Talk:Welfare dependency

Preliminary Bibliography

Acs, Gregory and Eric Toder (2007). "Should We Subsidize Work? Welfare Reform, the Earned Income Tax Credit and Optimal Transfers." International Tax and Public Finance, 14:3, 327-343.

Antel, John J. (1992). "The Intergenerational Transmission of Welfare Dependency: Some Statistical Evidence." The Review of Economics and Statistics 74:3, 467-473

Barrett, Alan and Yvonne McCarthy (2008). "Immigrants and welfare programmes: exploring the interactions between immigrant characteristics, immigrant welfare dependence, and welfare policy." Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 24:3, 542-559.

Collins, Jane Lou and Victoria Mayer. (2010) Both Hands Tied: Welfare Reform and the Race to the Bottom in the Low-Wage Labor Market. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Dean, Hartley (2004). The Ethics of Welfare: Human Rights, Dependency, and Responsibility. Bristol: The Policy Press

Harris, Kathleen Mullen (1996). "Life After Welfare: Women, Work, and Repeat Dependency." American Sociological Review, 61:3, 407-426

Hoynes, Hilary and Thomas MaCurdy (1994). "Has the Decline in Benefits Shortened Welfare Spells?" The American Economic Review 84:2, 43-48.

Hu, Wei-Yin (1999) "Child Support, Welfare Dependency, and Women's Labor Supply." The Journal of Human Resources, 34:1, 71-103.

Ihlanfeldt, Keith R. and David L. Sjoquist (1998). "The Spatial Mismatch Hypothesis: A Review of Recent Studies and Their Implications for Welfare Reform." Housing Policy Debate, 9:4, 849-892.

O'Connor, B. (2001) "Intellectual Origins of Welfare Dependency." Australian Journal of Social Issues, 36:3, August 2001.

Raphael, Jody (1996) "Domestic Violence and Welfare Receipt: Toward a New Feminist Theory of Welfare Dependency." Harvard Women's Law Journal.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. "2008 Indicators of Welfare Dependency." http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/indicators08/ch1.shtml

JuliaK (talk) 05:39, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Contested deletion

This article should not be speedy deleted as having no substantive content, because... (your reason here)

Hi moderators - I established this article as part of this project for the United States Education Program on Wikipedia: http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:United_States_Education_Program/Courses/Berkeley_Sociology_Poverty_Course_(Sandra_Smith) Please see "Week 5.)

I am a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. This week, my assignment is to compile a bibliography of potential sources on the talk page for this article. I figured I couldn't make a talk page without making the main page. I meant for it to be a placeholder. JuliaK (talk) 06:18, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

greetings JuliaK, whilst its true you cant have a talk page without the corresponding article, you also cant have an article page that doesnt have any content. for the moment i have replaced the speedy tag with a tag indicating the page is under construction. this should buy you a few days, but at some point soon, the main article will need to (at least) be started or another editor may mark it for deletion. by the way, there is no problem putting the bibliography in the article now, articles are often constructed in a piecemeal fashion. hope that helps. cheers -- The Elves Of Dunsimore (talk) 07:33, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks you, TEoD. Over the next couple days I'll be putting together a draft of the article in my sandbox. JuliaK (talk) 06:10, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Have now added significant content. Thanks for your help. JuliaK (talk) 06:41, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

my pleasure. and i aint no expert, but it looks good to me! cheers -- The Elves Of Dunsimore (talk) 07:48, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Feedback

Overall, the article presents a good overview of the government's view of welfare dependency. However, the article could be drawn out much more, especially to include views of and information on aspects of welfare dependency not as directly related to the government. Perhaps include information on the lived experience of welfare dependency, from the recipients' perspective, instead of relying on information from the providers' perspective. Qualitative studies may be of use here. As it is lengthened, a more detailed organizational scheme may become necessary.

The section on mechanisms could be drawn out. Perhaps highlight a number of proposed explanations and causal factors addressing why people become dependent on welfare. Discuss each, as well as criticisms of each.

The indicators used by the government could be discussed at greater length. What does each one measure? How are they measured? Are they contested as accurate measures? For many of them, what they are actually measuring is unclear.

