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Poverty and the politics of care

page two

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.

next:
the trajectory of downward mobility

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