Welfare, the Family, and Reproductive Behavior Research Perspectives (1998) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
3 Trends in the Welfare System
3 Trends in the Welfare System
Pages 33-49
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From page 33... ...
The second section investigates how public assistance programs fit into state and federal budgets. The third section summarizes the recent legislative changes, and the last section discusses trends in program design and operation.
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From page 34... ...
Finally, as a supplement to low-wage workers, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) program began on a small scale in 1975.2 Figure 3-1 shows how inflation-adjusted expenditures on public assistance programs have changed since 1965.
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From page 35... ...
Increasingly, resources are available through in-kind programs (such as Food Stamps or Medicaid) or through behaviorally tied support programs, in which cash assistance is linked with work behavior.
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From page 36... ...
The result is a constant tension in public assistance programs between the type of requirements and limits put on assistance to families and the needs of the children in those families. Advocates of greater behavioral requirements and more limited assistance inevitably point to the adults and claim that they need to take more responsibility for their own economic well-being.
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From page 37... ...
Credible research that shows how children are affected by full-time work requirements imposed on their singleparent mothers may have a major effect on future changes in the structure of public assistance programs. Finally, it is worth noting that the expenditure trends in these four public assistance programs are dwarfed by the growing expenditures in the Medicaid program.
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From page 38... ...
All of the growth in Medicaid dollars for families and children is due to increases in the eligible population. In sharp contrast, per-person Medicaid spending for the elderly and disabled has increased steadily for over 2 decades.
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From page 39... ...
Many states operate under balanced budget requirements and are also constantly seeking areas where costs can be reduced in order to meet other public demands. Public assistance programs have often been a primary target in efforts to cut state and federal budgets.
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From page 40... ...
budget. In these core public assistance programs the programs that U.S.
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From page 41... ...
NOTES: The category "Family Support" includes payments to states for AFDC benefits, administration, and child support enforcement. The category "All other antipoverty" includes child nutrition and special milk, supplemental feeding, commodity donation, legal services, day care assistance, Supplemental Security Income, and the Earned Income Tax Credit.
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From page 42... ...
The AFDC program is abolished and states are given almost complete control over the design of their public assistance programs. States can use TANF money for any programs that accomplish the purposes of the block grant, which include providing assistance to needy families, ending the dependency of needy parents on government benefits, preventing and reducing out-of-wedlock pregnancies, and encouraging the formation of two-parent families.
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From page 43... ...
They can eliminate some groups from assistance, redirect money away from cash support toward services designed to prevent teen pregnancy and promote marriage, or impose behavioral requirements on the recipients of public assistance funds. If money runs short at the end of a budget year, families can be turned away.
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From page 44... ...
Increasing Emphasis on Behavioral Requirements as Part of Program Eligibility, with Particular Emphasis on Work Behavior More than twenty-five years ago, President Nixon proposed to roll all cash and non-cash income assistance programs into one single cash assistance program, available to all families who met the income eligibility requirements. Commonly referred to as a negative income tax, such a system would provide cash support through the tax system.
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From page 45... ...
The effectiveness of these behavioral mandates will depend upon exactly what they require and how easily they can be monitored and enforced. There is strong support for behavioral mandates that encourage parents who receive public assistance to enter job training and job search programs; that evict people from public housing who engage in criminal behavior; and that link job recommendations and placement with high school performance among youth.
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From page 46... ...
On the other hand, there are also serious problems with limiting the federal role in public assistance programs to fixed levels of block grant funding. First, states have less ability to finance antipoverty programs than the federal government.
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From page 47... ...
Third, there continue to be concerns about the equity of state-run public assistance programs. For instance, if some states choose to dramatically cut all forms of cash assistance and other states maintain their current programs, benefit differences across states could become much larger than they already are.
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From page 48... ...
It will almost surely continue to force hard choices on those who want to maintain public assistance programs at current levels of funding, and may particularly constrain states that want to use their expanded control over these policies to experiment with new and redesigned programs. States that want to cut their welfare budget and provide expanded job search and training programs for their public assistance recipients to move them into the labor market are going to face these contradictions most directly.
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From page 49... ...
It is not clear that these reconfigured public assistance programs will provide a cheaper or a more effective safety net than the one we have at present. It will be different, with a different set of management and incentive problems than are embedded in the current antipoverty system.
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