment to legislate the work
ethic and family values.” In describing the ideological tension
embedded in welfare reform, Hays writes:
Depending upon one’s
angle of vision, welfare reform can be seen as a valorization
of independence, self-sufficiency, and the work ethic as well
as the promotion of a certain form of gender equality. On the
other hand, it can serve as a condemnation of single parenting,
a codification of the appropriate preeminence of family ties and
the commitment to others, and a reaffirmation that women’s
place is in the home.
Further, it is certainly
no accident that the primary guinea pigs in this national experiment
in family values and the work ethic are a group of social subordinates -- overwhelmingly women, disproportionately non-white single parents,
and of course, very poor.
As for the efficacy of welfare reform, Hays provides data throughout
the book demonstrating that only about one-third of welfare recipients
are able to find and keep jobs, and considerably fewer achieve financial
stability and self-sufficiency. If the goal of welfare reform was
to decrease poverty overall, she writes, “there is no indication
that anything but the cycle of the economy has had an impact.”
Readers familiar with Hays’ earlier work will recognize the
analytical framework she revisits here. Flat Broke With Children examines the fundamental contradictions between the ideals of individual
autonomy and self-determination and the widespread belief that connection
and commitment to others -- as expressed through community,
care-giving and reciprocity -- is imperative for the continuation
of moral and social life. The Personal Responsibility Act is widely
recognized as a “welfare-to-work” mandate -- with
few exceptions, recipients are only eligible for cash support and supplemental
benefits (such as child care and transportation subsidies) if
they are working, looking for work, or receiving job training. But
as Hays points out, the letter of the law is more concerned with
promoting an idealized family form than with helping impoverished
women achieve economic independence. Indeed, the
long preamble of Congressional findings spelling out the
logic of the Personal Responsibility Act leads with the following
statements: “(1) Marriage is the foundation of a successful
society. (2) Marriage is an essential institution of a
successful society which promotes the interests of children. (3)
Promotion of responsible fatherhood and motherhood is integral
to successful child rearing and the well-being of children.”
Furthermore, the federal funding mechanism for TANF requires states
to:
(1) provide assistance
to needy families so that children may be cared for in their own
homes or in the homes of relatives;
(2) end the dependence
of needy parents on government benefits by promoting job preparation,
work, and marriage;(3) prevent and reduce
the incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies and establish annual
numerical goals for preventing and reducing the incidence of these
pregnancies; and
(4) encourage the formation
and maintenance of two-parent families.
As Hays comments, “It should be noted that only one of these
goals is directed at paid work. And even in this case it is set
alongside marriage as one of the two proper paths leading away from
welfare.” She concludes there are “two distinct (and
contradictory) visions of work and family life” implanted
in welfare reform: the Work Plan and the Family
Plan.
In the Work Plan, work
requirements are a way of rehabilitating mothers, transforming
women who would otherwise ‘merely’ stay at home and
care for their children into women who are self-sufficient, independent,
productive members of society. The Family Plan, on the other hand,
uses work requirements as a way of punishing mothers for their
failure to get married and stay married. In the Work Plan we offer
women lots of temporary subsidies …to make it possible for
them to climb a career ladder that will allow them to support
themselves and, presumably, their children. …According to
the Family Plan, work requirements will teach women a lesson;
they’ll come to know better than to get divorced or to have
children out of wedlock. They will learn that their duty is to
control their fertility, to get married, to stay married, and
to dedicate themselves to the care of others.
…The two competing
visions embedded in welfare reform are directly connected to a
much broader set of cultural dichotomies that haunt us all in
our attempts to construct a shared vision of the good society --
independence and dependence, paid work and caregiving, competitive
self-interest and obligation to others, the value of the work
ethic and financial success versus the value of personal connection,
family bonding and community ties.
In Flat Broke With Children, Hays’ central project
is to record how the women enmeshed in the welfare system --
the mothers who seek support and the caseworkers who administer
it -- articulate and negotiate the conflicting cultural objectives
of welfare reform. She notes that while the Family Plan dominates
the language of welfare law, the Work Plan takes precedence at ground
level. According to Hays, the welfare clients she interviewed were
not routinely instructed in the larger message about the value of
marriage, the importance of two-parent families or the priority
of caring for children “in their own homes.” Nor do
welfare offices offer couples counseling or dating services. According
to Hays, the welfare mothers she studied “knew they were expected
to find jobs, and they knew they were expected to obey the rules.”
As the foot soldiers in a rigid bureaucracy, the welfare caseworkers
Hays observed understood that their primary directive was to communicate
and enforce the countless rules and regulations governing their
clients’ eligibility, specifically in regard to time limits
and work requirements. Welfare recipients who violate work participation
rules -- by failing to comply with reporting requirements, or
for quitting a job without good cause -- face stiff sanctions;
all or part of a mother’s welfare benefits may be suspended
for a period of weeks or months for non-compliance, leaving her
family without means of support. Hays explains that being unable
to work due to one’s own illness, child care problems, or
needing time off to care for a sick child are not considered “good
causes” for leaving a job.
Given the nature of the employment most welfare mothers are likely
to find -- low-wage or minimum-wage service jobs, with few or
no benefits, little or no working time flexibility, little or no paid
time off, and little or no possibility of advancement -- Hays
questions whether welfare regulations emphasizing enforcement and
compliance with harsh penalties for transgressions are designed
to prepare poor women to grab their very own piece of the American
Dream:
How can welfare caseworkers
convince their clients that they recognize them as independent,
assertive, self-seekers while simultaneously demanding their unquestioning
deference to an impossible system of rules? How will clients understand
their paid employment as a positive individual choice when it
is presented as one of many absolute demands, backed up by multiple
threats of punishment? …If we really want to include welfare
mothers as active citizens, full-fledged participants in society,
and social equals of both men and the middle class, it doesn't
make sense to use bureaucratic mechanisms to mentor or inspire
them. If, on the other hand, what we are actually preparing them
for is to serve our fast food, clean our toilets, answer our phones,
ring up our receipts, and change our bed pans, the bureaucratic
operations of welfare could be construed as very effective.
Later in the same chapter, Hays’ tone becomes even more critical:
Recognizing the realities
of low-wage work, one could argue that the underlying logic of
the Personal Responsibility Act is either punitive or delusional.
On the punitive side, the work rules of reform might be interpreted
as implicitly aimed at creating a vast population of obedient
and disciplined workers who are hungry enough (and worried about
their children enough) to take any temporary, part time, minimum-wage
job that comes their way, not matter what the costs to them or
their family. More positively (or nearsightedly), one could interpret
the Work Plan as following from the assumption that there is an
unlimited number of career ladders available for every American
to climb. The time-limited nature of welfare reform’s childcare,
transportation and income supports, for instance, suggest a middle-class
(and increasingly mythological) model of working one’s way
to the top.
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