Policy Devolution and the Racial Politics of
Poverty Governance
Joe Soss
Humphrey School of Public Affairs
Departments of Political Science & Sociology
University of Minnesota
Presentation based on Joe Soss, Richard Fording, and Sanford Schram.
2011. Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent
Power of Race. University of Chicago Press.
The Transformation of Poverty Governance
Neoliberalism
• Agenda: contrast with laissez-faire
• Operations: devolution, privatization, performance
Paternalism
• Agenda: set and enforce behavioral expectations,
promote social order and individual self-discipline
• Operations: directive and supervisory admin, penal
and custodial logics focused on noncompliance
PG: more muscular in its normative enforcement,
more dispersed and diverse in its organization
Continuity and Change in Poverty Governance
• Principle of Less Eligibility (PLE): a default logic
disrupted by episodic political pressures.
• Double Regulation of the Poor: rising correctional
dimensions of the PLE, convergence as a single
system, extension of penal logic/language to welfare
• Blurring of State/Market Boundary: PG as a site
of profitable investment and labor market activity
• Disciplinary Goals, Diverse Tools: goal of
producing compliant (self-disciplining) workercitizens, attractive and available to employers
Mainsprings of National Change
Conservative Mobilization
• Business, Racial, Neo-, Religious/Social
• Investments: think tanks, electoral/lobbying
• Racialized “wedge issues” targeting fractures in
the Democratic coalition
Socio-economic Change
• Decline of markets/wages for low-skilled labor
• Compounding of social problems in racially
segregated areas of concentrated poverty
• The Underclass as a repository for diverse
anxieties, growing push to enforce social order
and discipline work/social behavior
Today’s Focus: Federalism & Devolution
(Structuring the Politics of Poverty Governance)
Horizontal: choice and variation across state and
local jurisdictions
Vertical: structured relations across federal, state,
and local levels
Federalism: the timing and patterning of change
Devolution : In PG, a racialized policy choice that
facilitates racial influences and inequalities.
• Racial effects depend on political and economic
conditions across jurisdictions.
Poverty Governance, 1940s-1960s
Incarceration: modest, stable rates (~.1%)
Welfare: patchwork of state and local
provision
• Barriers to access, excluded populations
• Intrusive, restrictive rules and admin.
• Low benefit levels
• Calibration to local needs – e.g., seasonal
closures in the South
Disruption in the 1960s:
Political insurgency and welfare rights litigation
reshape the welfare settlement:
• Political pressures drive state benefit and
caseload increases, moving them away from
the PLE
• Expanded federal role in AFDC, constrains
admin tactics for excluding/purging in the
states
• Incarceration rates respond to insurgency,
but criminal justice remains mostly state/local
Federal Role Explains the Timing and Focus
of Shifts in Poverty Governance, 1970-1995
Criminal Justice: States are less constrained
• Earlier shift to more muscular approach
• Steep rise in incarceration across the states
Welfare: States are more constrained
• Limits on rule and admin strategies
• Benefits become the focus of efforts to restore
the PLE
• Real value of AFDC drops by roughly 50%, but
caseloads fail to recede
1
Disruption and Limited Restoration of the PLE:
The Benefit-Wage Ratio over Time
.97
.91
.6
.54
.4
.42
.2
• Food
Stamps
(1964)
.6
0
• Declining
Wages
.8
.86
1961
1976
State Calibration:
Benefit - Retail Wage
1995
State Average:
Benefit-Wage Ratio
Multivariate Models of State Welfare Change:
The Patterning of Decline, 1970-1995
Rates of AFDC Benefit Decline
• Republican Control of Govt.
• Higher BWR (benefits encroaching on wages)
• Higher black % of AFDC caseload
• Interaction of BWR and Black %
GA Termination: Republican control, low-skilled
wage levels, black % of recipients
AFDC Waiver Adoption: same predictors as
benefit decline
State-Level Patterns in Criminal Justice:
Key Predictors of State Increases in Black and
White Imprisonment Rates, 1976-1995
Crime Rate
Drug Arrest Rate
Black
Low-skill Wage
White
Republican Control
-10
0
10
20
30
40
Predicted Change in Imprisonment Rate, by Race
(based on 1976-1995 change in independent variable)
Federal Welfare Reform (PRWORA):
A New Devolution Settlement
• Block grants, expansion of state rule discretion
• Federal mandates, asymmetric state choices
• Backed up by federal benchmarks, monitoring,
incentives, penalties
• Not a handoff, a shift in the federal role. State
discretion over means for achieving federally
mandated, disciplinary ends.
