welfare coverage

Heather Boushey hboushey at csi.com
Tue Apr 27 10:08:33 PDT 1999


Regarding Max's comments:

"I'd prefer something reflecting the reality that the vast bulk of the U.S. welfare state remains with us. A political reason for avoiding expressions like, "it's gone," "dismantled," or "devastated" is that these make it easier for Congress to get rid of more."

Although Max has made some nice arguments that social spending is still with us and and that we should be organizing to stop states from blocking enrollment, based on national welfare rights movement of the late 1960s, I find both of the lines of reasoning troubling.

What happened with PRA of 1996 is that Congress eliminated welfare as an entitlement. As Max pointed out, Food Stamps and Medicaid are still entitlements, but no one has the right to cash assistance. States do not have to provide cash to everyone and they can place huge barriers -- in terms of work requirements, child caps, time limits (which are limited in the PRA to 5 years, although many states have shorter limits) -- in front of people to receive benefits. When radicals claim that "welfare is gone" they understand that although non cash assistance may be with us, in some states right now people are no longer eligible for cash assistance because they have come up against their time limit. As the law is now written, these people will never be able to get cash assistance through TANF. Ever.

In the late 1960s, the national welfare rights movement started out of a realization that people -- in urban ghettos -- did not just need organizing and community centers, they needed money. They needed clothes and food and housing. Working in the Youth centers, these organizers began to direct people towards the welfare offices and when folks were denied benefits, the organizers had the law on their side because AFDC was an entitlement. All that has now changed and I think it is very naive to believe otherwise.



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