Week Four: Social class
and public policy
Why has marriage become so uncommon and why does the
government think it should get involved? ?
Do you approve of the goals of these marriage movement
programs”
Do you believe they will be effective?
Sociology 1201
“New Deal” of the 1930s

Social Security Act of 1935
One of its provisions was Aid to Dependent
Children (“suitable homes” and “deserving
poor”)…
 Basically aimed at white widows and their
children
Locally administered. In the American south,
African Americans were excluded

Sociology 1201
Southern Democrats and the
Power of the Filibuster


Florida Representative James Wilcox: "There
is another matter of great importance in the
South and that is the problem of our Negro
labor. There has always been a difference in
the wage scale of white and colored labor. So
long as Florida people are permitted to
handle the matter, the delicate and
perplexing problem can be handled.“
South also the poorest part of the country
and in need of New Deal programs
Sociology 1201
The War on Poverty

President Lyndon Johnson: “an all out
war” to “abolish poverty in our time. Its
provisions included:
Head Start
 Food Stamps
 Expansion of Aid to Families with Dependent
Children

Sociology 1201
Effects of the War on Poverty
1964-1972: Combined purchasing power
of AFDC and food stamps rose 40%
 Child poverty reached a low point of 14%
in 1969
 By the early 1980s, it was up to 23% and it
has fluctuated between 23% and 16%
since that time

Sociology 1201
More Effects


% of single mothers collecting AFDC rose from
29% in 1964 to 63% in 1972 and the overall
number of single mothers also rose in those
years
Change from an overwhelmingly white program
to a program in which the largest group of
mothers and kids was black, which in turn
reflected poverty statistics for the country as a
whole


The Great Migration
The National WelfareSociology
Rights
1201 Organization
Background to welfare reform


By 1993, Christopher Jencks (Rethinking Social
Policy: Race, Poverty, and the Underclass),
would term AFDC the “most unpopular social
program in America” (Is it because of the racial
shift in the population it was serving?)
Basic changes in the family; working and middle
class mothers now in the work force so why
should poor mothers be subsidized to stay at
home
Sociology 1201
Groups

Low Income Budget
Sociology 1201
Personal Responsibility and Work
Reconciliation Act of 1996

Established a new welfare system, Temporary
Assistance to Needy Families (TANF)





Five year limits, which many states shortened
Immediate requirements about jobs and job-seeking
Short term education and training
Family Cap: no work exemption and no support for
children born to mothers already on welfare
Carrot and stick: Sanctions and set-asides
Sociology 1201
Promoting “Family Values”





$50 million per year to promote abstinence
education
$100 million per year to the five states that
reduce out of wedlock births the most without
increasing abortions
Penalties to mothers who fail to control a child’s
truancy
No TANF for minors unless living with parents
Stronger programs to collect child support
Sociology 1201
Childcare assistance
TANF theoretically provides generous
childcare assistance

Hays, Flat Broke with Children: “The good news for
taxpayers and the bad news for poor single mothers and
their children is that the majority of welfare clients never
actually receive childcare subsidies.”

Why not? Fiscal crisis and state control
Sociology 1201
Is TANF a success?
In terms of getting women and children off
welfare, yes… remember Aisha and
Wanda in “Legacy”
 But among the advanced industrial
countries, Denmark and Finland lead the
way with less than 3% of children in
poverty. The United States is at the bottom
of the list: Children’s Defense Fund

Sociology 1201
Results
A dramatic decrease in the number of
mothers and children collecting welfare
 A large movement of “welfare mothers”
into the workforce, often in low-wage jobs
 More women and children in the homeless
population
 An increased usage of food shelves, soup
kitchens, homeless shelters
 And now, in 2012, more than 6 million
Americans whose only financial support is
food stamps ($320 a month for a mother
with two kids)

Sociology 1201
Can We do Better?: the MFIP
Demonstration Project
In Minnesota, 14,000 welfare recipients
and applicants, randomly assigned to
either MFIP or AFDC in 1994… pilot
projected last three years, with careful
evaluation of six-year impacts on parents
and children
 Earned Income Tax Credit… created
under President Ford, expanded under
Clinton…

Sociology 1201
Film: “Let’s Get Married”
In the mid-1960s, the Moynihan Report
raised a storm of criticism by highlighting
that 1/3 of African American babies were
being born out of wedlock.
 By now, the white out of wedlock births are
probably that high and for African
Americans dramatically higher. Can the
government do anything to reverse those
trends?

Sociology 1201