On Sun, 14 Sep 2008 19:15:19 GMT, Wayne Boatwright
> wrote:

>On Sun 14 Sep 2008 09:35:19a, Omelet told us...
>
>> In article >,
>> Dave Smith > wrote:
>>
>>> > There are some who are making every effort to pull themselves up by
>>> > their bootstraps and to work or actively seek employment.
>>> > Unfortunately, they seem to be in the vast minority.
>>>
>>> I don't know what the solution is. You can't let them starve, but I
>>> resent having to help support people who will not support themselves
>>> and those who cannot support themselves and then have more children
>>> than they cannot afford. I also resent the attempts to insinuate that
>>> those who point out the obvious are passed off as sexist and racist by
>>> claiming that most welfare recipients are single white men. The facts
>>> do not support that. In fact, it is the exact opposite.
>>
>> The vast majority are the children of unwed mothers.
>>
>> Outlaw reproduction outside of wedlock?
>
>Simple choice, enforced birth control and receive welfare, or no welfare.
>I don't give a damn if they're lying in the gutters. I'm sick of paying
>for benefits that others receive. Welfare recipients in AZ have the
>benefit of AHCCCS, which provide absolutely free health care to any extent.
>Many times I cannot even afford the copay for my medications.

There are a lot of media popularized myths about welfare and those who
receive it. You might want to read up on them here. This is from the
American Psychological Society.


http://www.apa.org/pi/wpo/myths.html
Myths and Facts About Welfare

The general public views poverty as the result of personal failures
and deficiencies. This perception rests on several myths. The most
prevalent are that poverty results from a lack of responsibility;
welfare leads to chronic dependency; African American women make up
the largest group of welfare recipients; welfare promotes single
parenthood and out-of-wedlock births; welfare provides a disincentive
to work; welfare creates a "culture of poverty" because recipients
share and hand down to their children a set of defective behaviors,
values, and personality traits; and welfare funds extravagant spending
by welfare recipients (Ehrenreich, 1987; Katz, 1989). These myths of
pathology translate directly to the debate of who deserves help. They
also fuel powerful stereotypical racial and gender messages. It is
mothers, especially African American and single mothers, who are
viewed as undeserving. Unwed mothers are thought to have the choice of
marriage and do not obtain the sympathy that widows have. Other groups
that are perceived as undeserving are immigrants, especially if they
are not fluent in English.

Even the term "welfare" has been pejorative, and distortions of facts
about welfare perpetuate myths about public assistance and those who
receive it. These negative myths and stereotypes reinforced the
government's agenda in cutting welfare spending to those recipients
viewed as undeserving. Reform will continue to be ineffective if those
implementing it do not separate myth from fact.

Strategies for alleviating poverty and decisions about government
spending continue to be closely linked to the perceived causes of
poverty, as well as the extent to which these causes are perceived to
be modifiable (Furnham, 1982). Poverty is seen as an individual
problem or a social issue (such as education or crime) rather than an
economic issue (such as unemployment and the economy)(Gallup, 1992).
Consequently, solutions are geared toward fixing or punishing those
individuals with the "problem." Little attention is focused on
societal factors that may perpetuate under- and unemployment, such as
inadequate education, transportation, child care, and mental health
problems.

Myth: Poverty Results From a Lack of Responsibility

Fact: Poverty Results From Low Wages

Welfare programs have been our country's response to poverty, and
everyone agrees that those programs have not solved the problem. Jared
Bernstein (1996) of the Economic Policy Institute identifies wage
decline as the crucial economic factor that has had the largest impact
on poverty rates in the 1980s and 1990s. While hourly rates of pay
have fallen for the majority of the workforce since the late 1970s, by
far the largest losses have been for the lowest paid workers.
According to Bernstein (1996), between 1979 and 1989, the male worker,
for example, at the 10th percentile (meaning 90 percent of the male
workforce earns more) saw his hourly wage decline 13 percent, and
since 1989 he lost another 6 percent. For women workers at the 10th
percentile, the decline over the 1980s was 18 percent. The low-wage
female worker gained slightly since 1989, but by 1995, her hourly wage
rate was $4.84, down from $5.82 in 1979 (all dollars are in 1995
inflation-adjusted terms).

Myth: A Huge Chunk of My Tax Dollars Supports Welfare Recipients

Fact: Welfare Costs 1 Percent of the Federal Budget

Widespread misperception about the extent of welfare exacerbate the
problems of poverty. The actual cost of welfare programs-about 1
percent of the federal budget and 2 percent of state budgets
(McLaughlin, 1997)-is proportionally less than generally believed.
During the 104th Congress, more than 93 percent of the budget
reductions in welfare entitlements came from programs for low-income
people (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 1996). Ironically,
middle-class and wealthy Americans also receive "welfare" in the form
of tax deductions for home mortgages, corporate and farm subsidies,
capital gains tax limits, Social Security, Medicare, and a multitude
of other tax benefits. Yet these types of assistance carry no stigma
and are rarely considered "welfare" (Goodgame, 1993). Anti-welfare
sentiment appears to be related to attitudes about class and widely
shared and socially sanctioned stereotypes about the poor. Racism also
fuels negative attitudes toward welfare programs (Quadagno, 1994).

