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A POVERTY OF IMAGINATION

THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS

Contents

Illustrations..................................................ixPreface........................................................xi1 The End of Welfare...........................................3Welfare As We Knew It..........................................9The Underclass.................................................18Merton's Constant..............................................23The End of Welfare.............................................272 The Old Maternalism..........................................29Mothers' Pensions..............................................30Working-Poor African Americans.................................33Professional Involution........................................36Cultural Politics..............................................46The Nanny State................................................48Left Field.....................................................53Denouement.....................................................573 The New Paternalism..........................................60Controlling the Means of Analysis..............................61Behavioral Poverty.............................................69The New Paternalism............................................72The Family Support Act.........................................74"The End of Welfare As We Know It".............................79Radically Conservative Welfare Reform..........................844 Welfare Behaviorism..........................................87The Conservative Triumph in Welfare Reform.....................88The New Consensus on Behavioral Poverty........................90Welfare-to-Work................................................91Jobs Versus Education..........................................95Learnfare......................................................98Teen Parenthood................................................100Family Cap.....................................................103Paternity......................................................104Time Limits....................................................107Wisconsin......................................................109Diversion......................................................112Excursus.......................................................1145 The Dynamics of Welfare and Work.............................116Welfare Dependency.............................................118Barriers to Employment.........................................121After AFDC.....................................................127Upward Mobility................................................131Welfare Mothers and Work.......................................135Perfecting Welfare-to-Work.....................................1396 Bootstrap Capitalism.........................................142Strategies of Welfare Reform...................................144Capitalism for the Poor........................................148The Renaissance of Bootstrap Capitalism........................151Wage Supplements...............................................152Asset Development..............................................155Community Capitalism...........................................158Networking Capital.............................................161A New Paradigm for Poverty Policy?.............................164Notes..........................................................169Index..........................................................195

Chapter One

"What took you so long to get off welfare?" Shot from the audience, the question is aimed at the lone African American woman on stage.

Stunned momentarily, Evont Whitley composes herself and then says, "It wasn't that I waited so long to get a job; it was why someone waited so long to hire me!"

Neither question nor answer does justice to the talk show's subject that morning: welfare reform. To the white interrogator, Whitley is the stereotypical ghetto mother, breeding eight children over 14 years on public assistance before finally getting a job as a result of the state's welfare reform initiative. In counterpoint, Whitley expresses gratitude for the $5.50 per hour cleaning job that got her off welfare, even though her wages are so low that she continues to receive Food Stamps and Medicaid.

But Whitley has chosen to omit some of the details that contributed to her participation in the labor market. After an 11-month and seven-day sentence for drug possession, a job was one part of a plan that would retrieve four of her eight children from foster care. In fact, despite her television appearance as the personification of successful welfare reform, Whitley had found employment before the state's welfare reform was implemented. Thus, stereotype defeated rationality in yet another performance of the nation's welfare reform melodrama.

Just beneath the surface of Whitley's accomplishment-her graduation from welfare-lurk nuances, however. On welfare, she and the four children who are living with her had been getting by on $322 per month in cash benefits, $391 per month in Food Stamps, and Medicaid-$8,556 per year. Welfare helped, she would later admit, but "it also made me lazy, waiting for the check." Whitley describes herself at the time as "wild"-involved with drugs, running a house where clients smoked cocaine. But her sentence for possession followed by the death of her 42-year-old brother from AIDS quickly sobered her up. Work became a compass pointing to the future; her family, the landmark from which all progress would be charted.

Not that finding work was all that easy. Whitley had submitted any number of unsuccessful job applications, finally resorting to a girlfriend who told her about a temporary cleaning job at Commercial Services that might convert to full-time. Whitley jumped at the opportunity. Despite having to work nights on an on-call basis, she is ecstatic: "I love my job. The best thing that ever happened to me was to get off welfare." Eventually, the cleaning job became full-time, even offering overtime, though all her hours were at night and on the weekend. With older children at home, Whitley avoids the high cost of child care. Moreover, she was able to retain Medicaid, so that her employer's failure to provide health insurance is less critical. Once she started working, Whitley's income immediately eclipsed her previous welfare benefits.

Outwardly, Whitley is a sound illustration of "making work pay." At 56 hours per week, her take-home pay minus withholding comes to $14,221.90 a year. With $4,104 in Food Stamps annually, her family hurdles the poverty level of $17,900 for a family of five. In addition, Whitley is eligible for an Earned Income Tax Credit refund of $2,050, which she received for the first time when she started working. Whitley's total income for the year thus comes to $20,375.90.

In this case, however, appearances would be deceiving. Like her personal history, Whitley's economic circumstances are far from simple. She has left three teenagers in foster care with families nearby, and as a result she is paying the state 20 dollars a month per child in child support. The children are doing well, and she is reluctant to disrupt their foster families and bring them back to her; in truth, her small home (less than 1,000 square feet) lacks...