Chapter 6: Education and the cost of children.

This article deals with welfare reform and education. Stress on education and retraining highlights the importance of knowledge about and training in the new information technologies. In the climate of corporate downsizing, it takes skill to blame the recently unemployed, so that unemployment constitutes a gray area when the language of responsibility is invoked. Concerns about unemployment insurance are thus expressed in terms not of the burden on the state budget but of harm to the national economy. The primary concern articulated by governments revising their unemployment programs has been that benefit levels may be too high, or last too long, and are therefore creating disincentives to work. The education of children is also suffering from cutbacks, despite the concerned noises of the new social democrats, who, once again, follow monetarism. Contrary to those concerned noises, spending on education is decreasing. Cuts in state education spending in the U.S. mean that schools are now seeking out other sources of income. The most serious cost of welfare and education cuts also falls on mothers. For the rest of us, we are beginning to see the effects of spending less on our daily reproduction, our health, pensions and education. We need to decide if these are the kinds of consequences with which we can, literally, live.