Life After Welfare

Author : Laura Lein,Deanna T. Schexnayder
Publisher : University of Texas Press
Page : 192 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2007-12-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780292716674

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Life After Welfare by Laura Lein,Deanna T. Schexnayder Pdf

In the decade since President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 into law—amidst promises that it would "end welfare as we know it"—have the reforms ending entitlements and moving toward time limits and work requirements lifted Texas families once living on welfare out of poverty, or merely stricken their names from the administrative rolls? Under welfare reform, Texas has continued with low monthly payments and demanding eligibility criteria. Many families who could receive welfare in other states do not qualify in Texas, and virtually any part-time job makes a family ineligible. In Texas, most families who leave welfare remain in or near poverty, and many are likely to return to the welfare rolls in the future. This compelling work, which follows 179 families after leaving welfare, is set against a backdrop of multiple types of data and econometric modeling. The authors' multi-method approach draws on administrative data from nine programs serving low-income families and a statewide survey of families who have left welfare. Survey data on health problems, transportation needs, and child-care issues shed light on the patterns of employment and welfare use seen in the administrative data. In their lives after welfare, the families chronicled here experience poverty even when employed; a multiplicity of barriers to employment that work to exacerbate one another; and a failing safety net of basic human services as they attempt to sustain low-wage employment.

Author : Laura Lein,Deanna T. Schexnayder,Karen Douglas,Daniel Schroeder
Publisher : University of Texas Press
Page : 192 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2009-01-27
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780292778061

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Life After Welfare by Laura Lein,Deanna T. Schexnayder,Karen Douglas,Daniel Schroeder Pdf

A Choice Outstanding Academic Book In the decade since President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 into law—amidst promises that it would "end welfare as we know it"—did the reforms ending entitlements and moving toward time limits and work requirements lift Texas families once living on welfare out of poverty, or merely strike their names from the administrative rolls? Under welfare reform, Texas continued with low monthly payments and demanding eligibility criteria. Many families who could receive welfare in other states do not qualify in Texas, and virtually any part-time job makes a family ineligible. In Texas, most families who leave welfare remain in or near poverty, and many are likely to return to the welfare rolls in the future. This compelling work, which follows 179 families after leaving welfare, is set against a backdrop of multiple types of data and econometric modeling. The authors' multi-method approach draws on administrative data from nine programs serving low-income families and a statewide survey of families who have left welfare. Survey data on health problems, transportation needs, and child-care issues shed light on the patterns of employment and welfare use seen in the administrative data. In their lives after welfare, the families chronicled here experience poverty even when employed; a multiplicity of barriers to employment that work to exacerbate one another; and a failing safety net of basic human services as they attempt to sustain low-wage employment.

Author : Sanford F. Schram
Publisher : NYU Press
Page : 244 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2000-03-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780814771273

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After Welfare by Sanford F. Schram Pdf

Do contemporary welfare policies reflect the realities of the economy and the needs of those in need of public assistance, or are they based on outdated and idealized notions of work and family life? Are we are moving from a "war on poverty" to a "war against the poor?" In this critique of American social welfare policy, Sanford F. Schram explores the cultural anxieties over the putatively deteriorating "American work ethic," and the class, race, sexual and gender biases at the root of current policy and debates. Schram goes beyond analyzing the current state of affairs to offer a progressive alternative he calls "radical incrementalism," whereby activists would recreate a social safety net tailored to the specific life circumstances of those in need. His provocative recommendations include a series of programs aimed at transcending the prevailing pernicious distinction between "social insurance" and "public assistance" so as to better address the needs of single mothers with children. Such programs could include "divorce insurance" or even some form of "pregnancy insurance" for women with no means of economic support. By pushing for such programs, Schram argues, activists could make great strides towards achieving social justice, even in today's reactionary climate.

Author : Mark R. Rank
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 292 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 1994
Category : Family & Relationships
ISBN : 0231084242

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Living on the Edge by Mark R. Rank Pdf

Based on ten years of research, the book follows individuals and families as they apply for and live on public aid and eventually leave the system. Rank's chronicle of their day-to-day experiences reveals the many sacrifices and crises that tax ordinary people in extraordinary ways. Beginning with a history of welfare from Roosevelt to Clinton, he focuses on AFDC and the Food Stamp program. He then describes the backgrounds of the recipients, their hopes for the future and attitudes toward welfare, their daily routines and problems, their work behavior, and the effect of welfare on family dynamics. Living on the Edge reveals the experiences of female-headed families, married couples, single men and women, and the elderly.

