Deirdra Stockmann: Another quick welfare fix

Three and a half years ago Pennsylvania implemented welfare reform, establishing time limits for recipients. After two years of support, recipients had to be working. After five years, they would be kicked off welfare.

In their haste to cut the roles and save money, policy makers put the cart before the horse. They failed to consider the types of programs that would enable poor women to enter the workforce, including education, job training and child care. And according to a 1999 report by the Urban Institute, more than 96 percent of welfare recipients are female, and this number is rising.

Still, despite the myopic planning, welfare roles have been cut in half. Politicians, whether or not they supported reform, are quick to take credit for what many are already calling a successful policy.

Given the state of the economy today, several governors, feeling a positive sense of accomplishment, have already suggested plans to ease up on the five-year time limit for those who still depend on a check every month. Today, government officials are willing to accept around 2 1/2 percent of the population to continue to depend on welfare.

While opponents of welfare reform might be relieved by this specious change of heart, some argue that this policy would only allow and encourage perpetual dependence on welfare.

Donna Cooper, a former Philadelphia deputy mayor and a welfare rights advocate, led a discussion Monday night as part of Anti-Poverty Awareness Week. She argued that by explicitly allowing a small percentage of the population to continue to receive aid, the government victimizes women on welfare by implying a lack of faith in their ability to work and support themselves and their children.

Throughout the discussion, Cooper strove to connect the issues to the children who are deeply affected by them. Based on personal experiences, she attested to the value of children seeing that their mothers support themselves. Living with a parent unable to keep a job and often forced into unsafe or illegal employment perpetuates disempowering feelings about the social structure.

Importantly, this common scenario gives children no reason to think they will fare any differently in life. By legislating low expectations, government completes the cycle of dependence, guaranteeing generations of welfare recipients (barely) existing on the margins of society.

While this issue is controversial and at odds with positions of other welfare rights activists like the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, it is built upon a more universal issue of respect that intrinsically involves every sector of society at every level. It is about the examples that society creates according to which its children learn to be citizens.

When society creates policy that fails to provide all women with the tools and support systems they need to work and feed their families, it sends a message to children that not every citizen is valued as a competent individual who has something to contribute to society. Yet, while this is the reality kids experience every day, in their schools, on their streets and in their homes, we tell them that they can be anything they want, that they can succeed in life if they stay in school and work hard.

There is some validity in that assertion, namely that education is the key. But education starts well before kids enter school and continues beyond its walls every minute of every day. Principles of civics and theories of democracy carry very little weight against the social truths that every kid learns on the street.

A vision for society that goes beyond the immediate gratification of numbers, statistics and government spending should include decreasing poverty, closing the gap between rich and poor by decreasing unemployment and increasing the population of people with steady, living-wage employment.

In the process of achieving these goals, we all must remain conscious of the implications of our actions. Everything we do sets an example for the children who see us do it. From things as small as littering to policy that allows the wages of women to remain significantly below those of men, we show children what our values as a society really are. In doing so we perpetuate our tragic flaws and seal the fate of our future.

The welfare of society tomorrow is a function of its values today. We like to say children are the future. Indeed, society would be better off if it allowed them to be. But this cliched ideal will only be realized when we give children the tools necessary to make change -- and most importantly, reason to believe they can.

Deirdra Stockmann is a senior Politics, Philosophy, and Economics major from Oak Park, Il.

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