The discussion of "popular culture" includes some unverified statements. This is especially apparent by the statement "people viewed as welfare-dependent are not defrauding the system, but rather doing nothing to improve their situation, choosing to draw benefits when there are alternatives available." What alternatives are available? What evidence is there that welfare-dependent recipients are not pursuing these alternative to no avail? Stating that welfare-dependent recipients are doing nothing to improve their situation is a bold claim that must be cited, along with information about what can be done, and those that are trying to improve their situation. Like the other sections, the popular culture section could be drawn out to include various assumptions/stereotypes/portrayals of welfare-dependent recipients, and then a discussion of the sources and accuracy of each.

Hello, I am an undergraduate student from UCSD. As part of my assignment, I will be giving feedback regarding two questions: A. Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference?; and G. Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added? Awitoela (talk) 05:18, 26 April 2022 (UTC) Awitoela

Regarding A), I saw that the references are all appropriate and reliable, as each fact and figure is cited correctly and there are even links, which makes it digestable.

Also to add to the above, the citations are also structured well

Regarding G), I felt that some of the references are a bit dated, and definitely could be improved by taking more dated sources Awitoela (talk) 05:18, 26 April 2022 (UTC) Awitoela

38.102.47.97 (talk) 19:47, 27 October 2011 (UTC)ss114

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved, uncontroversial. (non-admin closure) Jenks24 (talk) 07:34, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

---

Welfare Dependency → Welfare dependency – No reason for caps. 5hin3 (talk) 05:15, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Substantive Review

New Article Organization

Overall, I would suggest reorganizing the article to the following format (detailed discussion below under general edits should clarify this new structure)

• Lead paragraph
• Political History
• Current Statistics
  • Indicators/Measurement
• Trends
  • Race
  • Gender
  • Age
• Causes
  • Intergenerational Transmission
  • Unemployment Trap
  • Employment Deficiencies
  • Mismatch Theory
  • Structural Problem Perspective
• Conservative Perspective
• International Comparisons

General Edits

• This statement in the lead paragraph: "Welfare dependence in the United States is typically associated with female-headed households with children" can be backed up by several more citations including several of the articles we've read in class (feminization of poverty articles) which refer to this trend in female-headed households.

• In addition to your remark about the association of welfare dependence with female-headed households, you might also consider including a brief discussion on race. For instance, are black and hispanic families more likely to be welfare dependent? Also age as well (i.e. young single mothers are more likely to be welfare dependent). You could make a brief mention of these trends in the lead paragraph and then consider creating individual subsections within the article to discuss race, gender and age more in depth with regard to welfare dependency. Potential sources include:
  • Kristin A. Moore. "Teenage Childbirth and Welfare Dependency" Family Planning Perspectives. 10(4): 233-235.
  • William A. Darity, Jr. and Samuel L. Myers, Jr. "Does Welfare Dependency Cause Female Headship? The Case of the Black Family" Journal of Marriage and Family. 46(4): 765-779.
  • William Darity, Jr. and Samuel L. Myers, Jr. "Changes in Black Family Structure: Implications for Welfare Dependency" The American Economic Review. 73(2): 59-64.
  • KM Harris. 1991. "Teenage Mothers and Welfare Dependency: Working Off Welfare." Journal of Family Issues.
  • Carolyn Cocca. "From "Welfare Queen" to "Exploited Teen": Welfare Dependency, Statutory Rape, and Moral Panic" National Women's Studies Journal Journal 14.2 (2002) 56-79

• This section in the lead paragraph should be moved into it's own section that details the political history of welfare dependency: "Welfare reform during the Clinton presidency placed time limits on benefit receipt, replacing Aid for Families with Dependent Children with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and requiring that recipients begin to work after two years of receiving these payments. Such measures were intended to decrease welfare dependence: The House Ways and Means Committee stated that the goal of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act was to "reduce the length of welfare spells by attacking dependency while simultaneously preserving the function of welfare as a safety net for families experiencing temporary financial problems." You could begin this section by briefly detailing the political emergence of welfare policies in general, and then discuss different presidential administrations' policies towards either (inadvertently) promoting welfare dependency or attempts to decrease such dependency. In fact, you could create a new subsection in the article to discuss the history of welfare dependency. In this section, you could also include relevant national media coverage throughout the past several decades that have addressed welfare reform measures in relation to welfare dependency. Potential articles to cite include:
  • The New York Times

