• Welfare reform Welfare reform From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch – November 10, 2004 Does Missouri really have the second worst welfare system among the 50 states? Does it deserve an “F” for the way it has implemented welfare reforms?
• Welfare reform
Welfare reform
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch – November 10, 2004
Does Missouri really have the second worst welfare system among the 50 states? Does it deserve an “F” for the way it has implemented welfare reforms? The Cato Institute thinks so. This conservative public policy group ranks Missouri’s system second from the bottom – just above Vermont’s – for having what it says are weak sanctions for people who don’t search for work and for failing to discourage out-of-wedlock births.
On the same day Cato released its report last month, a more enlightened study was issued by the Economic Policy Institute, saying that every $1 invested in quality early child development programs reduces welfare costs, helps end poverty and saves money in the long run. More about these points later.
According to Cato, Missouri’s welfare caseload dropped from 238,000 in 1996 to 108,500 last year – a dip of more than 50 percent. But Illinois’ welfare load dropped by more than 80 percent – from 663,000 to 99,000 cases – during the same period, the report said. Cato’s graders gave Missouri an “F” and Illinois a “B”.
A sharp decline in caseloads doesn’t necessarily mean the people are any better off. Earlier this month, the Bush administration touted the fact that the welfare caseloads fell below 2 million during the first quarter of 2004. But that “savings,” while it may warm Republican cockles, is offset by the increase in impoverished Americans, up by 1.3 million this year.
A weak spot in the report, and in the administration’s welfare policy, concerns encouraging marriage and discouraging poor unwed mothers from having more children. Marriage isn’t necessarily the way out of poverty, says Diana Spatz, a former welfare recipient who heads a California program to empower poor families through education. Writing in The Christian Science Monitor, Ms. Spatz says that if she had waited for a man to marry her out of welfare, she would still be single. Education – not marriage – was her ticket out of poverty.
The Economic Policy Institute’s study points out that society saves money by investing in children because the money boosts economic productivity and growth and reduces the need for remedial education and the costs of welfare, crime and poverty. An investment in quality comprehensive child programs initially would cost about $19 billion a year, the Institute says. But that would be more than offset by savings on the cost of welfare and other social programs, on the criminal justice system and on remedial and special education.
The $19 billion price tag undoubtedly will cause sticker shock in the Republican-controlled Congress and Missouri Legislature. But this is an issue that deserves broad public discussion and support.
It’s time to move beyond punitive policies that merely mask poverty by cutting welfare roles but, in the end, don’t help children or lift their families permanently out of poverty.
