Reflections
from
Women Who Know
by YVETTE MOORE
Absent from debate about ending "welfare as we know it," which culminated in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996, was the voice of women who had received public assistance. Their voices were silenced by a lack of power to command media attention -- and by the shame of being poor.
No one interviewed for this article wanted her full identity disclosed. Yet, unlike many welfare experts, these women speak with the authority of experience. Had they been consulted, the nation may have learned that "welfare as we knew" it was vastly different from "welfare as it really was." Let’s look at the myths versus reality.
Welfare as we knew it kept the national budget in the red and created trillions of dollars of debt. Welfare as it was accounted for one tenth of 1 percent of the federal budget in 1994, the year on which 1999 welfare block-grant allocations are based.
Welfare roles as we knew them were filled with women -- mostly women of color -- who were too lazy to work. They began receiving welfare as teens and stayed on welfare for life. When they wanted more money, they had more children so their monthly government checks would increase.
But welfare roles as they really were were filled with women and children who had fallen on hard times for myriad reasons. They needed help for a varying number of years -- years often used to get out of abusive relationships, to go to school, to get job training, to parent children full time until the children were old enough to attend school.
Federal welfare legislation was adopted based on the welfare as we knew it, not welfare as it really was. Aid to Families with Dependent Children was replaced with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which will expire in 2002 unless renewed by federal lawmakers.
The need to renew the legislation provides an opportunity to listen now to women who know first-hand about welfare. Their experiences can guide advocacy for changes in the law and in its application at the state level.
From middle class to poverty
Kate grew up in a middle-class home, the daughter of a college professor. In high school, she became involved with a religious group that frowned on medical science, mass media, birth control and relationships with "outsiders" -- including parents and family. The group encouraged women to marry young, so by 18, she had.
"I was in that church for 12 years," Kate said, explaining the church owned the building in which she and her family lived. "My husband was physically abusive to me and my pets and emotionally abusive to our four children. The minister told me I should be more submissive to my husband and he wouldn’t be so mean to me."
When she reached out to her mother and her mother, trying to comfort her, said, "Well, at least he doesn’t hit you," Kate knew she had to leave.
That was January 1987. Kate’s parents rallied around her as much as they could, but with four children, she needed more assistance. That assistance came from the public in Baltimore. The $465 per month Kate got from welfare covered her rent. She also received food stamps. Her father paid her telephone and utility bills with checks that went to the department of social services, which in turn, paid the bills. Her mother babysat for her when she enrolled in a local college.
"Nobody understands," Kate said of the public’s knowledge of living in poverty. "You cannot make it on welfare. You cannot. It took my entire welfare check just to pay the rent. My daughter went to a private school on a full scholarship. The school would say, `Send $20‘ for whatever, and she didn’t have it. She never felt part of that school."
Kate worked part time in a bookstore and took long-term assignments as a substitute teacher in the Baltimore County public-school system after graduating from college in 1992.
"I had to go to the assistant principal and ask him to send a letter to social services about my work in that school," she said. "I also sent social services my pay stubs. Then I got a letter from social services saying, `You didn’t say you were working. You owe $2,000.’ For whatever reason, it wasn’t filed, or filed in the trash. When I explained, they said, `Even if you did send proof, you were overpaid. You owe.’"
Today, Kate is a full-time second-grade teacher in Baltimore who speaks with the wisdom of someone who has emerged from a storm and is still rather exhausted. Most of her students are poor, many from families that receive welfare. Her advice on welfare changes stem from her experience:
Support, don’t penalize, people on welfare who are trying to help themselves: "When I became employed, my income looked higher on paper, but really it was lower because other benefits were taken away."
Be flexible to individual circumstances: "Hard and fast rules can hurt people. It’s like when you bomb a foreign country because of some bad people and you end up killing a lot of innocent people."