August 15, 2006 Tuesday Late Edition - Final "End Welfare Lite As We Know It" By Douglas J. Besharov

• • The New York Times

November 16, 1992, Monday, Late Edition - Final "A Landmark For Families" By Daniel Patrick Moynihan

• • The New York Times

June 25, 1988, Saturday, Late City Final Edition "Welfare Without Dependency"

• • The Washington Post

May 29, 2007 Tuesday Regional Edition "The Rise Of the Bottom Fifth; How to Build on the Gains Of Welfare Reform" by: Ron Haskins

• • The Washington Post

June 5, 2000, Monday, Final Edition "Two Takes on Welfare Reform" William Raspberry

• • The Washington Post

June 4, 1992, Thursday, Final Edition "The Real Trouble With Welfare; It's not the dependency, it's the sense of hopelessness." William Raspberry

• • The Washington Post

November 12, 1987, Thursday, Final Edition "POLICY AND POVERTY"

• This statement can be supported by several articles we've read in class about the choice between welfare and work (specifically Edin and Lein): "In some cases, the unemployment trap may function as a perverse incentive to remain dependent on welfare payments, as returning to work would not significantly increase household earnings as welfare benefits are withdrawn. This trap can be eliminated through the addition of work subsidies."

You could draw out this section significantly to detail the nuances surrounding the trade-offs women make between deciding between welfare and work. You could also discuss Murray's AFDC thought-experiments here about how welfare will always cause recipients to be dependent and so we should just do away with welfare all together.

• You might consider changing the mechanisms of action heading to "Causes" and diving the section into different subsections and drawing each section out substantially with foundational arguments and critiques of each. sections would include:
  • Intergenerational Transmission
  • Unemployment Trap
  • Employment Deficiencies (low education, low skills)
  • Mismatch Theory (this section seems like it would belong here as a subsection rather than having its own separate heading)
  • Structural Problem Perspective

• Indicators section can be drawn out more. Trace out the historical context of the indicators. Include a discussion of the Welfare Indicators Act of 1994 (potential source: http://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/comp2/F103-432.html) and discuss how many reports on welfare dependency have been produced to date. (potential source: http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/indicators08/execsum.shtml) Was there/is there contention regarding these measurements? Related, perhaps add a section on historical trends and current welfare dependency statistics in the US could be added to show how these measurements have been used in practice.

This website (http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/indicators08/execsum.shtml) looks like it includes recent statistics including:

• • In 2005, 3.8 percent of the total population was dependent in that they received more than half of their total family income from TANF, food stamps and/or SSI (see Indicator 1). While higher than the 3.7 percent dependency rate measured in 2004, the 2005 rate is lower than the 5.2 percent rate measured in 1996. Overall, 2.59 million fewer Americans were dependent on welfare in 2005 compared with 1996.
• You might want to consider including a few statistics in the lead paragraph

• A section on international comparisons could also be included. How does welfare dependency in the US compare to other countries?

• Additional source for Mismatch Theory:

Housing Policy Debate • Volume 9, Issue 4 "The Spatial Mismatch Hypothesis: A Review of Recent Studies and Their Implications for Welfare Reform" Keith R. Ihlanfeldt and David L. Sjoquist

Checklist

• All current references cite checked and are accurate.
• Additional resources suggested
• All current references checked for accurate format
• Additional relevant aspects of the topic suggested for inclusion into the article
• Inclusion of a relevant image doesn't seem applicable

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Hlyson (talk • contribs) 17:34, 9 November 2011 (UTC) 

Wiki Education assignment: Introduction to Policy Analysis

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 March 2022 and 30 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Awitoela (article contribs).

Wikipedia Ambassador Program course assignment

This article is the subject of an educational assignment at University of California-Berkeley supported by WikiProject Sociology of Poverty and the Wikipedia Ambassador Program during the 2011 Q3 term. Further details are available on the course page.

The above message was substituted from {{WAP assignment}} by PrimeBOT (talk) on 16:42, 2 January 2023 (UTC)