Welfare and Poverty

WELFARE PROGRAMS may well be the most unpopular of all government initiatives. They are criticized by the social scientists who observe their effects, disdained by the taxpayers who pay the bills, and generally unappreciated by many of the people who go through the bureaucratic process required to collect the benefits. Yet, governmental support programs are as old as human civilization—with an ages-old realization that rulers have an obligation to look out for the welfare of the governed. The Bible teaches Paul's injunction to “do good to all men” by helping those in need by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, housing the homeless, healing the sick.

Today, not all governments acknowledge such obligations. Canada and Denmark have wide-ranging social welfare legislation. Britain's National Health Service provides free medical treatment to citizens. Throughout the third world, on the other hand, few social services are available to help the needy. In the United States public assistance has increasingly come under fire. Thirty years and $3.5 trillion after President Lyndon Johnson fired the first shot in the War on Poverty, dramatic welfare reform measures in 1996 radically changed how the government provides public assistance.

From the left's perspective, these right-wing reforms were troubling, demonstrating a callous disregard for the needy. On the far left, the late Gus Hall, the U.S. Communist Party's repeated candidate for president of the United States called the 1996 welfare reform laws a “victory for the very rich.”

He blamed the mass media for glossing over “the class nature” of the legislation. “They neglect to say it is a windfall for the rich and corporations. As a result, the very rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. State after state is cutting food stamps. As a result, an increasing number of people are homeless, hungry and starving to death. Many of them are children, the elderly and disabled.”

Governments have an obligation to champion the downtrodden, say proponents of public social programs; a lack of political power should not silence their voices. “Poor people are one of the least powerful groups in the United States and their civil liberties are therefore always in a precarious state,” said the American Civil Liberties Union in a public statement. “Welfare laws and practices have often violated the rights of the poor, especially poor women and their children.”

The federal welfare reform law passed in 1996 is no exception. Under the law, states can deny welfare to any child born into a family already receiving welfare. The promise of equal educational opportunity is a cornerstone of our democracy, but millions of poor and minority children in the United States are receiving an inadequate education. Poor people face a myriad of problems. The Hyde Amendment, passed by Congress in 1976, excludes abortion from the comprehensive healthcare services provided to low-income people through Medicaid. Poor people with HIV/AIDS are routinely denied access to homeless shelters. And the Supreme Court has ruled that a public housing tenant, who has committed no wrongdoing, can be evicted because a family member “engaged in drug related activities off the premises.”

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