• Work enforcement: now a national, bipartisan,
implicitly racialized political project
State Choices Regarding TANF Programs
Disappearance of predictors: partisan control,
benefit-wage ratio (PLE), fiscal capacities,
objective indicators of social problems
Racial Composition strongly predicts…
• Time limits
• Family Caps
• Full-Family Sanctions
• Work Requirement Rigidity
• Eligibility Restrictions
• Second-Order Devolution
The Accumulation of Racial Bias:
National Exposure to TANF Policy Regimes (2001)
63
60
63
54
43
40
41
37
31
29
26
26
20
26
0
11
0
1
2
5
4
TANF Neoliberal Paternalism Scale
White Percent
Black Percent
5
Convergent Systems of Social Control
3.4
2.6
2.8
3
3.2
R-Squared = .76
0
5
10
15
Percent in Correctional Control
3.6
20
TANF Regimes, Correctional Control, and Black Pop. (2001)
0
1
2
3
4
TANF Regime: Neoliberal Paternalism
5
Average Black Percent of State Population
Average Correctional Control
Quadratic Slope: Correctional Control by TANF Regime
Sanction Implementation:
Conservatism, Race, and Devolution
Florida WT Program
• Higher rates in more conservative counties: half
as likely to survive 12 months without a sanction
• Strong interaction with client race: no effect
among white clients.
National Analysis
• Interaction of local conservatism and client race
observed in SOD states only
Convergence: Policing and Welfare Sanctioning
0
2
4
6
Black-White Sanction Disparities, Black Arrest Rates, and
Benefit-Wage Ratios in Black HH Incomes (FL Counties)
0
.1
.2
Ratio of Black Arrests to Black Population
Low Ratio of
Welfare to Earnings
High Ratio of
Welfare to Earnings
Average Ratio of
Welfare to Earnings
.3
Sanctioning and Labor Market Needs:
Statewide Seasonal Calibration
Sanction Hazard Ratios and Tourism Revenues: r = .95
1.6
6
5
1.2
Hazard Ratio
4
1
0.8
3
0.6
2
0.4
1
0.2
0
0
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Month of Year
Tourism Tax Collections (in Billions)
1.4
Hazard Ratio
Tourism Taxes
20
Sanctions and Local Labor Market Seasonality
by Client Race (County-Months)
68% Black
15
43% Black
5
10
28% Black
10
20
30
40
50
Percentage of Sales Taxes from Tourism-related Businesses
60
Concluding Remarks
• Contemporary poverty governance as a
coherent disciplinary project. A shared logic of…
• Criminal justice and welfare
• Policy design and implementation
• Neoliberal paternalism as a racial project
• Federalism as a mechanism for calibrating PG
and state/local political economies
• Federalism as a mechanism of racial inequality,
• Facilitating racial biases in policy choice
• Converting them into racial inequalities vis-àvis state and market institutions
Policy Devolution and the Racial Politics of
Poverty Governance
Joe Soss
Humphrey School of Public Affairs
Departments of Political Science & Sociology
University of Minnesota
Presentation based on Joe Soss, Richard Fording, and Sanford Schram.
2011. Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent
Power of Race. University of Chicago Press.
Extra Slides
0
.2
.4
.6
.8
1
State Choices Regarding TANF
Family Cap, Time Limit, Full-Family Sanction
0
20
40
60
Black Percent of AFDC Recipients
Family Cap
Full-Family Sanction
Time Limit
80
0
.2
.4
.6
.8
1
State Choices Regarding TANF
Work Requirement Rigidity, Eligibility Restrictions
0
20
40
60
Black Percent of AFDC Recipients
Work Req. Rigidity
Eligibility Stringency
80
0
.2
.4
.6
.8
1
State-to-Local Devolution in TANF Programs:
Size & Distribution of Black Populations
0
5
10
15
Average Black Percent of State's County Populations
Less Heterogeneous
Dispersion
More Heterogeneous
Dispersion
Average
Dispersion
20