Redefining What's Expected from America's Poor
Poverty deepened for decades because assistance was provided unconditionally prior to welfare reform in 1996. Today, the poor should are expected to play by the rules. In exchange for public assistance, government is entitled to make demands on recipients. Benefits are linked to socially accepted behaviors such as getting a job, and having unwed teenage mothers live with their families or other responsible adults. To succeed, government programs must firmly guide poor people toward responsible, self-reliant, and productive lives.
What Should be Done?
Use benefits as incentives to promote socially desirable behavior, such as finishing high school and responsible family planning. Use benefits to discourage socially undesirable behavior. For example, benefits should be reduced or withheld from parents whose children have too many unexcused absences from school.
Arguments For This Approach
It's fair that working poor families get some kinds of public support. Socially responsible behavior ought to be a requirement for obtaining public assistance.Failing to impose behavioral requirements on recipients of public assistance undermines public support for such assistance. Those who are able to work should be expected to do so.
Arguments Against This Approach
The problem isn't welfare. It's that too many poor people don't have the education or skills to find decent jobs.This approach requires government to intrude into people's private lives. In our democracy, government shouldn't tell people what they can and cannot do. It is not clear that linking welfare payments to children's school attendance works. Early studies of the Wisconsin program show that it did not decrease truancy. The poor have a moral right to public assistance. They shouldn't have to jump through hoops. It's not right for the government to use public assistance to promote two-parent families at the expense of single-parent families.
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