Workfare

STARTING WITH THE 1980s conservative administrations of President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, neoliberalism experienced ascendancy in Western economies. Steeped in the lais-sez-faire market principles of capitalism, neoliberalism embraces enterprise, individualism, and economic rationalism over statist economic interventions. In this political economy, standards of living and welfare are the bane of the individual, not the state. A core belief of neoliberals is that labor force participation in an economic market unfettered by government control is key to elevated levels of well-being, first for the individual and then for society. This is not to say neoliberals covet self-sacrifice for the common good. Rather, self-inter-ested self-investment motivated by personal growth is the accepted norm. In the true Adam Smith perspective, competition in this manner will generate efficiency of the market, which is the cornerstone of capitalism.

It is under neoliberalism that current Western welfare policies have taken shape. In particular, the United States, and to a lesser extent Great Britain, has reformed governmental welfare programs because of concerns that they are generous in universalistic entitlement of cash aid, and thereby remove the competitive drive of recipients to participate fully in the labor market. Further, some neoliberals distrust welfare recipients, viewing them as lacking a work ethic and failing to adhere to societal norms of civility and decency. Such failures, it is argued, stem from idleness bred of entitlement to cash aid with no reciprocal obligation to contribute to the betterment of self or society. In the reformation, work has been emphasized over welfare. Benefits are exchanged for adherence to behavioral mandates. Recipients of governmental aid are expected to take employment, regardless of its nature or its limited remunerative pay. The term coined for labor force participation as a welfare mandate is workfare. Workfare theory posits that if recipients are employed, they will both obtain a work ethic and be too busy carving out a living to maintain delinquency. More importantly, their children will learn the importance of work from their parents.

In the United States, the current cash aid program for impoverished families is entitled Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). The program requires single parents to work or participate in work activities (such as job searches and job skills workshops) 35 hours per week. Married participants are required to work 40 hours per week. Generally, for every dollar parents earn, allotment of aid is reduced a dollar. Failure to comply with workfare in TANF results in punitive sanctions in the form of loss of cash aid. States may choose whether to reduce just the adult portion of aid or remove aid from the entire family. It appears from current studies of state welfare programs that about 93 percent of families on aid comply with workfare mandates.

While neoliberals base the argument for workfare on assumptions about the character of welfare clients, opponents of workfare point to numerous methodologically sound studies showing that welfare clients do work hard prior to and during receipt of aid. Further, such studies also reveal that welfare clients are not very different from the rest of society, fully embracing norms of civility and decency. It follows that, if welfare clients possess a work ethic and do not reject notions of civility, then workfare with its coercive, paternalistic, and punitive approach to enforcing work will not bring about major changes in levels of poverty.

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