What is welfare?

We can likely agree that welfare represents some form of assistance. That begs a few questions, though. Assistance for what? From whom? To whom?

We generally think of welfare as assistance to people in need. Needs can vary. They may be needs for medical care (mental or physical), food, shelter (housing), protection (from abuse, domestic violence), income (for unemployed, whether they've been terminated, injured, etc., or those unable to work because of age, disability, etc.), crisis (e.g., death of household income earner), etc.

Another way to think about assistance is that it represents a transfer of income or wealth from one group, individual or organization to another. Usually we think of public assistance, funded by taxpayers.

Who provides assistance?

In general we think of welfare as publicly provided by various social services agencies. But there are welfare providers in the public (some examples here and here), private (e.g., churches), and non-profit sectors (to name a few locally, Oregon Rural Action, community food banks, Community Connections, Grande Ronde Child Center, Court-Appointed Special Advocates, etc.). We may or may not choose to include informal networks, for instance family members that may help each other out, or other informal support systems, but it should be clear that in the absence of such social capital, there would be greater stress placed on more formal types of welfare.

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What kinds of assistance?

If welfare is a transfer of income or wealth, we can narrow down the kinds of assistance. Generally it is either cash or in-kind service. Cash assistance programs include TANF (temporary assistance for needy families), unemployment compensation, social security, supplemental security income or SSI. In-kind programs provide services, but not direct cash benefit, and can include Medicaid (called the Oregon Health Plan here), Medicare, Food stamps, housing subsidies, food banks, shelters, etc. Keep in mind there are various levels of government--some programs are federal, others state, others local, and in addition some may be funded and administered at different levels (e.g., food stamps is federally funded, but administered by states).

Another way to categorize assistance is means-tested versus social insurance. Means-tested programs are generally available to low-income groups, whose members have to prove their eligibility, sometimes with excruciating demands and paperwork involved. Social insurance programs include social security, Medicare, unemployment, workers' compensation. There is greater stigma attached to the means-tested programs--Medicaid recipients may be treated differently in a doctor's office, food stamp users treated differently in a grocery store, people getting housing subsidies treated differently by landlords, etc.

Who receives welfare?

The short answer is that welfare is provided to the disadvantaged, underprivileged, the poor. People have to qualify for assistance, and different programs have different eligibility criteria. A distinction has also been made, since at least the Elizabethan period in 17th century England, between the 'deserving' and the able-bodied. The deserving include the elderly, disabled--those who for reasons beyond their control cannot provide for themselves (children's inclusion here has varied over the centuries). The 'able-bodied' are generally expected to work, and welfare compensation made so unattractive that working seems the preferable alternative. You'll quickly see this is Fox Piven's and Cloward's argument--that welfare is designed to enforce low-wage work. For instance, one can look at the earned income tax credit (EITC) in two ways: one, it provides assistance to those who work at low wages by reducing their tax burdens. Two, it allows employers to pay their workers low wages (po-tay-to, po-tah-to . . . ).

Which brings us to the other main recipients of welfare--corporations and the wealthy. Why are they recipients? This is a bit more complicated, having to do with how politicians get elected and stay in office, campaign financing, golden parachutes for those leaving public office, etc.

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Politics of welfare

Because welfare deals so much with who gets what, when, and how, its discussion inevitably involves politics. The ruling classes are generally in a position to impose their philosophies upon the electorate, and in the case of welfare, this means people pretty far removed from poverty making decisions about what poor people need. There may also be a tendency to pander to certain electorates (i.e., certain voting blocks seen as crucial for certain politicians' election, if you know what I mean--republicans go conservative and toward business interests, democrats toward liberal and workers' issues and viewpoints). If economic systems address the production and distribution of goods and services, a discussion of politics addresses how those systems of production and distribution, and the distribution of benefits, reflect which groups in society have power. So, there's no getting around it--welfare and politics go together like, well . . . zebras and lions? Homelessness and law enforcement? Poverty and war? Oh, forget it--you get the drift . . . So when you read about a specific policy, think about who is likely to benefit from it--welfare agencies, welfare recipients, low-wage employers, large corporations, religious groups with various political leanings, politicians themselves, middle/lower/upper class, etc.

Human and social capital

These are a couple of concepts that will stay with us throughout the course. Human capital involves those skills that people acquire that, for our purposes, make them more attractive to employers. More formal education, trade skills, other job-related training. It is an individual attribute, and the assumption of much of the philosophy underlying welfare is that people are all free to develop their human capital, the marketplace rewards those who do and punishes those who don't, and those who choose not to develop their human capital have only themselves to blame.

Social capital can refer to social organizations, existing networks of mutual aid, reciprocity, or to stocks of social trust, norms and networks that people can draw upon to solve common problems. It is one way to think about the strength of social ties and networks and the kinds of benefits that social groups expect to get from these networks.

Can you think of examples of social capital that might operate in a community? Capital already built up by segments of a community that may be useful for development purposes. Remember how we discussed how women who had some social support systems seemed to be demonstrably better off, with respect to their need for welfare and their ability to get off of welfare, than those without? They've got social capital. Welfare agencies often reward those with social capital (for instance, welfare reform tries to put children in parents' or relatives' homes), or another way of looking at it, those without social capital are punished. Chamber of commerce, various church groups-think of our hunger project and the kind of social capital that may operate between churches, food banks, non-profit organizations, etc.

According to sociologist James Coleman (1988), social capital fills a need within a society/social group, and is an economic adaptation (it's functional-we've talked about the functional argument before). French sociologist Pierre Bordieu (1995) contends that social capital is a function of economic organization, and thus that most social capital is a response-it may benefit those already in privileged positions, or it may be designed to address perceived inequities of some groups, but to understand it requires an examination of economic structures and capitalism (the next topic, by the way).

Sociologist Robert Putnam (1995) refers to features of social organization such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit. He focuses the idea of social capital on communities. His book, entitled 'Bowling Alone (2000),' discusses in depth the loss of social capital in communities across America. It must be kept in mind, however, that some social groups and some social capital works to the benefit of certain groups, at the expense of others. It's important to remember that social capital, like inequality, poverty or almost anything, likely benefits some more than others, and likely some benefit at the expense of others (for instance, hate groups may be able to draw on substantial social capital in the pursuit of their agendas. The Boy Scouts do many things for communities, but they also discriminate against gays and non-Christians and, by definition, girls--they're not there for everybody).

Functions of welfare

You might be thinking about this one . . . How is welfare 'socially constructed?' That is, we're not all likely to agree on what welfare is, or what it means. Some groups' views on welfare are accepted, or at least known, much better than others. For instance, how many of you had heard of the thesis that welfare was designed to regulate labor markets and quell civil unrest? What are some of the more 'popular' or 'mainstream' constructions of social welfare? Who is doing the constructing? That is, who has the power (and what kind of power does it take) to make their ideas and viewpoints heard, and to influence how social welfare is constructed as a problem in the public arena? We've talked quite a bit in class about how certain stereotypes of welfare recipients are perpetuated, for instance.