One main effort of welfare reform is to replace public assistance with earnings. To date, politicians and welfare reform advocates have applauded the efforts and claimed success. However, lurking at the surface of welfare-to-work policies are serious problems and structural impediments. Lack of jobs, low pay, job-readiness, and difficulties in securing ancillary supports like transportation and child care are obvious problems that are not easily resolved. However, a deeper and usually unaddressed problem is that the jobs low-income women take (or need) are not mother ready. Full-time low-wage work does not provide enough income to support families, nor does it accommodate the demands that full-time parents have. These problems plague welfare-to-work efforts and make life very difficult for poor, single-mother families. At the same time, they create an opportunity to consider the value of caregiving work and to reform the nature of low-wage work.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Bane, Mary Jo.1997. Welfare As We Might Know It. American Prospect30(Jan./Feb.):47-53.
2.
Bartik, Timothy J.2000. Displacement and Wage Effects of Welfare Reform . In Finding Jobs: Work and Welfare Reform, ed. Rebecca Blank and David Card.New York: Russell Sage Foundation .
3.
Bernstein, Jared and Heidi Hartmann.2000. Defining and Characterizing the Low-Wage Labor Market. In The Low-Wage Labor Market: Challenges and Opportunities for Economic Self-Sufficiency, ed. Kelleen Kaye and Demetra Smith Nightingale.Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
4.
Blank, Rebecca and David Card.2000. Introduction: The Labor Market and Welfare Reform. In Finding Jobs: Work and Welfare Reform, ed. Rebecca Blank and David Card.New York: Russell Sage Foundation .
5.
Blank, Rebecca M., David E. Card, and Phillip K. Robins .2000. Financial Incentives for Increasing Work and Income Among Low-Income Families. In Finding Jobs: Work and Welfare Reform, ed. Rebecca Blank and David Card.New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
6.
Burtless, Gary.2000. Can the Labor Market Absorb Three Million Welfare Recipients ? In The Low-Wage Labor Market: Challenges and Opportunities for Economic Self-Sufficiency, ed. Kelleen Kaye and Demetra Smith NightingaleWashington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
7.
Cohen, Philip N. and Suzanne M. Bianchi .1999. Marriage, Children and Women's Employment: What Do We Know?Monthly Labor Review122(12):22-31.
8.
Crittenden, Danielle.1999. What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman. New York: Simon and Schuster.
9.
Danziger, Sheldon.2000. Approaching the Limit: Early Lessons from Welfare Reform . Paper prepared at Rural Dimensions of Welfare Reform, sponsored by the Joint Center for Poverty Research, Northwestern University/ University of Chicago, May. Available at http://www.jcpr.org/wp/WPprofile.cfm?ID=203 .
10.
Darity, William A. Jr. and Samuel Myers Jr., with Emmett D. Carson and William Sabol.1994. The Black Underclass: Critical Essays on Race and Unwantedness. New York: Garland Press.
11.
Gordon, Linda.1994. Pitied but Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare. New York: Free Press .
12.
Hoynes, Hilary W.2000. The Employment, Earnings, and Income of Less Skilled Workers over the Business Cycle. In Finding Jobs: Work and Welfare Reform, ed. Rebecca Blank and David Card.New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
13.
Jencks, Christopher.1991. Is the American Underclass Growing? In The Urban Underclass, ed. Christopher Jencks and Paul E. Peterson.Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
14.
Miller, Cynthia, Virginia Knox, Lisa A. Gennetian, Martey Dodoo, Jo Anna Hunter, and Cindy Redcross.2000. Reforming Welfare and Rewarding Work: Final Report on the Minnesota Family Investment Program. Vol. 1: Effects on Adults. New York: Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation.
15.
Mink, Gwendolyn.1998. Welfare's End. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
16.
Porter, Kathryn and Wendell Primus.1999. Changes Since 1995 in the Safety Net's Impact on Child Poverty. Washington, DC: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
17.
Primus, Wendell, Lynette Rawlings, Kathy Larin, and Kathryn Porter.1999. The Initial Impact of Welfare Reform on the Incomes of Single-Mother Families. Washington, DC: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
18.
Smith, David M. and Stephen A. Woodbury .2000. Low-Wage Labor Markets: Changes over the Business Cycle and Differences Across Region and Location. In The Low- Wage Labor Market: Challenges and Opportunities for Economic Self-Sufficaency, ed. Kelleen Kaye and Demetra Smith Nightingale. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
19.
Spalter-Roth, Roberta, Beverly Burr, Heidi Hartmann, and Lois Shaw.1995. Welfare That Works: The Working Lives of AFDC Recipients. Washington, DC: Institute for Women's Policy Research.
20.
Solow, Robert.1998a. Lecture I: Guess Who Likes Workfare? In Work and Welfare, ed. Amy Gutmann.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
21.
—. 1998b. Lecture II: Guess Who Pays for Workfare? In Work and Welfare, ed. Amy Gutmann.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
22.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.2000. Employment and Earnings. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
23.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.1999. Administration for Children and Families. Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation. Characteristics and Financial Circumstances of TANF Recipients, July-September 1999. Available at http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/opre/characteristics/fy99/analysis.htm .
24.
U.S. House of Representatives.2000. Committee on Ways and Means. 2000 Green Book: Background Material and Data on Programs Within the Jurisdiction of the Committee on Ways and Means. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
25.
Wilson, William Julius. 1987. The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, The Underclass, and Public Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
