Social Welfare Dependence of Single Mothers - Research Paper Example

Welfare Dependence Introduction Public welfare is the transfer of public resources to those in need for reasons of inability to feed, cloth and care for themselves on a temporary basis. According to Lester C. Thurow (155), this support is based on the idea of what he called the "good" society that does not let families go hungry in the street, a practice upheld for centuries. "With this commitment," Thurow goes on, "comes the responsibility of providing a minimum family income if the family is, for what ever reason, unable to take care of itself" (Thurow 155). The support is, however, provided with the proviso that it may well be reduced and/or withdrawn any time when the condition of the recipient improves. Subsequent to the relief support provided to people in distress, 'make work', a New Deal concept created during the 1930s or later on redefined as 'workfare' were initiated so that the temporarily affected would feel that they earned their relief support rather than receiving it as a hand out (Prabhakar 1). Workfare is also a concept used in relation to welfare reform. It is a mechanism of imposing work requirements on recipients of public assistance. Despite several problems workfare encountered in the past, a number of states use it now as a means of shifting welfare dependent persons into the formal wage work with the proviso that sometime in the future those who, it is claimed, did not have work experiences, would be acquainted with the world of work, and would some how hook themselves to jobs and eventually become self-sufficient. Single mother parents, the recipients of public and other institutional assistance, are people, who for various reasons, including the death of or abandonment, separation or unmarried status, become household heads and take care of their children and other members of the family in place of the traditional breadwinner - the husband. The number of poor people in single mother household heads rose from some two million in the 1950s and 1960s to 11.4 million in the 2010 (Seccombe 23; Open City Foundations, 1). Although, single mothers were provided with welfare checks and other basic need supplies from the state on a relief basis, many were not able to achieve self-sufficiency. Alternative approaches that would capacitate single mothers need to be explored. Policy Issues and Poverty Urban poverty as it relates to single mothers has been a serious problem that had defied meaningful solution in the U.S. The problem had its roots in the changing circumstances of the poor as the economy changed in structural terms. The deficits experienced from time to time and the consequences of these to policy-making and implementation was equally responsible for exacerbating the poverty and inequality problems in American cities. In her case studies of psychological consequences of growing poor in the U.S. (living in small towns and isolated rural communities as well as large cities in Midwestern and Southeastern United States), Musick (in Chafel 10) puts the problem in context. She says that too much responsibility is placed on disadvantaged mothers with fewer resources and that the mothers are required to play humongous roles in producing palatable environments for the growth of their children (Musick in Chafel 1990: 10). Disadvantaged mothers, in her own words (1990:10): Are called on to do and be far more than their middle class counterparts, with fewer resources to support them in this role (parenting) and many more burdens to contend with…. The present circumstances of poverty force disadvantaged parents to take an almost superhuman roles as mediators of their children's environments…. Families, single mother parent-based households in particular, have to fend for themselves in the context of their communities and localities and individually, formally at least. The state comes in with its public support programs during times of economic crisis like the 1929 market crash that affected all strata of populations. In times of normal economic activity this extension of support is minimized to a greater degree. Poverty thus continues in many city and rural communities placing the poor and single mothers' lives in jeopardy. The policy regime in the discourse of poverty takes a lukewarm attitude toward getting into the nitty-gritty of the overall problem. U.S. policy makers, as Collins (84) correctly observes: Over and over, when confronted with realities of poverty, unemployment and other kinds of economic suffering, have left it (poverty) to the market to distribute benefits of economic growth. In this view, the problem of poverty, in the majority of cases, is attributed to individual behaviors and efforts. The 1996 bill on welfare reform in the U.S. placed emergence out of poverty a function of individual responsibility. In fact, as Dodson (in Hirschmann and Liebert 199-200) notes, the bill placed more emphasis on 'personal responsibility than on work opportunity. The larger structural issues leading to poverty - unemployment, demand for higher educational qualifications and the specific issues of low wage, cost of living expense increases, childcare, healthcare and transportation costs to the families -- are overlooked. As Katz (8) also puts the problem in context, the factors that determined the uplift of the poor or single mother parents from under the poverty veil 'slipped easily, unreflectively, in the language of family, race, and culture rather than in equality, poverty and exploitation.' There was thus a weakness in crafting the policy regime in ways that would give single mothers a shot in the arm and enable them to be self-supportive. The net result of this approach has led to the sustenance of poverty in the U.S. - particularly poverty of single mothers and their