Abstract: When President Lyndon Johnson launched his Unconditional War on Poverty, he boldly declared, days of the dole in the United States country are numbered. However, within two years of the enactment of his Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, a remarkable escalation in public assistance payments began. While President Johnson may have been correct that the days of welfare are numbered, that number is proving to be very large indeed.Any attempt to reform welfare must begin with the recognition that the current system has not resolved -- rather seems to be perpetuating -- poverty. It has created behavioral disincentives that trap many recipients in poverty from generation to generation and has also created yet another unwieldy and unresponsive bureaucracy. The key dilemma of the welfare state is that prolific spending intended to alleviate material poverty has caused the collapse of the low-income family and led to a dramatic increase in behavioral poverty -- dependency, lack of educational aspiration and achievement, increased single parenthood and illegitimacy.Studies have consistently shown that higher welfare benefits decrease work effort and increase welfare dependence. Increased dependence, in turn, has strong negative effects on children's intellectual abilities and life prospects. If we hold constant a wide range of factors such as family income, parental education, and residence, long-term welfare dependence by a family is seen to reduce a child's intellectual ability by more than one-third compared to children in similarly low-income families that were not on welfare.(1) Children raised by families on welfare are more likely to fail in school, more likely to get caught up in crime, and more likely to end up on welfare themselves as adults.(2)WELFARE SPENDINGAlthough the poverty rate has remained relatively steady since 1965, welfare spending has risen from 1.5 percent of GNP when Lyndon Johnson launched the program in 1965 to 5 percent today.The federal government spends more than $240 billion on welfare annually,(3) which is more than twice the money needed to raise every person on welfare out of poverty.(4)GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS DESTROYING FAMILIESIt is no longer a question of whether this money has produced positive results, but rather what can be done to erase the debilitating effects welfare has had on society.The current system has made marriage economically irrational for most low-income parents. Welfare has converted the low-income working husband from a necessary breadwinner into a financial handicap. It has transformed marriage from a legal institution that protects and nurtures children into an institution that financially penalizes nearly all low-income parents who choose it. Welfare benefits will be higher if a man and woman do not marry and are treated by the government as separate households.Too many mothers decide not to marry the fathers of their children; they marry welfare instead. As George Gilder, author of Wealth and Poverty observed, the modern welfare state has convinced poor fathers that they are dispensable. Through government programs, we send the message that men are most useful as procreators, not as family partners and providers. Government will pick up the tab for their children provided that they do nothing to help the mother or to assume responsibility.Currently, the welfare benefit package (AFDC, Medicaid, housing, and food stamps) offers each single mother an average of between $8,500 and $12,000 in benefits, depending on the state.(5) The mother continues to receive that level of benefits as long as she does not work or marry an employed male.(6)Research by Dr. Robert Hutchens of Cornell University estimates that a 10 percent increase in AFDC benefits in a state translates into an eight percent decrease in the marriage rate of all single mothers.(7)The poverty rate among those living in traditional married couple families is less than half the overall poverty rate; the poverty rate for female headed families (with no husband present) is nearly six times the poverty rate for traditional two parent families. …
Publication Year: 1994
Publication Date: 1994-07-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 3
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