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If a man wants to play, then let him pay. --Ruben K. King, Alabama's Department of Pensions and Security Commissioner IN THE LATE 1960s, MRS. KATIE B. SHAW, the director [...]

Objectives. We examined correlates of eviction and homelessness among current and former welfare recipients from 1997 to 2003 in an urban Michigan community. Methods. Longitudinal cohort data were drawn from the Women's Employment Study, a representative panel study of mothers who were receiving cash welfare in February 1997. We used logistic regression analysis to identify risk factors for both eviction and homelessness over the survey period. Results. Twenty percent (95% confidence interval [CI]= 16%, 23%) of respondents were evicted and 12% (95% CI= 10%, 15%) experienced homelessness at least once between fall 1997 and fall 2003. Multivariate analyses indicated 2 consistent risk factors: having less than a high school education and having used illicit drugs other than marijuana. Mental and physical health problems were significantly associated with homelessness but not evictions. A multivariate screening algorithm achieved 75% sensitivity and 67% specificity in identifying individuals at risk for homelessness. A corresponding algorithm for eviction achieved 75% sensitivity and 50% specificity. Conclusions. The high prevalence of housing instability among our respondents suggests the need to better target housing assistance and other social services to current and former welfare recipients with identifiable personal problems.

Thirty-four states have diversion programs in place that offer lump-sum payments or service vouchers to applicants for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) who have short-term needs, enabling them to avoid beginning a spell of aid. Using data from the National Survey of America's Families, I find that diversion programs appear to target applicants at the high and low ends of the educational spectrum, as well as Hispanic and married families. Diverters are substantially less likely to be employed than TANF leavers and more likely to receive food stamps. These findings suggest that the need for short-term assistance may recur.

In this study, we analyzed whether parents' receipt of welfare affects children's educational attainment in early adulthood, independent of its effect through changing family income. We used data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics with information on parents' welfare receipt over the first 15 years of childhood. Cross-sectional results show that greater exposure to welfare is significantly associated with children's poorer educational attainment. Family fixed-effect regressions also indicate a negative effect of exposure to welfare, but its overall pattern is less consistent. Although exposure to welfare in early childhood has no effect, in adolescence and, to a lesser degree, in middle childhood, its effect is often negative.

This article examines the welfare reform laws enacted in 1996 by Bill Clinton. The author argues the new welfare laws created a political environment in which welfare is no longer a contentious issue even though they are far more damaging to the poor than the old welfare system.

Following the rapid demise of local coalmining in the 1950s and early 1960s, the former coal towns of the Cessnock area have survived in their newfound dormitory role, with cheap serviced housing acting as a major constraint on out-migration and an incentive for in-migration for low-income householders, mainly engaged in external commuting or outside the workforce. Behavioural responses to widening local job deficits in the early 1960s were reported in this journal (Holmes, 1965). From household surveys and other sources, Holmes examined the interplay between individual, household and locality variables and presented a spectrum of projected future outcomes for localities, according to accessibility, size and service provision, either attached to the Newcastle-Maitland labour market as low-income outer suburbs or experiencing varying rates of decline while providing low-cost welfare housing. While these broad trends have continued over the last 35 years, significant variants, not predictable in 1965 have emerged, notably: the increased residential attractiveness of some small localities; the strengthening of welfare migration, notably from Sydney; the increase in non-workforce households; and, some evidence of emerging socio-economic polarisation in larger towns. In these respects, Cessnock localities can be viewed as a microcosm of wider trends in Australian society, trends which are most fully revealed in disadvantaged metropolitan peripheral localities. KEY WORDS: locational disadvantage; household mobility; welfare migration; housing markets; Hunter Valley; New South Wales

This article examines the experiences of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families recipients with sanctions and administrative case closings, as reported by respondents in a survey of families in low-income neighborhoods in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio. Among those who said that their welfare benefits had been reduced or eliminated for noncompliance with the rules, the most common reasons provided were missing an appointment or not filing paperwork. In comparison with other families that had received welfare in the previous 2 years, families that were penalized were more disadvantaged in a number of respects, including lower education and poorer health.

Recent deliberations over welfare reform place a new emphasis on alcohol and drug addiction as a cause of welfare dependency and joblessness. Existing studies show a complex relationship between addiction and welfare dependency, but few studies closely examine the nature of this relationship. We examine several intervening mechanisms--as suggested by human capital theory, social capital arguments, and labeling theory--that help to explain this relationship in event history models of how people leave from and return to welfare programs over a 6-year period. We find that alcohol and drug dependence are not strong predictors of whether or not aid recipients leave welfare for a job, even though explanations focused on work capacity and human capital currently prevail in the debate over welfare reform. Substance dependence is a stronger determinant of leaving welfare due to family disruptions and administrative removals from aid, which is more suggestive of underlying processes involving social capital and institu tional labeling. Family and administrative reasons for leaving welfare also produce more unstable exits than exits for work, thus putting people with addictions at higher risk of returning to welfare over time. These findings should encourage us to think more about how addiction to drugs and alcohol penetrates the broader social circumstances of welfare recipients' lives, beyond their experiences in the labor market and capacities to work.

