Uneasy Rhetoric

Mark Schmitt says he has no nostalgia for the old welfare system. Starting out, his post reads like a fashion statement: welfare is, like, so last week. But, then he gets to the heart of the matter: “With just two million families on welfare, it’s time to focus instead on the fact that life at the low end of the wage scale is a pretty hellish existence.”

And that’s really the key. In general (not in every case), a family is better off working than receiving welfare, but only if they continue to have access to key public assistance programs like subsidized child care, health care, food stamps, and, my favorite, the Earned Income Tax Credit. Unfortunately, the same people who are busy dismantling welfare (they succeded) also want to dismantle these programs.

The anti-welfare crowd just can’t seem to get it through their collective head that raising a family on one or even two incomes at or near the minimum wage is crazy. Two people earning $7.50 per hour, assuming they work a full 40 hour week and don’t miss a single day of work all year and get paid holidays (how likely is that?), will gross $31,200. Not bad, if you don’t have children. Throw in a child, especially an infant, and our blissfully married, new parents now have two major expenses to contend with: full-time child care (remember, they both work full time) and health care. Unless that family has health insurance (in this economy?), things aren’t looking so good. And what are the chances that mom and dad worked a full eight hour day the day the baby was born, had the baby, then returned to work the next day? And don’t get me started on housing - they’re really not going to try to raise the kid in that same tiny one-bedroom apartment are they?

The same cretins who seem to think that public assistance runs counter to family values would also like to see a return to the one-worker family. More specifically, our family above should deal with the child care issue by having the mother stay at home. Oops. Now the family is grossing $15,600. Guess what? That’s below the official poverty line in 2004 (barely).

Our family would get by. Thousands of poor families do, every day. But is it right to applaud a family that “economizes” by feeding their kids ramen as a main course (I’m sorry, but just because you did it in college doesn’t make it right - you probably drank until you puked in college too) or skipping meals, by postponing dental visits, dumpster diving, spending less time with the kids, living in substandard housing, and so on? Shouldn’t we be saying “hey, you’re working full time and you still can’t make ends meet? Well, here’s a little help.”

Schmitt is right, welfare has become irrelevant. But other public assistance programs are more important now than ever - thank God they’re still out there.

For now.