Author : Nina Eliasoph
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 329 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2011-02-28
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781400838820

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Making Volunteers by Nina Eliasoph Pdf

An inside look at how community service organizations really work Volunteering improves inner character, builds community, cures poverty, and prevents crime. We've all heard this kind of empowerment talk from nonprofit and government-sponsored civic programs. But what do these programs really accomplish? In Making Volunteers, Nina Eliasoph offers an in-depth, humorous, wrenching, and at times uplifting look inside youth and adult civic programs. She reveals an urgent need for policy reforms in order to improve these organizations and shows that while volunteers learn important lessons, they are not always the lessons that empowerment programs aim to teach. With short-term funding and a dizzy mix of mandates from multiple sponsors, community programs develop a complex web of intimacy, governance, and civic life. Eliasoph describes the at-risk youth served by such programs, the college-bound volunteers who hope to feel selfless inspiration and plump up their resumés, and what happens when the two groups are expected to bond instantly through short-term projects. She looks at adult "plug-in" volunteers who, working in after-school programs and limited by time, hope to become like beloved aunties to youth. Eliasoph indicates that adult volunteers can provide grassroots support but they can also undermine the family-like warmth created by paid organizers. Exploring contradictions between the democratic rhetoric of empowerment programs and the bureaucratic hurdles that volunteers learn to navigate, the book demonstrates that empowerment projects work best with less precarious funding, more careful planning, and mandatory training, reflection, and long-term commitments from volunteers. Based on participant research inside civic and community organizations, Making Volunteers illustrates what these programs can and cannot achieve, and how to make them more effective.

Author : Jane Henrici
Publisher : University of Arizona Press
Page : 242 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2006-10-26
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780816525126

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Doing Without by Jane Henrici Pdf

The welfare reform legislation enacted in 1996 was applauded by many for the successes it had in dramatically reducing the number of people receiving public assistance, most of whom were women with children. Today, however, more than a decade later, these successes seem far less spectacular. Although the total number of welfare recipients has dropped by more than fifty percent nationwide, evidence shows that poverty has actually deepened. Many hardworking women are no better off for having returned to the workplace. In Doing Without, Jane Henrici brings together nine contributions to tell the story of welfare reform from inside the lives of the women who live with it. Cases from Chicago and Boston are combined with a focus on San Antonio from one of the largest multi-city investigations on welfare reform ever undertaken. The contributors argue that the employment opportunities available to poorer women, particularly single mothers and ethnic minorities, are insufficient to lift their families out of poverty. Typically marked by variable hours, inadequate wages, and short-term assignments, both employment and training programs fail to provide stability or the kinds of benefitsÑsuch as health insurance, sick days, and childcare optionsÑthat are necessary to sustain both work and family life. The chapters also examine the challenges that the women who seek assistance, and those who work in public and private agencies to provide it, together must face as they navigate ever-changing requirements and regulations, decipher alterations in Medicaid, and apply for training and education. Contributors urge that the nation should repair the social safety net for women in transition and offer genuine access to jobs with wages that actually meet the cost of living.

Author : Axel Börsch-Supan,Martina Brandt,Karsten Hank,Mathis Schröder
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 285 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2011-04-13
Category : Family & Relationships
ISBN : 9783642174728

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The Individual and the Welfare State by Axel Börsch-Supan,Martina Brandt,Karsten Hank,Mathis Schröder Pdf

Our health, our income and our social networks at older ages are the consequence of what has happened to us over the course of our lives. The situation at age 50+ reflects our own decisions as well as many environmental factors, especially interventions by the welfare state. This book explores the richness of 28,000 life histories in thirteen European countries, collected as part of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Combining these data with a comprehensive account of European welfare state interventions provides a unique opportunity to answer the important public policy questions of our time – how the welfare state affects people’s incomes, housing, families, retirement, volunteering and health. The overarching theme of the welfare state creates a book of genuinely interdisciplinary analyses, a valuable resource for economists, gerontologists, historians, political scientists, public health analysts, and sociologists alike.

Author : Sonia Martin,Suellen Murray,Greg Marston,Jenny Chalmers,John Murphy
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 191 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2020-07-16
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781000257311

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Half a Citizen by Sonia Martin,Suellen Murray,Greg Marston,Jenny Chalmers,John Murphy Pdf

'This important and illuminating book provides a powerful and harrowing depiction of the inadequacies of the Australian welfare system. Its findings challenge the foundations and direction of the welfare reform agenda.' - Professor Peter Saunders, University of New South Wales 'This major new study challenges many myths about life on welfare and in low paid work. It should be read by anyone concerned with welfare reform.' - Jane Millar, Professor of Social Policy, University of Bath What is it really like to be unemployed and on welfare? How do you make ends meet? Does the welfare system actually help people get back into jobs? Half a Citizen draws on in-depth interviews with 150 welfare recipients to reveal people struggling to get by on a low income, the anxieties of balancing paid work with income support, and how unstable housing makes it difficult to get ahead. By investigating the lives beyond the statistics, Half a Citizen also explodes powerful myths and assumptions on which welfare policy is based. The majority of welfare recipients interviewed are very active, in paid work, caring for children or for other family members, and they see themselves as contributing and participating citizens, even if they sometimes feel they are being treated as 'half a citizen'. These stories of resilience and passion bear no resemblance to the clich d images of dependence, laziness, and social isolation which underpin social policy and media debate.

