Supporting the Particular Welfare

Campus Report ^ | December 04, 2008 | Bethany Stotts

[bs9021]

Supporting the Particular Welfare

by: Bethany Stotts, December 04, 2008

Since Welfare Reform was enacted in 1996, the number of welfare recipients receiving cash aid has dropped precipitously, from 4.5% of the population to 1.5%. But decreases in recipiency—participation in one or more welfare programs—have been small: In 1996, 16 % of the population received one or more of these benefits while nine years later, 15 % were recipients.

What we commonly call welfare is officially called Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF). Before 1996, it was called Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC).

Additionally, the Social Security Administration (SSA) runs the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program that gives cash grants to the disabled. The U. S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) oversees Medicaid and TANF.*

HHS classifies welfare dependence as “the proportion of all individuals in families that receive more than half of their total family income in one year from AFDC/TANF, food stamps and/or SSI.” 3.7% of Americans met this criterium in 2005, as opposed to 5.2% in 1996, a 29% decline in “dependency.”

Some poverty experts focus almost exclusively on dramatic declines in TANF enrollment. A recent panel at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) gave possible explanations for the decrease in TANF rolls including

• The “hassle” factor of new work requirements;
• Diversion policies;
• The social stigma attached to government subsidies; and
• Changes in political expectations.

Just because TANF rolls declined doesn’t mean these families no longer receive government aid, said Demetra Nightingale....

[TonyStark]

The social stigma attached to government subsidies

What country are they talking about? This sure isn't the case in America. Government hand-outs are viewed as a right in the inner cities (and no doubt by the President-Select).

[DancesWithBolsheviks]

No mention of the Earned Income Tax Credit?

[GovernmentShrinker]

But decreases in recipiency—participation in one or more welfare programs—have been small: In 1996, 16 % of the population received one or more of these benefits while nine years later, 15 % were recipients.

A leftist definition of "recipiency", since it obviously doesn't include public schooling. When you count all the students in public Pre-K through 12 grade, and in public colleges, and using taxpayer-funded college financial aid, the figure would be WAY above 15%. People with below average incomes who have 2, 3, or more children in public school imagine themselves to be "self-sufficient", if they aren't on any "welfare" programs. They blithely ignore the fact that higher income taxpayers (many of whom have their children in private school due to the abysmal social and academic atmosphere of their local public schools, or are still childless, or have already paid to privately school their now-grown children) are being heavily taxed to run the public schools.

[bs9021]

EITC usually isn’t factored into poverty statistics.

The official poverty rate uses pre-tax income and ignores non-cash benefits. That way they don’t have to record the tax subsidies like EITC, Medicaid, or housing subsidies as income affecting a family’s initial financial need.