Recognize that everyone starts life in a different socioeconomic place: "I wasn’t raised in poverty. I knew another life, and I was trying to get back to it -- and it still took me from 1987-1994 before I had enough income to live without assistance. What about people who have only known poverty?"
Provide consistency in caseworkers for clients: "Every time you go there, there’s a different person. And everyone requires you to do a song and dance -- and it is a song and dance."
Better training for caseworkers: "Many are very hostile and humiliate you."
Cut red tape: "People who are in need are in terrible shape."
"A major blowout with my mother" is all Kim would say about how she became homeless when she was 19 and pregnant in 1993. She landed in a Women’s Division-supported transitional living center in Atlanta, Ga., where she got her bearings, then went on to get an apartment and a part-time job and enrolled in college. She received cash benefits from welfare from 1993-1995.
She is unbowed by her experience in poverty. Her strong spirit and determination come through even in a telephone interview at the end of a long day.
Ironically, it was Kim’s part-time job and classes that got her in trouble with social services.
"In 1995, they decided my working part time at Kentucky Fried Chicken was making too much money. Six dollars an hour, 20 hours a week. Taxed."
Hours short of her associates degree in arts-and-science education, her cash benefits were cut, though she remained eligible for food stamps and day care for her son. When she got her associates degree, she stopped working at Kentucky Fried Chicken and started working as a substitute teacher in local public schools and taking evening classes toward a bachelors degree.
Then her caseworker was switched -- again.
"They switch workers all the time," she said. "Something happens, and I don’t know who to contact because my worker is switched.
"This caseworker tells me they’ll no longer pay for my day care because I’m in college. They’ll only pay for it if you’re in high school. She said I wasn’t working enough to get all of the day-care benefits I was getting."
So Kim lied. She put together a false document so it appeared she was working the hours she was in school.
"Then my caseworker said I was making too much, which was not true," Kim said. "The last thing she told me was my day care had to be discontinued because I was substitute teaching and that wasn’t stable enough. She wanted me to go back to Kentucky Fried Chicken. The school system I work in has more than 110 schools, and I have people that ask for me everyday."
Day-care and health benefits for her son are the only benefits Kim now gets from the public. She does not have health-care coverage for herself. Recently, Kim began selling long-distance telephone service to supplement her income.
Kim’s advice on welfare change can be summed up easily: Don’t penalize people for trying.
"If you do a little better, a benefit is taken away," she said. "You’re still under the poverty line!"
Rose, 25, of Gould, Ark., is the mother of four young children. She’s received public assistance off and on between jobs for six years. She’s worked at a nearby nursing home and as a secretary in a real-estate office. Neither job offered health coverage. In July 1997, Rose was moved into the state’s Transitional Employment Assistance (TEA) program.
"When they changed it to TEA, they didn’t give us information about what to expect," Rose said. "They give you up to two years to receive aid now. If you don’t have a job by that date, you’re just cut off. They cut me off in September 1998.
"They wanted me to do some volunteer work for three months at the local elementary school -- 20 hours a week. They told me if I didn’t do that, they were going to close my case. So I told my caseworker to go ahead and close it because I would rather have a job. They didn’t offer any job training. I already know how to clean."
Currently neither Rose nor her four children have health-care coverage. She has interviewed in nearby towns for jobs at nursing homes. She has not gotten a job because she doesn’t have a car. She is living on help from a friend and a stipend from a Women’s Division-supported program to help women move from welfare to work. She wants to work. Rose sees transportation as her major obstacle.
"Here in Gould, there’s farm work -- they hire men," Rose said. "And there are two small grocery stores and a small general store -- they don’t hire anybody. There’s a senior citizen’s facility in Star City, 17 miles from Gould. I had friends working at there, but they had to find transportation to and from work. It’s hard to keep a job if you don’t have transportation."
Transportation is what welfare programs should address in her community, Rose said.
"A bus, a van or a car loan so I can get to work would help," she said.
Yvette Moore is managing editor of Response.