Education OR Welfare, take your pick.

     A. Fiona Pearson, a professor of sociology at Central Connecticut State University, wrote "The Erosion of College Access for Low-Income Mothers" based on her research on welfare reform and African American single mothers who were enrolled or had been enrolled in TANF - Temporary Aid for Needy Families.  In her analysis, it is evident that welfare reforms further disadvantage already marginalizes social groups, (90% of TANF recipients are women, and 65% are racial/ethnic minorities) especially single mothers of color, by emphasizing the importance of work over that of education.  Pearson is not the only person to notice this disenfranchisement:  according to the National Bureau for Economic Research, "Welfare reforms have reduced both the probability that women aged 21-49 will attend high school and that those aged 24-49 will attend college, by 20-25 percent."

     Pearson further links race to welfare policy by tracing the history of welfare from its beginnings in the 1930s as part of the New Deal program to support families in the Great Depression and later widows of WWII veterans.  At the time that it was primarily serving white families whose need was deemed worthy, the program was well-received by the general US public.  However,

"as civil rights legislation and increased federal investment in poverty reduction programs in the 1960s allowed more and more low-income women of color to apply for an receive AFDC benefits, both public sentiments and political rhetoric regarding the program became increasingly racialized and negative" (220, emphasis added).

When public assistance helped white families, all was fine, but when it began to help non-white families as well, the public and politicians developed pejorative terms like "Welfare Queen" to describe those in need.

     However, those who claim "Welfare: You work hard so they don't have to." obviously have never tried to get benefits themselves.  Programs like TANF  promote marriage; emphasize paid work over education and, imposed strict time limits on how long you can receive public assistance (220).  According to the 1996 welfare reform guidelines, families can only receive aid for up to 5 years "as long as parents engaged in work or educational activities."  The vagueness of that statement gives states discretionary power to determine which "educational activities" count.  Many decided that securing a job ought to take precedence over pursuing a degree and consequently only pay during the first 12 months of a program that lasts a maximum of two years.

     In her chapter, Pearson recalls several stories of women who wanted to attend college but couldn't balance the strict work requirements of the TANF program with their education and family responsibilities.  In order to continue receiving the benefits that sustained their family, these women were forced to drop out of school to work.  On woman, Nicky, determined to go back to school after dropping out due to TANF, secured a childcare arrangement with her mother and dropped out of TANF to go back to school.

     I can't help but reflect on our country's obsession with work when I hear about the situation of families in need of public assistance. In the United States, people are defined by the jobs they hold. One of the first questions you ask when you meet a person in the US is "What do your parents do?" This is assumed to define who they are and who you are as a consequence of their work.  This is not a universal; in fact, it's pretty atypical.  In most other countries, people ask, "What are your parents like?"  When I studied abroad in Ecuador, people often asked me, "¿Cómo son tus padres?"  But when I answered, "Mi madre es dentista, y mi padre trabaja con refugiados en África." I received odd looks of confusion:  how was knowing that my mother is a dentist and my father a relief worker going to help them get to know me?

     Beyond the complete mismatch between our rhetoric of education (get one at all costs!) and our access to it (pay tons of money and go into debt so that you can work for the rest of your life to pay it off or just get a job instead), I believe that our culture's fascination with work as a way to prove one's worth is to blame for disenfranchising welfare policies.  If we continue to equate one's ability to make money with one's value as a human being, we will continue to exploit those around us and leave people scrounging for scraps under the table.