By Mimi Abramovitz, NASW Welfare Reform Task Force.
(May 2001)

The legislation and funding for the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRA) in expires in Fall 2002. As the reauthorization debate heats up, we need to ask how clients have fared under what is popularly known as "welfare reform."

Politicians continue to declare "the end of welfare as we know it" a victory. Between 1996 and 2000 the welfare rolls plummeted by 50 percent nationwide and 39 percent in New York State (www.acf.dhhs.gov/news/stats/aug-dec.htm). The thriving economy (until recently) contributed its share of jobs by helping women leave welfare for work. But punitive policies such as being sanctioned for missing an appointment or violating a welfare mandate and being diverted at the front door of the welfare center also drove many women off welfare.

Can't Make Ends Meet

Few of the women who left welfare celebrate "welfare's end." In contrast, time and again they report that they are having more trouble making ends meet than before, with a sizable number returning to the rolls. Regardless of why they left welfare, many former recipients now live far below the poverty line due to low-paid, part-time, unstable jobs; the lack of fringe benefits; shortages of quality and affordable child care services; and discrimination by gender and race. The sanctioned group that includes many people with disabilities fared worst of all. The loss of Food Stamps and Medicaid adds to their economic hardship. Some women became ineligible for these important benefits. But the welfare department never told others that they still qualified.

Racializing Welfare

A second disturbing outcome of welfare reform concerns race.

It is not unreasonable to assume that public programs such as welfare would provide equal treatment to all comers. However, researchers have begun to document racial discrimination by welfare caseworkers, employers, and policy makers.

Susan Gooden (1998) found that caseworkers-who have considerably more discretion since welfare became a state run block grant-serve black and white women in Virginia differently. Despite similar backgrounds and needs, black women on welfare received far less support with job-search education, and transportation. More than white women, they feel unfairly treated by the welfare department. In a 13 state study, Rebecca Gordon (1999) found that welfare officials sent significantly more people of color than white persons to workfare than to a regular job and frequently humiliated them. A caseworker told one African American woman to change her baby's name because "he doesn't need a name that long." Another caseworker denied benefits to a woman with a bi-racial child telling her, "I don't approve of mixed relationships."

Other studies document similar discriminatory treatment of Latino families and immigrants. For one, welfare reform excluded many immigrants from the program. Those who qualify in New York City and elsewhere suffer sanctions, English-only forms, a lack of translators, and general disrespect. Unlike whites they are regularly asked to submit documentation of marriage and citizenship prior to setting appointments, and have been threatened with deportation (Bauen, 1999).

Gooden (1999, 2000) also found that employers in Virginia did not treat black and white job applicants with similar work and educational histories the same. Black women reported shorter interviews; more pre-employment drug tests, criminal background and other checks; greater differences between the job offered and tasks actually performed; more evening work hours, and a negative relationship with their supervisors most of whom were white. Unlike for whites, higher educational attainment did not yield higher wages for blacks because they lacked access to better jobs.

This differential treatment of women by race easily translates into uneven rates of job attainment and job retention. In fact, the racial composition of the welfare program shifted since dramatically since welfare reform both nationally and in New York State. Between 1995 and 1999 the proportion of white families on welfare in the US fell from 35.9 to 30.5 percent. In contrast, the black and Latino proportions rose from 36.9 to 38.3 percent and from 20.1 to 24.4 percent respectively. For the same period, white families in New York State dropped from 19.9 to17.1 percent. The black and Latino proportion jumped from 34.6 to 42.1 percent and from 37.2 to 38.2 percent respectively (www.acf.dhhs.gov).

A Brookings Institute study reinforces these uneven racial outcomes. It found that the nation's largest cities house a mounting share of the nation's welfare recipients. Additionally, counties with largest cities had a slower reduction in the welfare rolls than other counties in the same state. The report did not focus on race but it is widely known that poor persons of color are concentrated in the nation's largest cities.

A connection also exists between the racial composition of a state's welfare caseload and its adoption welfare reform's harshest policies. Soss et al (1999) found that states with higher proportions of African American and Latino recipients were more likely to use harsh sanctions, the child exclusion which denies aid to children born on welfare and a shorter time limit than the five-year maximum permitted by the PRA. Reporters and researchers have also found that while many white women leave welfare because they get jobs and earn too much to qualify for benefits, more women of color have their cases closed for non-compliance or other administrative reasons.

The racialization of welfare is hardly new. Fifty years of years invidious racial stereotypes have shaped the popular images of poverty and welfare (Gilens, 1996). The1935 Social Security Act excluded farm laborers and domestic workers with impunity-the two main occupations open to black and Latinos at the time. In the 1940s and 1950s southern welfare offices shut down during the cotton and tobacco harvests to ensure a steady supply of labor. In the 1960s more than a few states with large black welfare caseloads threw women off welfare for having children on their own. Most recently, the welfare "reformers" evoked racial stereotypes by portraying women on welfare as lazy, Cadillac driving "welfare queens," who had "kids for money", "lived high on the hog" and "cheated the government" (Abramovitz. 1996).

In the past we could refute racial stereotypes linked to welfare by pointing to the similar proportions of black and white women on welfare. As the above figures indicate this is no longer possible. Some will attribute the slower exit of African Americans and Latinas from welfare as "proof" that women- of-color are lazy and uninterested in work instead of acknowledging the underlying racism. Congress may use the racially tinged stereotypes to justify more punitive rules and less funding in 2002. However, our job is to expose the racial implications of welfare reform.

The polls show that when the public views a policy as racially targeted, support for it quickly erodes (Brown, 1999). In the April 2000 issue of Currents, which focused on racism in child welfare, Elaine Congress, past President of NYC - NASW stated, "we are all responsible for racism and class bias in that system." She urged social workers to assume leadership in the effort to combat these destructive forces. This includes becoming aware of how all the "isms" intersect with welfare policy mandates. It also means raising our voices to challenge the impact of racism and sexism during the upcoming Congressional debate on TANF reauthorization.