Welfare cuts + job losses =
Poverty crisis
By Heather Cottin
New York
There's another front to the U.S. war. It's right here in
this country. The casualties are mounting by the tens of
thousands as people are being cut off welfare just as the
recession destroys millions of jobs. A huge number of those on
welfare have been working people who earned so little they
couldn't afford food and shelter without public assistance.
As the rich get richer, with the kindly assistance of
Congress and the president who are pushing through a
$70-billion corporate tax "incentive," the Bush administration
is going ahead with the plan to "end welfare as we know it."
This bipartisan plan of, by, and for the wealthy, was signed
into law by Bill Clinton in 1996 to end federal assistance to
the poorest people in the United States.
Entitled the "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Act," this law stated that on Nov. 30, 2001, anyone receiving
Aid to Families with Dependent Children who had exhausted the
five-year lifetime limit mandated by the new law would be
withdrawn from "welfare dependency" and forced to go it
alone.
The policy wonks who came up with the title of the law
implied that poor people who needed welfare were irresponsible.
They put the blame for poverty on the poor, rather than the
capitalist system that impoverishes millions as "collateral
damage" while a wealthy minority enriches itself.
Under this law, the federal government has been forcing
recipients into what came to be called "workfare." This means
taking jobs--often below minimum wage--to qualify for
assistance. Conservatives called it "opportunity." Many people
on welfare, however, are disabled or have small children to
care for and haven't been able to take workfare jobs.
Welfare was always insufficient to meet the needs of the
poor. An Oct. 12 article in New York Newsday explained, "Public
assistance leaves families deep in poverty. The cash grant for
a family of three is only $577 per month and has not been
raised in more than 10 years. While many families also receive
food stamps, assistance levels are still way below that needed
to move a family out of crushing poverty."
But even this meager support has now come to an end for tens
of thousands of families. The largest group yet to face the
cutoff of federal funds, they are also among the first to do so
in a full-blown recession.
Freefall crisis
The Nov. 30 New York Times reported that stringent rules and
a good economy had already cut the number of people receiving
welfare in that city by half, to 387,000 recipients. Now, as
the five-year limit expires for many, they won't be able to pay
the December rent or buy enough food to feed their
families.
The New York State Constitution mandates a Safety Net
program for those who cannot care for themselves, but for many
of the 38,000 families in the state cut off from federal
welfare after Nov. 30, this state net is not working. And there
will be more. "An additional 13,700 city families," the Times
added, "are expected to hit their federal time limit over the
next three months."
The New York City economic crisis has proved a disaster for
the poor here. But Robert Doar, executive deputy commissioner
of the State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance,
won't admit it. He told the Times, "Most people can get
virtually the same benefits as before. ... We do think it's
gone very smoothly."
The Times reporter disputed this: "But a very different
picture emerges from visits to several welfare offices,
interviews with welfare lawyers, social service organizations,
and recipients themselves. Some have received letters just in
the last few days denying them state aid, apparently in error.
Others, in offices bristling with ominous posters about time
running out, tried to apply for benefits but caseworkers told
them--within a reporter's earshot--that it was too late."
"They are closing cases in error, and clients are being
denied the right to transfer to Safety Net assistance," said
Mark Cohen of the Welfare Law Center, a national advocacy group
based in New York.
Almost 65 percent of the welfare recipients had jobs, but
they did not, according to the Times, make enough for their
families' survival.
The Times noted that many of the thousands who were about to
lose welfare assistance were also losing their access to other
programs that helped them survive. This is because of federal
cutbacks of Medicaid, food stamps and rent-assistance programs.
The Nov. 18 Times reported that the federal government is
terminating the Section 8 program that provides aid to
low-income and poor people who need help paying their rent.
An October alert from the Center for Budget and Policy
Priorities--a Washington, D.C., advocacy group--warned that the
Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program that has provided
nutritional help for women and infants will terminate aid in
early 2002 to 345,000 women, children and infants whose needs
will become even greater as the economy nosedives.
Numerous studies have shown that WIC improves the health of
participants, especially babies. But the government's
priorities are the corporate elite, the Wall Street bankers and
wealthy corporate stockholders, not impoverished children and
women.
Indictment of capitalism
The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities reported in
October that the weakening economy has produced a rash of
budget cuts throughout the country.
Because fewer people are working, and because corporations
are paying fewer state taxes, most states are collecting fewer
taxes.
Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois,
Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota,
Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and
Rhode Island face severe budget crises.
But tax breaks for the wealthy proliferate in those states
as well.
Budget cuts are being considered or have been implemented in
at least 27 states. The CBPP notes that other states are
expected to cut programs that workers rely on: medical care,
welfare, education, libraries and parks.
New York State hit hard
The World Trade Center disaster hit New York State hard. In
addition to the toll in human lives, it resulted in the loss of
hundreds of thousands of jobs in the metropolitan area.
According to Gov. George Pataki, "never in the history of the
state had there been revenue losses of this magnitude."
In Buffalo, according to the Dec. 2 Newsday, officials have
ordered massive municipal worker layoffs. "Municipal
governments are spiraling into fiscal distress," said New York
State Comptroller H. Carl McCall. The state's counties are in
similar shape.
When capitalism goes into a tailspin, many workers look to
the federal and state governments for relief. Isn't that why
taxes are deducted every week from our paychecks? But while
owners of corporations are laying off workers, the
bought-and-paid-for government officials are showing concern
only for the continuation of corporate profits.
In his classic work "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific,"
Frederick Engels demonstrated that capitalist competition and
the drive to expand production for profit will inevitably lead
to periodic crises of overproduction. Paradoxically, this means
that workers are impoverished because of super-abundance--a
condition that exists only under capitalism. Engels concluded,
"The contradiction has grown into an absurdity."
Nothing could be more absurd than the state of the U.S.
economy at the present moment. While government hands billions
in welfare to the capitalists, tiny babies and pregnant women
are denied nutrition. Workers produce food and clothing and
housing in great abundance yet they cannot afford to buy them.
People are mired in poverty and workers are laid off, while the
capitalist government turns its back on them.
Nothing indicates the criminal failure and inanity of the
capitalist system more than the contradictions the workers now
face.
Reprinted from the Dec. 13, 2001, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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