This article examines the challenges women welfare recipients face when in a nursing assistant employment and training program. The author, arguing an incomplete gender shift exists in welfare policy, discusses the impact labor training outside the home has on their relationships with male partners and their children, maintaining the women's training was complicated by their children's illnesses and partners' unemployment situations.

This article examines former female welfare recipients now working as social service workers. The authors, focusing on how the workers' past experiences affect their work, maintain the women claim to feel more empathy towards clients and felt they had valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of current welfare policies.

This article examines the challenges involved in addressing the unique needs of female welfare recipients who are victims of domestic violence. A recent pilot project designed to provide domestic violence assistance within a public agency faced considerable organizational obstacles to provide specialized on-site services and help clients find employment.

This article examines deficiencies in social services available for female welfare recipients who are victims of family violence. Women who request domestic violence assistance are often granted waivers from welfare work requirements despite a greater need for assistance with housing, transportation, child care, and other employment barriers.

This article provides an overview of current efforts to improve social service delivery and child support agency cooperation for female welfare recipients who are victims of domestic violence. Three social service projects have provided insight into victim identification, barriers to cooperation between agencies, and responses to referrals for community-based social services.

This article examines the prevalence of partner violence among a sample of female welfare recipients from an urban county in Michigan. Findings indicate that approximately two-thirds of women had experienced domestic violence and recent victims had higher rates of health problems, psychiatric disorders, drug dependence, and material hardships.

This article examines factors related to the failure of a welfare reform program in Washington that provided employment-related services to welfare recipients. Findings indicate that the failure of the pilot program was related to the inhibiting impact of gender roles on female recipients' perceptions of welfare acceptance and work responsibilities.

This article discusses the relationship between domestic violence and employment barriers for women. Topics include welfare reform, gender, and power.

Twenty-four battered women who were on welfare were interviewed in five focus groups in two states from 1996 to 1999. The women's revelations of their attempts to work, obstacles to employment, and treatment by the welfare system before and after Temporary Assistance to Needy Families was implemented suggest the need for both short-term and long-term changes in policies.

Negative stereotypes of African-American single mothers on public assistance played a significant role in passing welfare legislation that decreased aid to poor families. By characterizing poor women as dependent and reproductively irresponsible, cuts in assistance were perceived as an acceptable way of modifying behavior.

Issues concerning the relationship between welfare policy and infant mortality are discussed. Topics addressed include the research that suggests increased welfare benefits will directly or indirectly impact infant mortality rates.

The extent and implications of cohabitation and marriage among US welfare recipients were investigated through an analysis of four data sets. Results revealed significant numbers of cohabitors among recipients of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, most of which were married women on welfare. AFDC rules were also found to encourage cohabitation and provide weak evidence in support of incentives to cohabit.

Objective. This article analyzes differences in the probability of receiving AFDC and SSI transfer payments between immigrant country-of-origin subgroups and natives. Methods. The article develops new estimates of AFDC and SSI recipiency using 1980 and 1990 U.S. Census data, decomposes interdecade changes in recipiency levels into size and rate components, and assesses the extent to which the observed nativity differences derive from nativity differences in sociodemographic and economic characteristics. Results. Over the decade, the overall immigrant/native differential in public assistance usage rises, primarily because of AFDC increases among immigrants and AFDC decreases among natives. The rise in immigrant AFDC recipiency, in turn, is attributable to increased sizes of immigrant country-of-origin groups with above-average rates of U.S. welfare recipiency, namely, Asian refugees and Mexicans and Central Americans, rather than from increased recipiency within these groups. When the influence of other factors on recipiency is controlled, however, the results show that immigrants are less likely than comparable natives to receive AFDC in both years. While this also holds true for SSI recipiency in 1979, in 1989 Asian refugees and, to a lesser extent, Mexican and Central American immigrants, are more likely than statistically equivalent natives to receive SSI. Conclusions. In comparison with results that are not disaggregated by country of origin and type of welfare received, these results imply that targeted programs rather than blanket immigration policy reforms might be needed.

The effects of gang violence on the decisions regarding caregiving and work provided by welfare recipients are examined. All 56 participants live in an inner city public housing development in Chicago where 49% are living under the poverty line. Results indicate that aspirations for employment and improved living standards are given up by mothers if they interfere with the healthy development of their children in the violence-infested neighborhood.

Acceptance of the need for government-sponsored welfare programs has declined radically in the past 15 years. The history of welfare initiatives is traced, from their inception as a buffer to the inherent inequities of a capitalist economy to their recent demonizing as corruptive influences on recipients of benefits. The political shifts that have permitted this change, along with its effects on the lives of poor people, particularly women, are discussed.

Ways in which the poor and the powerless, women in particular, have been made the focus of rhetoric aimed at the undoing of the federal welfare system are described. The stigmatizing of poor, single mothers as a means of diverting attention from recent substantial shifts in wealth in the U.S. is examined, and it is suggested that the essential problem is not the character and habits of poor women but the persistence of poverty as a fundamental structure of the society.

