On mobility, sure getting off welfare doesn't mean you're in fat city. The point is the traffic back and forth means that distinguishing between welfare for the poor and middle-class social insurance (sic) is a tricky business. MAny in the welfare system are not as poor as one might think, and many in the 'other' system are not as well off.
EPI has done some recent books on hardship -- another way of gauging poverty. Surveys ask questions like 'are you behind in your rent,' 'did you run out of grocery money this month,' etc. and analyze the data collected. A recent paper by Heather Boushey reports the counter-intuitive result that there is more hardship in 1999 than 1997 among ex-TANF recipients.
It is true that unemployment comp has been thinned out.
> You 'get poor' and
> eligible for this program with some modest financial
> planning. 2/3rds of Medicaid is in fact for the elderly,
> some of whom has always been poor, many not.
DB: I don't understand this.
mbs: Since Medicaid and SSI are means- and asset-tested, to be eligible you have to be sufficiently without income or wealth, and to accomplish this families denude their elderly members of wealth. I'm not familiar with the current rules for this, but the basic point is that Medicaid is more of a middle-class program than might be evident.
> In the 90s, the expansion of the EITC (and last year,
> the Child Tax Credit) is also a significant source of
> aid to low-income families.
DB: Significant if only one has a CPA to assist.
mbs: it could be made easier, but the fact remains of significant growth in benefits paid.
> States are
> able to shuffle people out of TANF proper and into other
> programs where they can get cash assistance, and there are
> those formerly on the cash caseload who now get work-tested
> benefits, both in and out of TANF. There are more people
> getting public benefits then is evident from the caseload
> figures.
DB: Interesting point, but what are these other cash assistance
programs beyond TANF? And how typical do people
get shuffle into different programs as opposed to being
shuffled off altogether or never get a chance to get on
the gov's shuffle dance card. There's always that problem
that income maintanance staff strive to get people
ineligible for programs or don't bother to inform clients
of the resources they are eligible for.
mbs: see recent papers on the web site of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (www.cbpp.org)
It's a little more complicated. State welfare systems have been recast largely into work-oriented systems, so caseworkers have neglected connecting clients with income transfer programs (particularly Medicaid and Food Stamps), but are tasked to connect them to subsidized work schemes. Naturally, the generosity of subsidies varies by state and we could imagine all of them being inadequate. But the fact remains of the actual population receiving assistance being much larger than those getting cash aid under TANF.
> The left seems to understand this everywhere
> but in the U.S., where we are obsessed with the rich and make
> them pay a bit more in tax while our public squalor persists.
Yes, well, once you start eating the rich, you can never quite
kick that habit. I mean, their well-fed and less disease
ridden and cook-up quite well with basil, garlic, and bit
of olive oil.
Dennis Breslin
mbs: don't forget the splash of white wine . . .