A responsibility to the children of welfare

To many city and county officials the words “welfare reform” are right up there with “that reporter from the paper is on line one,” in terms of phrases local government officials do not want to hear.

Everyone knows the welfare stereotype: black single mother driving a Cadillac, and using different names to collect enough money to put her in Michael Jordan’s tax bracket. (Ronald Reagan swore she existed; no one ever found her.)

In reality, the typical welfare recipient is a woman, more often white than black, between 20- and 29-years-old with one child, who receives benefits for less than a year. She is either divorced from or has never been married to her child’s father, and child support to her is like modern art to me – we don’t get it.

She is a living symbol of what economists call “the feminization of poverty.” And because women are the most likely candidates to end up in poverty, children are at risk. In fact, more than 20 percent of the nation’s kids live in households with annual incomes below the poverty level, an appalling number that puts the U.S. first among industrialized nations in the children- living-in-poverty category. Not exactly something you yell, “We’re Number One! We’re Number One!” about.

But the stereotype persists. As you read this, ask the person sitting closest to you to tell you what percentage of the federal budget welfare takes up. If he or she says, “around 3 percent,” buy him/her a beer and send me the tab. (That is the 1995 figure for AFDC benefits and Food Stamps, thought of as traditional welfare.)

Compare that to the defense budget (roughly 17 percent of the total budget). Or the money governors and mayors spend on corporate welfare – tax breaks and subsidies designed to lure baseball teams and car manufacturers. (Estimates range widely, but $300 billion would be a good conservative guess.) So despite the hue and cry, welfare is not a federal budget-breaker.

But you’d never know that talking to the reformers. And, though cities and counties may squawk, they are ultimately responsible for making it work. They can, like Charlotte, N.C., take the bull by the horns, or they can wait and pray that the states show better sense than the federal government.

(This is not something I would advise, living, as I do, in Georgia.)

Welfare reform is here, and local governments owe it to the real welfare recipients – and to their children – to make it as painless as possible.