The social stigma attached to the use of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) programs by African American single mothers is studied. Results show that many AFDC recipients were considered deviants by media, welfare staff and employers and thus were subjected to differential treatment in welfare agencies and the workplace. This negative image is further aggravated by the fact that these women lived in inner-city neighborhoods.

In the debate on welfare reform, stereotypes of women on welfare have resurfaced, and most proposals for reform are designed to modify and regulate women's behaviors. This article, based on information obtained in focus groups of recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children, examines how women manage the stigma of being welfare mothers and what they think about 'cheating' the system. The most striking difference between recipients of the 1990s and of the 1960s is the belief of current recipients that they are entitled to governmental support as long as they are attempting to better their own lives.

Homeless women share many of the same problems as housed women on welfare but there are important differences. Researchers compared the social, economic and health characteristics of 220 homeless women in shelters and 216 housed women on welfare. Almost half the homeless women earned less than $7,000 annually, compared to 17% of the women on welfare. Homeless women moved more often and had smaller support networks. However, both groups had higher rates of depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse than women in the general population., Objective.--To compare characteristics of homeless and low-income housed mothers across economic, psychosocial, and physical health domains. Design.--Case-control study. Setting.Community of Worcester, Mass. Participants.--A cross-sectional sample of 220 sheltered homeless mothers and 216 low-income housed (never homeless) mothers receiving welfare. Main Outcome Measures.--Income, housing, life events, social support, history of abuse and assault, and mental and physical health. Results.G--Comparison of homeless and housed mothers revealed some important similarities and differences. The proportion of homeless mothers with annual incomes of less than $7000 was 46% vs 17% for housed mothers (P Conclusion.--Sheltered homeless mothers had fewer economic resources and social supports and higher cumulative rates of violent abuse and assault over their lifespans than their housed counterparts. However, both groups faced extreme adversity that compromised family well-being. Practitioners and social policymakers need to be cognizant of the multiple economic, psychosocial, and physical health needs of these mothers in providing treatment and developing program interventions. JAMA. 1996;276:640-646

Public discourses should take into account human experience and material context, for them to be productive. Discourse strategies used in the debate regarding the return of orphanages, as part of welfare reform debates, were biased. Arguments were related to media portrayal of orphanages, their economic viability, and versions of their past residents. These strategies divorced the experiences of persons enrolled in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program, the subjects. However, all strategists unanimously depicted a disabling image of the subjects, who otherwise had no say in the debate.

Mandatory welfare-to-work programs are a cornerstone of current welfare reform efforts, but achieving compliance has been difficult for these programs, in part because the organizational issues facing welfare-to-work programs have not been considered. In this analysis of case management practices in four of California's Greater Avenues to Independence programs, we demonstrate how organizational arrangements influence client compliance with program requirements. Compliance is associated with an ideology that does not stigmatize welfare recipients, goals that stress education and skill training, a service technology that is people-changing, and dispute management strategies that emphasize lenience and professional treatment.

More and more states are choosing to eliminate, reduce, or time limit their general assistance (GA) programs for their designated employable populations. Many governors and legislators believe that to motivate [...]

In this article we assert that it is necessary to better understand the assimilation model of racial and ethnic relations in order to comprehend more fully the contemporary debate over minority welfare mothers. We analyze the origins of the assimilation model in the debate over Indian policy in the 19th-century United States and its role in 20th-century social thought and policy toward other racial and ethnic minorities. We then examine three critical weaknesses of the model as they appear in assimilation programs based on the model. Finally, we return to the debate over assisting minority single mothers and show how the assimilation model has shaped that debate from the turn of the century to the present day.

The US public welfare system has tried to decrease the material poverty of the people but has increased their behavioral poverty, with increased dependency rates and lack of ambitions. These programs also encourage single parent families and increase unemployment rates, creating more welfare dependence. Children brought up in the welfare system fail to become self-sufficient, and depend more on welfare than their abilities. Welfare reforms based on the importance of stable families should aim at reducing behavioral poverty.

Studies of homelessness have rarely addressed the differences between homed and homeless groups. Such differences may have significant impacts for subgroups of the homeless population, especially the mentally disabled homeless. This paper examines the characteristics of a sample of homed and homeless welfare applicants (N = 372) in Los Angeles County based on a recent survey conducted by the Department of Public and Social Services. First, a social geography of the homed and homeless is presented. Second, an analysis of these survey data indicates that these two populations differ in terms of demographic characteristics, types of employment, and access to institutional and social support. These results suggest that greater institutional and social support, labor market access, and stable and affordable housing resources are all necessary elements in policy which prevents and ameliorates homelessness.

Two equilibrium models that determine welfare stigma are presented. The 'statistical discrimination approach' deals with the formalization of a sociological approach to welfare stigma. The second theory called 'taxpayer resentment view' deals with the consequences of raising taxes to finance welfare programs. Both theories claim that welfare stigma reduction can be done through system-wide self-targeting improvements in the workfare program or through greater taxpayer examination.