Author : Frenette, Marc,Picot, W. G,Statistics Canada. Analytical Studies Branch
Publisher : Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch
Page : 25 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : Economic assistance, Domestic
ISBN : 066232353X

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Life After Welfare [electronic Resource] : the Economic Well Being of Welfare Leavers in Canada During the 1990s by Frenette, Marc,Picot, W. G,Statistics Canada. Analytical Studies Branch Pdf

Author : Douglas Besharov
Publisher : Transaction Publishers
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2011-12-31
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781412813990

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Family and Child Well-Being after Welfare Reform by Douglas Besharov Pdf

Since their historic high in 1994, welfare caseloads in the United States have dropped an astounding 59 percent--more than 5 million fewer families receive welfare. Family and Child Well-Being after Welfare Reform, now in paperback, explores how low-income children and their families are faring in the wake of welfare reform. Contributors to the volume include leading social researchers. Can existing surveys and other data be used to measure trends in the area? What key indicators should be tracked? What are the initial trends after welfare reform? What other information or approaches would be helpful? The book covers a broad range of topics: an update on welfare reform (Douglas J. Besharov and Peter Germanis); ongoing major research (Peter H. Rossi); material well-being, such as earnings, benefits, and consumption (Richard Bavier); family versus household (Wendy D. Manning); fatherhood, cohabitation, and marriage (Wade F. Horn); teenage sex, pregnancy, and nonmarital births (Isabel V. Sawhill); child maltreatment and foster care (Richard J. Gelles); homelessness and housing (John C. Weicher); child health and well-being (Lorraine V. Klerman); nutrition, food security, and obesity (Harold S. Beebout); crime, juvenile delinquency, and dysfunctional behavior (Lawrence W. Sherman); drug use (Peter Reuter); mothers' work and child care (Julia B. Isaacs); and the activities of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (Don Winstead and Ann McCormick). When welfare reform was first debated, many people feared that it would hurt the poor, especially children. The contributors find little evidence to suggest this has occurred. As time limits and other programmatic requirements take hold, more information will be needed to assess the condition of low-income families after welfare reform. This informative volume establishes a baseline for that assessment.

Author : Beresford, Peter
Publisher : Policy Press
Page : 456 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2016-01-29
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781447328940

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All Our Welfare by Beresford, Peter Pdf

The UK welfare state is under sustained ideological and political attack. It has also been undermined by accusations of paternalism and past failures to engage with the very people it is intended to help. This unique book is the first to critique the past, present and future welfare state from a participatory perspective. Peter Beresford, champion of user involvement, draws on pioneering theories and practice of welfare service user movements to offer a blueprint for a new participatory social policy. He controversially challenges orthodox social policy and the limitations of both Fabian and Neo-liberal perspectives in engaging people to improve their own welfare, drawing on service users ‘ own ideas and experience, including fascinating vignettes from his own family’s experience, to demonstrate the value of ‘user knowledge’. Filling a much-needed gap in the literature, this accessible text will provide a great introduction for students and a road-map for practitioners of an alternative vision for a future participatory and sustainable social policy. It will also command much wider interest from everyone concerned with how we look after each other in future in society.

Author : Kerry C. Woodward
Publisher : Lexington Books
Page : 223 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2013-03-14
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780739168837

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Pimping the Welfare System by Kerry C. Woodward Pdf

Based on ethnographic research in Contra Costa County, California (CCC), Pimping the Welfare System highlights a welfare program implemented after welfare reform that differed in significant ways from the predominant work first approach implemented by most welfare programs. The book argues that by imparting dominant economic, social, and cultural capital, CCC’s welfare program empowered participants and improved their quality of life and life chances. Successfully transmitting these types of capital, however, was dependent upon the discourses, practices, and pedagogy deployed by welfare workers—as well as the policies, practices, and resources of the welfare program. In particular, CCC’s welfare workers encouraged the acquisition and use of dominant capital (that which is desired by the labor market) by acknowledging and respecting the various types of capital welfare participants already had, and by encouraging participants to make strategic choices about deploying different types of capital. This book calls into question monolithic understandings of economic, social, and cultural capital and encourages a new conceptualization of capital that resists framing poor women as fundamentally “lacking.” In addition, it points to ways welfare administrators and welfare workers can develop more empowering programs even within the confines of federal, state, and local regulations.