children. The frozen policy regime which ignores the underlying causes of the poverty problem may need alternative sources of support (Herrick and Midgley in Dixon and Scheurell 212). An Alternative Policy Choice to remove Welfare Dependence of Single Mothers Although government will sometimes be there to protect vulnerable citizens in catastrophic and crises situations, the trend toward making arrangements for self-support by individuals and groups is important (Herrick and Midgley in Dixon and Scheurell 212.). Herrick and Midgley emphatically argue that the pessimistic view of the impossibility of controlling poverty aside, the way out may be the promotion of greater self-reliance at both the individual and community levels and the encouragement of greater local control. The use of alternative models of development such as the social capital route as a means of getting around the problem of poverty among single mothers may, at this juncture, be explored. This route helps create the ground work for networking, developing trust among cooperating members and eventually leads to an action to pool material and psychological resources that constitute a solid base for launching small businesses that would not only assist the members, but also those who would need services in the areas of childcare and transportation, for example, among the consumer public. Social Capital and Poverty Reduction Social capital is a way of getting people together within and across groups to establish a common ground in order to solve different problems conjointly in an organized fashion. Such a measure of pulling of a group(s) together is essential for a proper functioning and/or promoting of a collective/community or societal interest. It brings together communities who choose to cooperate with one another in order to remove an insurmountable problem in a bid to share in the good outcome and absorb the loss. Groups within primitive communities and during the initial stages of industrialization in urban areas used mutual aid systems to support one another in times of loss of capacity to help themselves (Briggs 1). In like manner, single mother parents who depend for most of their support on charity and public welfare sources can associate with one another and work together on small businesses that can eventually end up being their own and employ them at the same time. There are two kinds of social capital bonding-connectivity and bridging. The first squeezes out isolation; bridging facilitates cross border connectivity. In-group exclusivity is conquered with this modality of association. Good and amicable relations are foundations for psychological satisfaction and for the realization of a sense of self viewed and strengthened by those who seek sociality which is in a sense embedded in humanness. Out of such sociality, single mothers can build mutually helpful social capital groups. The alternative is to rely on public and other assistance sources. But rather than this kind of dependence, social capital groups can benefit more if the resources that are made available for relief and transitory intervention are diverted to a system of support that eventuates in the creation of an enabling environment (Paldam and Svendsen, in Flap and Volker 249). Conclusion In conclusion, while the welfare assistance to single mothers may be helpful in supplementing their low incomes and helping some of them in improving their educational levels, it falls short of the main purpose of making the mothers independent and self-sufficient. One of the reasons for this state of affairs is the systemic failure to create the connection between contingency assistance that the single mothers need in times of unemployment and, when employed, the link between jobs and their opportunity to obtain a living wage. These mothers need more support from all sources including their own effort at helping themselves through joining hands under mutual help umbrellas. They need financial, organizational and management assistance to possibly make this joint project under the rubric of social capital. Work Cited Briggs, Xavier de Souza. "Social Capital, Impact in Wealthy and Poor Communities." Encyclopedia of Community. 2003. Sage Publications. Herrick, John M. and James Midgley “The United States (Chapter 7)” in John Dixon, and Robert P. Scheurrel, eds., The Sate of Social Welfare: The Twentieth Century in Cross National Review, Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2002. Hirschmann, Nancy J. and Ulrike Liebert, eds, Women and Welfare: Theory and Practice in the US and Europe, New Jersey: Rutgers University, 2001. Katz, Michael B., The Undeserving Poor: From Welfare on Poverty to the War on Welfare: New York: Pantheon Books, 1989. Kweit, Robert W. and Mary Grisez Kweit, People and Politics in Urban America, Second Edition, New York, Garland Publishing, Inc., 1999. Musick, Judith S., “Profiles of Children and Families in Poverty”, in Judith A. Chafel, ed, Child Poverty and Public Policy. Washington D.C.: The Urban Institute Press, 1993. Open City Foundations, Single Mother Poverty in the United States in 2010, Information Retrieved December 14, 2011 from http://www.legalmomentum.org/our-work/women-and-poverty/resources--publications/single-mother-poverty-2010.pdf Paldam, Martin and Gert Tinggaard Svendsen, "Social Capital and Economics," in Henk Flap and Beate Volker, Eds, Creation and Returns of Social Capital: A New Research Program, New York: Routledge, 2004. Prabhakar, Rajiv. "Workfare." Encyclopedia of Governance. Sage Publications. 2006. Seccombe, Karen, So You Drive a Cadillac? Welfare Recipients Perspectives on the System and its Reform, Toronto and Boston: Allyn Bacon, 1999. Thurow, Lester C., The Zero Sum Society: Distribution and the Possibilities for Economic Change, New York: Basic Books, 1980. Read More