As Hays notes:

The top 1% of earners average income is $1,016,900. The top 1/5: $167,500. The bottom 1/5: $11,400. The number of people in poverty when she wrote was 31 million, in dire poverty, 12 million. We think the number now is closer to 35 million. Some stats can be found on the Public Agenda web page.

Some background

• The proportion of single mother families tripled in 40 years--going from 8% to 26%.
• Welfare recipients over 34 years (data through 1994) increased from 3 million to 14 million (they since were drastically reduced as a result of welfare 'reform' in 1996). .
• There is a persistent 'moral decline' argument and backlash against welfare and increases in the size and number of social welfare programs--Remember the 'Big Brother' theory, that poverty is caused by handouts, encourages immorality, laziness, and dependence (men would leave home so women could qualify for assistance, for instance, women would have more children to get more benefits, etc.)

Broader processes in society

Imagine an ant crawling around in your car. The ant may think it has control over its destiny. The car's passengers may decide otherwise. In some senses, people are caught up in social processes, like currents in a stream, that they may not be aware of, much less able to really affect in substantial ways. Some of these processes include:

• globalization
  • lower wages, shift from manufacturing to service sector (we're basically serving consumers buying cheap goods from Asia)--this has been ongoing for well over 30 years, in its modern variant.
• feminist movements--since the 1960s, women have made great strides in gaining equality, equity in the workforce, but still have far to go (how many female presidents, Congress members, CEOs, governors, etc., seeing as how women make up half the population?)
  • Yet there are more women in the workforce. Some perhaps by necessity, but there is more choice.
  • Increasing independence, rights of women
  • There are more women in college (begging questions like how to explain their lower average wages/salaries relative to men)
• increasing divorce, lower marriage rates, more co-habitation:
  • ½ of all marriages in the U.S. today will end in divorce;
  • In 1900, less than 5% of children lived in single-mother households; by 1970 this was 13%.
  • 1/3 of all children born in the U.S. now are born outside of marriage. By race, 75% of white children live in two-parent households, 36% of black children (Bureau of the Census, 2000)
  • What's causing these changes? Welfare?? (they're certainly underpinning welfare reform ...)
• Feminization of poverty-women are more vulnerable in situations of divorce, separation, abandonment, widowhood-why?
• Look at some statistics:
  • Women/men with HS diploma: 55 cents on the dollar relative to men with HS diploma
  • With college degree: 64% of men's average salary
  • Black women: 85 cents on the dollar compared to white women
  • Why??
• Cultural demonization of mothers on welfare-they have been increasingly portrayed as 'deviants,' although this has always been the case with the 'undeserving,' the 'immoral' (see Seccombe's discussion of social control)
• As sociologist Karen Seccombe suggests, women on welfare often accuse each other as well of being lazy, slothenly. This despite the fact that the accusors themselves often use structural arguments to explain their own predicaments (this is referred to in psychology as 'the fundamental error of attribution'). In other words, 'I know lots of other people who have made bad choices and screwed up, but I'm a victim of circumstances beyond my control.' There are powerful forces at work when those at the bottom, socioeconomically, in many ways victims of an economic and political system beyond their control, can be convinced that their plight is their own fault.

Arguments challenging these portrayals of TANF recipients

1. There is wide variation in values, beliefs, ascriptive statuses of welfare mothers-take the issue of drug testing, or infidelity, 'promiscuity'-what has it got to do with poverty, assistance? It hinges on untested theory, yet has formed the basis of treatment for this group for decades;
2. These issues are bigger than individuals--poverty obviously has a component of individual responsibility, but it also involves structural limitations, increasing divorce rates have occurred among ALL social classes, there is an increasing recognition of domestic violence, ), etc. One would expect that families with more economic problems are going to face more stresses.
3. The myth that welfare recipients' behavior is deterministic--in other words, critics of welfare programs may assert that welfare recipients' behavior is determined by the welfare programs they try to take advantage of--that what they do is a response to welfare programs. This ignores culture, upbringing, these structural limitations and barriers, and anyway, the attractiveness of welfare has steadily decreased (that is, benefits have dropped, requirements to receive it have increased) while single parenthood has risen over the last three decades.
   1. Research over time suggests little or no connection between welfare benefits and the size of rolls;
   2. The value of benefits has decreased by 50% during a period when single parenthood and welfare usage has steadily increased.
   3. There is no documented correlation between different levels of benefits in other countries and rates of single parenting. In other words, the theory remains unconvincing that there is a connection between single parenting and level of welfare benefits.
   4. Do we really think that a large number of people make, for instance, decisions about having children based on the welfare benefits they anticipate receiving?? If so, where is the evidence?

Sharon Hays. 2003. Flat Broke with Children. NY: Oxford.