"When radicals say "welfare is gone," I fear they are a) neglecting that which remains (very much larger than the cash component); b) fixating on a restoration of the old AFDC program, which is of dubious practicality and merit.
Obviously the poor need cash and housing, among other things. It does not follow that simply demanding these things is the best approach. I would suggest the starting point is the notion that work should pay, and that workers' incomes should support their families according to a decent standard. From this it follows that wages should be supplemented with cash, health care, etc.
The alternative is a movement for a guaranteed income, rather than a minimum social wage. I think there is more hope for the latter."
And I agree. Work should pay. All of this, however, is a gendered issue. Work should pay for whom? The ratio of female to male earnings is less than 70% around the nation -- even is the occupations that are generally "college-required". Women are the ones who were benefiting from AFDC. Women are the ones who are primarily responsible for child-care, who are penalized on-the-job (in terms of pay and promotions) for needing flexibility to care for children or take their kids to the dentist, etc.
The way that the labor market and social policy are structured still do not recognize that someone needs to care for the children. Perhaps we should just all decide that reproduction is a bad idea, but somehow, even given Littleton, et al, I don't think the majority of Americans are going to do so. So, we should all work. That's fine when we decide that everyone has the right to maternity leave, when those who are increasingly responsible for children are the ones who earn more. I don't think welfare was a good program and I don't want to defend it as a panacea, which it was not. However, to leave single mothers out in the cold, and require them to work when in most places there isn't even enough child care slots, let alone affordable or high quality slots, for all those kids whose mom's need to work, seems cruel and inhumane.
I realize that this a labor market issue and that the answers are in restructuring the labor to remunerate women on par with men (in terms of their skills and tenure) and to recognize that if we want everyone to work, the labor market must be flexible enough to accommodate the fact that people have to care for their children. I just see that these are so far off in the future that to hold out for them when families need assistance now is now moral or just -- and is terribly unfair to women with children who are not treated fairly in the labor market and now have nothing else to fall back.
Regards, Heather