Writing in the New York Review of Books, Christopher Jencks provides a thoughtful review of Jason DeParle’s book, “American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation’s Drive to End Welfare” and takes the opportunity to review the impact of the 1996 welfare law noting that most former recipients aren’t much better off with a slight income gain coupled with new expenses. And he writes about the other side of the story – the mothers who aren’t working or getting any temporary aid. Jencks concludes with a critique of proposals to encourage marriage for low-income single parents, and other policy recommendations:
“DeParle proposes several reforms to improve single mothers‘ lives. He would expand Medicaid, raise the minimum wage, use housing subsidies to move poor families to better neighborhoods, offer better job training, and make sure that every school has an after-school program for children of working mothers. These proposals are familiar and, except for better job training, most states know how to carry them out. The obstacles are political, not technical. As DeParle says, “It’s hard to picture a radically new politics of poverty when politics remains so dominated by money and the poor so lacking in power.” But welfare reform has at least reduced popular opposition to such changes. Most Americans seem to share Clinton’s view that ”those who work shouldn’t be poor,“ and they are now more likely to see single mothers as working mothers. Nonetheless, demands that all able-bodied poor women should work full-time are often unrealistic, as well as punitive in their effects. With four children to support, Angie had to work more than forty hours a week to keep her family going. Forcing unmarried mothers with four children to spend that much time at work can only lead to physical and emotional exhaustion, child neglect, and greater numbers of adolescents in trouble. Reconciling the demands of work and parenthood requires a different system of child care. If all school districts offered year-round half-day pre-kindergarten programs, it would be relatively easy for mothers of young children to work half-time when jobs were available. This seems to me a far more reasonable goal than full-time work. If all schools also had after-school programs, mothers of school-age children could work full-time without worrying about their children neglecting their homework or getting in trouble. Work requirements that encourage parents like Angie to leave their children unsupervised cannot be a good idea. Most American politicians have been unwilling to acknowledge this risk. They and their constituents should think more seriously about what they can do for such mothers and children. Those who still feel that welfare reform was a bad idea should also recognize that there is no going back. America will not revive welfare ”as we knew it“ in the lifetime of anyone reading this article. For that we can thank Bill Clinton.”