Great Society and welfare reform approaches to African-American poverty

¶ … African-American Mothers and Poverty

The Social Welfare Aspects of the Great Society and the Welfare Reform Act of 1996

The Great Society: Goals and Implementation

Background and Purpose of the Great Society

Actual implementation

The Social Challenge: Needed Assistance Wasn't Available

Welfare Reform Act, 1996

Concerns about TANF and current welfare programs

This paper reviews two approaches in social work to single African-American mothers and poverty. The first approach, practiced during the "Great Society" era of the 1960's and 1970's, focused on state-provided welfare, housing and other assistance for single African-American mothers and their families. The second era, starting with the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, focused on integrating poor African-American mothers into the workforce, and providing support services to insure that those mothers could support their children, learn a trade, and become self-supporting.

It is easy to inject political or moral arguments into such an exposition, or to expound on legal and social policy. That is not the intention of this paper. Rather, this is a sociologically-oriented study of both approaches, establishing what works and why, and what elements can be improved. This paper will discuss the two programs in three parts: (1) explain the goals and implementation of the Great Society program, (2) explain the goals and implementation of the Welfare Reform Act, and (3) compare and contrast the two programs, with a sociological analysis of the outcomes and consequences for social workers.

The Great Society: Goals and Implementation

Background and Purpose of the Great Society

Prior and during World War II, the rate of single motherhood amongst African-American women was similar to the rest of the population. During the post-slavery period from 1890 to 1960, two-parent African-American households were the norm in 78-80% of the time (Bush, 2000). The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's led to a closer examination of African-Americans and poverty, and demonstrated the need for support of African-Americans, who had previously been neglected by the welfare system.

President Kennedy proposed a reform of the welfare program, but Lyndon Johnson was able to put it in place during his administration. Johnson focused on lifting children from poverty, and giving them the chance to participate in broader American prosperity:

The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time...The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents.... It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community (Johnson, 1964).

Johnson's program included a series of initiatives. The most relevant for this paper were a revamped welfare system, the Community Action Program (CAP) and Head Start. The welfare program was an offshoot of the CAP philosophy, which was not only to provide income assistance, but to provide a series of programs which would involve the poor in designing and implementing programs which helped to propel them out of the cycle of poverty.

The Social Challenge: Needed Assistance Wasn't Available

The nuclear African-American family was a shambles in the 1970's. One can certainly include the Great Society programs as contributors to this decline, but other demographic factors may have also played a role. Those who criticize the Great Society reforms ignore the reality that social workers were not available to put a 'human face' on programs. In addition, congressional changes in 1967 and 1972 gutted many of the "helping hand, not a handout" nature of the programs, which inhibited their ability to support the poor with specific social programs.

The result of the Great Society programs and related demographic changes was a dramatic worsening of the status of African-American families: the number of illegitimate births to African-American women grew from 23% to 69% from 1960 to 1991, criminal incarceration increased threefold, and the number of single mother heads of household tripled during the same period (Kennedy, 1997).

Welfare Reform Act, 1996

Background

The name of the 1996 act was the "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act." This act represented a fundamental shift in America's approach to welfare. By 1996, it was commonly believed that the welfare reforms of the Great Society had been major contributors to the breakdown of the nuclear African-American family. There was a widespread belief, supported by data, that an underclass of poor, single African-American women was perpetuated by the welfare system.

The number of African-American children living with one parent had grown for both African-Americans and Caucasians, but the rate of increase had been much greater for African-Americans:

Percentage of Children under 18 Living with One Parent

Race/Ethnicity

African-American

White

The primary tradeoff of the bill was to impose mandatory work requirements on single mothers, by replacing AFDC and related programs and compel women to join the workforce. The primary program was the "WorkFirst" provision, supported for an interim period by a replacement for welfare known as TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families).

The fundamental effect of the program was to improve women's participation in the workforce, not to eliminate poverty. While poverty did decline from 1996 to 2000, from 14.5% of families to 12.8%, the primary effect was to increase single mothers' workforce participation from 25% in 1996 to 50% in 2001.

As compared to the 1962/1967 CAP program, social work was a primary focus of the program. Although welfare expenditures were substantially reduced as single mothers left the welfare rolls, the primary goal was to allocate adequate resources to child care, actual job training, and other social support services. As compared to the 1962/1967 programs, the states had a stronger role in the implementation of the program (and a greater financial participation). Some states chose to relax the requirements of TANF, which has provided a useful measure of its effectiveness in reducing unemployment among single African-American mothers. In California, for example, the TANF requirement of 24 months maximum assistance and 60 months' total assistance was eliminated. One has not seen the concomitant reduction in African-American female head-of-household unemployment, nor has there been a significant reduction in TANF participation as has been seen in other states.

African-American rates of marriage are increasing since 1996. Whereas in 1963, 70% of all African-American families were headed by married couples, that rate had dipped to 46.1% by 1996. In 2001, the rate had increased to 47.9%, the first uptrend in 40 years (Kinnon, 2003). The rate of African-American crime and incarceration, which is closely linked to males from single-parent households, has also dipped since 1996.

Concerns about TANF and current welfare programs

While the statistics are compelling, there are a series of questions which have not been addressed by these welfare reforms. There are still about 50% of the former welfare population which has not been able to graduate from the welfare-poverty cycle, nor have they been able to find work. In states where the TANF provisions were enacted, including the 5-year limitation on welfare benefits, there has been a back-sliding on the part of state legislatures to extend welfare assistance for the "hard core" unemployed.

The effects on children of working mothers has long been a concern (Garfinkle, 1986). Even when adequate child care resources are available, there can be a decline in children's well-being during the first year of the family's adjustment to the mother working outside the home (Cherry, 1977). Although children of non-welfare families tend to be less likely to be on welfare themselves, the fact of the hard-core welfare recipients is a holdover from previous welfare policies; children in those families in which there has been no work history are less likely to have the mentoring, experience and encouragement to complete education and join the workforce.

As we saw with the failures of the Great Society programs of the 1960's, it is important to provide adequate social workers to administer the programs for single African-American mothers. Of those left in the TANF and other related programs, many face psychological, medical and other issues that defy simple solutions. Some members in this situation may never be able to lift themselves out of poverty due to age, drug dependence or disability. Even those in two-parent households may suffer from pathologies which prevent self-help.

Conclusion

The implications for social work to assist single African-American women are clear. The problems of poverty amongst this group are not simply eliminated by offering "work your way out of welfare." For those left behind, the problems are deeper than child care and income level. The Wisconsin program, on which the 1996 Welfare Reform Act were based, included intensive one-on-one work with single mothers and tailored assistance which provided a support infrastructure for women in the poverty cycle. Even with this intensive management, only half the women were able to move off welfare rolls.

Social work is therefore crucial to any program that attempts to bring single mothers into the mainstream. It alone does not provide all the answers: there will still be a substantial number of families which will need on-going social support networks.