Author : Daniel Friedlander,Gary Burtless
Publisher : Russell Sage Foundation
Page : 244 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 1995-02-03
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0871542668

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Five Years After by Daniel Friedlander,Gary Burtless Pdf

Friedlander and Burtless teach us why welfare reform will not be easy. Their sobering assessment of job training programs willenlighten a debate too often dominated by wishful thinking and political rhetoric. Look for their findings to be cited for many years to come. —Douglas Besharov, American Enterprise Institute A methodologically astute study that sheds considerable light on the potential for and limits to raising the employment and earnings of welfare recipients and provides benchmarks against which the impacts of later programs can be compared. —Journal of Economic Literature With welfare reforms tested in almost every state and plans for a comprehensive federal overall on the horizon, it is increasingly important for Americans to understand how policy changes are likely to affect the lives of welfare recipients. Five Years After tells the story of what happened to the welfare recipients who participated in the influential welfare-to-work experiments conducted by several states in the mid-1980s.The authors review the distinctive goals and procedures of evaluations performed in Arkansas, Baltimore, San Diego, and Virginia, and then examine five years of follow-up data to determine whether the initial positive impact on employment, earnings, and welfare costs held up over time. The results were surprisingly consistent. Low-cost programs that saved money by getting individuals into jobs quickly did little to reduce poverty in the long run. Only higher-cost educational programs enabled welfare recipients to hold down jobs successfully and stay off welfare. Five Years After ends speculation about the viability of the first generation of employment programs for welfare recipients, delineates the hard choices that must be made among competing approaches, and provides a well-documented foundation for building more comprehensive programs for the next generation. A sobering tale for welfare reformers of all political persuasions, this book poses a serious challenge to anyone who promises to end welfare dependency by cutting welfare budgets.

Author : Juttee Armiss
Publisher : Xlibris Corporation
Page : 370 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2013-11
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 1493120921

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A Life After Welfare by Juttee Armiss Pdf

Their life began in style with wealth being part of their heritage going back to their grandparent's days. Tragedy strikes the twins at the age of seven and their lives get turned upside down and not for the better. Graham and Sassy at seven years old barely live to survive with Graham being the protective one of his sister. Sassy's quote to her case manager was we are seen as cheap labour or something to be played with.' A sad indictment on the ability of children to be properly housed and cared for having undergone the upheaval of losing their parents or suffering loss in their lives. While fate played a huge downturn in their lives, fate then provides a huge upturn when by sheer accident Graham bumps into a pregnant lady in a supermarket. He jumps away to avoid pushing her over and by accident bumps into Amy who ends up falling on her butt. Amy leads them to her house where they are genuinely welcomed for the first time to a home in fourteen years. Their belief in people rises immeasurably as they are socialised, schooled, travelled, educated in life and meet people beyond their wildest dreams. Vanessa of the TV programme Eye Spy' hears of their endeavours and achievements so she decides to do a short do programme as a positive programme for teens their age who need mentors to spur them on. The short programme turns into a feature and therein their life begins as she gets into their lives. Their story is a great read. It could be rags to riches, but the riches are not yet there.

Author : Sandra L. Morgen,Joan Acker,Jill Weigt
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2011-01-15
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780801457845

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Stretched Thin by Sandra L. Morgen,Joan Acker,Jill Weigt Pdf

When the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act became law in 1996, the architects of welfare reform celebrated what they called the new "consensus" on welfare: that cash assistance should be temporary and contingent on recipients' seeking and finding employment. However, assessments about the assumptions and consequences of this radical change to the nation's social safety net were actually far more varied and disputed than the label "consensus" suggests. By examining the varied realities and accountings of welfare restructuring, Stretched Thin looks back at a critical moment of policy change and suggests how welfare policy in the United States can be changed to better address the needs of poor families and the nation. Using ethnographic observations, in-depth interviews with poor families and welfare workers, survey data tracking more than 750 families over two years, and documentary evidence, Sandra Morgen, Joan Acker, and Jill Weigt question the validity of claims that welfare reform has been a success. They show how poor families, welfare workers, and welfare administrators experienced and assessed welfare reform differently based on gender, race, class, and their varying positions of power and control within the welfare state. The authors document the ways that, despite the dramatic drop in welfare rolls, low-wage jobs and inadequate social supports left many families struggling in poverty. Revealing how the neoliberal principles of a drastically downsized welfare state and individual responsibility for economic survival were implemented through policies and practices of welfare provision and nonprovision, the authors conclude with new recommendations for reforming welfare policy to reduce poverty, promote economic security, and foster shared prosperity.