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Why workers need welfare
By
Deirdre Griswold
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.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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