[net.women] Have welfare programs hurt the poor?

carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) (08/26/85)

In *Losing Ground*, Charles Murray claims that the liberalization in
Aid to Families with Dependent Children benefits that has occurred
since the mid-60s has imposed the following social "costs":

  High AFDC benefits:
  --allow single mothers to set up their own households;
  --allow mothers to end bad marriages;
  --may make divorced mothers more cautious about remarrying.

Most people I know would consider these "costs" to be benefits.  Is
this keep'em-barefoot sexism on Murray's part, or is it just
conservative dogmatism:  that welfare benefits *must* have a bad
effect on the recipients?

Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes

berman@psuvax1.UUCP (Piotr Berman) (08/28/85)

> In *Losing Ground*, Charles Murray claims that the liberalization in
> Aid to Families with Dependent Children benefits that has occurred
> since the mid-60s has imposed the following social "costs":
> 
>   High AFDC benefits:
>   --allow single mothers to set up their own households;
>   --allow mothers to end bad marriages;
>   --may make divorced mothers more cautious about remarrying.
> 
> Most people I know would consider these "costs" to be benefits.  Is
> this keep'em-barefoot sexism on Murray's part, or is it just
> conservative dogmatism:  that welfare benefits *must* have a bad
> effect on the recipients?
> 
> Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes

There is yet another "cost" of benefits.  I read the economical history
of Brazil lately.  In good old 19 century, the poorer a region was, the
smaller was the population growth.  Currently those things are upside
down.  The bad side of benefits is that they allow the poor to multiply.
Without any, they would not.  This however would work only if we would
be as principled as British during the potato famine.  Boy, the number
of poor never decreased that much!