Myth: People on Welfare Become Permanently Dependent on the Support

Fact: Movement off Welfare Rolls Is Frequent

A prevalent welfare myth is that women who received AFDC became
permanently dependent on public assistance. Analyses indicate that 56
percent of AFDC support ended within 12 months, 70 percent within 24
months, and almost 85 percent within 4 years (Staff of House Committee
on Ways and Means, 1996). These exit rates clearly contradict the
widespread myth that AFDC recipients wanted to remain on public
assistance or that welfare dependency was permanent. Unfortunately,
return rates were also high, with 45 percent of ex-recipients
returning to AFDC within 1 year. Persons who were likely to use AFDC
longer than the average time had less than 12 years of education, no
recent work experience, were never married, had a child below age 3 or
had three or more children, were Latina or African American, and were
under age 24 (Staff of House Committee on Ways and Means, 1996). These
risk factors illustrate the importance of structural barriers, such as
inadequate child care, racism, and lack of education.

Myth: Most Welfare Recipients Are African American Women

Fact: Most Welfare Recipients Are Children-Most Women on Welfare Are
White

Children, not women, are the largest group of people receiving public
assistance. Less than 5 million of the 14 million public assistance
recipients are adults, and 90 percent of those adults are women (U.S.
Bureau of Census, 1995). The majority of the recipients are White (38
percent), followed by 37 percent African Americans, and 25 percent
other minority groups (Latinos, Native Americans, and Asian Americans)
(McLaughlin, 1997). However, African Americans are disproportionately
represented on public assistance because they are only 12 percent of
the population (O'Hare, Pollard, Mann, & Kent, 1991).

Myth: Welfare Encourages Out-of- Wedlock Births and Large Families

Fact: The Average Welfare Family Is No Bigger Than the Average
Nonwelfare Family

The belief that single women are promiscuous and have large families
to receive increased benefits has no basis in extant research, and
single-parent families are not only a phenomenon of the poor (McFate,
1995). In fact, the average family size of welfare recipients has
decreased from four in 1969 to 2.8 in 1994 (Staff of House Committee
on Ways and Means, 1996). In 1994, 43 percent of welfare families
consisted of one child, and 30 percent consisted of two children.
Thus, the average welfare family is no larger than the average
nonrecipient's family, and despite considerable public concern that
welfare encourages out-of-wedlock births, a growing body of empirical
evidence indicates that welfare benefits are not a significant
incentive for childbearing (Wilcox, Robbennolt, O'Keeffe, & Pynchon,
1997).

Myth: Welfare Families Use Their Benefits to Fund Extravagance

Fact: Welfare Families Live Far Below the Poverty Line

The belief that welfare provides a disincentive to work by providing a
well-paying "free ride" that enables recipients, stereotyped as
"Cadillac queens," to purchase extravagant items with their benefits
is another myth. In reality, recipients live considerably below the
poverty threshold. Despite increased program spending, the average
monthly family benefit, measured in 1995 dollars, fell from $713 in
1970 to $377 in 1995, a 47 percent drop. In 26 states, AFDC benefits
alone fell 64 percent short of the 1996 poverty guidelines, and the
addition of food stamps only reduced this gap to 35 percent (Staff of
House Committee on Ways and Means, 1996).

Despite the ready availability of facts, myths about welfare continue
to be widespread. The media contributes to this lack of information.
The media helps shape public perceptions about welfare recipients. The
way in which a topic is reported can turn a neutral reader into an
opinionated reader and can greatly influence public opinion. Although
in an analysis of articles published in 10 major newspapers from
January 1997 to April 1997, the tone was generally sympathetic to the
poor, actual research and facts to counter myths were generally
lacking (Wyche & Mattern, 1997).

Recommendations

1. Federal and state agencies should provide newspapers and other
media with accurate information about welfare recipients and programs,
including information on welfare reform.
2. Jobs need to pay better than welfare. Rather than focusing on
welfare time limits, policy action at the state and federal levels
must address reforming the low-wage labor market by raising wages and
increasing the ability of low-wage workers to join unions and bargain
collectively.
3. Public and private agencies should collaborate more effectively
to promote and increase employment opportunities for women, especially
of hard-to-place women.
4. States should provide training for case managers and other
appropriate personnel to advocate for, support, and follow up with
clients in ways that are not adversarial or punitive during their job
search process.
5. States and federal agencies should fund and conduct research on
the impact of the transition of mothers to work on the mother and the
family and on what strategies best promote most positive outcomes for
the mothers and their families.
6. States should require and fund formative and summative
evaluations of proposed programs.