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Why workers need welfare

Published May 19, 2005 8:09 PM

By Deirdre Griswold

The number of women in federal and state prisons has been growing at an alarming rate, with the rate of increase twice that of men, according to the U.S. government. Last November, the number of women behind bars reached 101,179, an all-time high. That was nearly 50 percent greater than a decade earlier. Another 80,000 were held in local jails at some point during the year. (www.realcostofprisons.org)

The big increase is directly connected to the so-called “war on drugs.” In today’s economy, it means many women can’t find legal work that pays enough to sustain themselves and their children and have to resort to “petty crime” to survive.

It is also connected to the destruction of welfare, which started during the Reagan administration and was completed by Bill Clinton. Welfare was a cushion that kept the very poor from having to risk jail or starvation when they couldn’t get work. Most of the people on welfare were women and their children.

Back in 1973, Elizabeth Ross, one of the founding members of Workers World Party, wrote about the importance of welfare to the entire working class in her pamphlet “Why Workers Need Welfare—and How Billionaires Get It.” She showed how capitalist laws favored all kinds of benefits for the super-rich while trying to deny workers even a modest income to get through hard times. The pamphlet was reprinted in 1982.

This May 15th was the 100th anniversary of her birth. She had lived through the Great Depression and became a committed revolutionary socialist. Her pamphlet is more relevant today then ever, and will be available soon on the Workers World website at www.workers.org.