Eradicating Extreme Poverty and Hunger Worldwide

The Welfare Condition: Helping or Hurting

Don Sanford

English 102

Leslie Jewkes

October 17, 2012

Abstract

Many people in the United States are supporting their families on an income source that is anything but sufficient. In the midst of rough economic times, a great number of families have to turn to the government for help. The welfare program is the national platform that attempts to help these families in need, but does not always succeed in accomplishing this task. Since 1996, when welfare reform was enacted, there have been a number of new rules and restrictions added to the program making it difficult for families in need to receive benefits. Once a family has qualified to collect benefits, there is a new group of obstacles to overcome. Welfare recipients have been stereotyped as drug abusers and have been mistreated by caseworkers and the general population. The welfare program must completely change to provide the poor an easier road they must travel to obtain financial assistance. Welfare reform needs reform.

The Welfare Condition: Helping or Hurting

People throughout the world are living below the poverty line. Most countries have systems in place to assist the poor population in transitioning out of poverty. The United States is one example of a country with one of these programs; this program is called the Welfare System. In the United States, the welfare program is not working as intended, instead of providing people with the means to resume self-sufficiency the program is causing a plethora of problems such as, poor family structure, a negative perception of those receiving welfare benefits, and not aiding a majority in need of assistance. Welfare reform has completely changed the inter-workings of the welfare platform. The welfare program must completely change to provide the poor an easier road they must travel to obtain financial assistance.

Since welfare reform, which was enacted in 1996, many changes have been made to the welfare system. One of the largest changes was the termination of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and the commencement of the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program (Albelda 123). It is easy to deduce from the name of this new program that there is a set duration of time a family in need can receive benefits. Anne Daguerre stated in her article The Second Phase of US Welfare Reform, 2000-2006: Blaming the Poor Again?, “TANF created a five-year lifetime limit for receiving cash assistance and obliged welfare recipients, 90 percent being single mothers, to find paid employment as quickly as possible” (363). This new time limit and job requirement caused an influx of new problems. Families receiving assistance before welfare reform could continue to receive benefits in harsh economic times when attaining a low paying, non-stable job was all that was available for most recipients. Under the new program TANF, as stated in Randy Albelda’s article Welfare-To-Work, Farewell To Families? US Welfare Reform And Work/Family Debates, “both state and federal welfare laws now require the group of women who traditionally made the least in the labor market, and do not have reliable family income sources to raise their children, to find alternatives to cash assistance” (121). Entering the job market and locating a replacement for welfare, in the now harsh economic times, is more difficult than one may think.

The welfare recipient’s task of obtaining a job that pays enough, in itself, to move over the poverty line is not easily accomplished by most. The skill level of a majority of the poor is not adequate enough to acquire a position that pays more than minimum wage. According to the U.S. Census Bureau the 2011 poverty level for a family of three is $17,595, additionally, the federal minimum wage in 2012 is $7.25 per hour. Therefore, a single mother of two could hold a full-time job at minimum wage and gross $15,080 annually, $2,515 below the poverty level before taxes (49). In a majority of the cases, leaving welfare due to acquiring full-time employment is a step backward in aiding families return to self-sufficiency. For welfare to work more effectively, work training programs that prepare individuals for work that will pay enough to place them above the poverty line will need to be utilized more. On another hand, due to rough economic times, well-educated individuals are losing their jobs and having to step into the realm of welfare. The state of the economy plays a large part in job availability and the number of welfare applicants.

When TANF was enacted in 1996, an abundance of new guidelines and regulations appeared. One of these new guidelines gave the state government more flexibility with how they used the funds given to them. With the economy booming in the 90’s, there was a drastic reduction of people filing for welfare benefits. Due to this small demand for welfare, states had a pool of money not being used and saw the opportunity to fund other projects with the excess money (Trisi and Pavetti 2). Diverting funds intended for a specific program is never a good idea. The demand for welfare benefits is intimately linked to the state of the economy. States did not prepare for tough economic times, as Danilo Trisi and LaDonna Pavetti state in their article TANF Weakening as a Safety Net For Poor Families, “However, when the economy slowed and the need for cash assistance substantially increased, states were unable to reclaim those dollars to help the growing number of families that needed it; instead, they responded by cutting TANF benefits and tightening eligibility rules, often by shortening or tightening time limits” (2). More federal restrictions need to be put in place to regulate the local state government’s ability to alter these programs.

An example of a local government altering the federal policy was revealed during an interview conducted with Shane Leach of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare - Information Management Unit he stated, “TAFI or Temporary Assistance for Families in Idaho has a lifetime limit of 24 months, which is cash assistance of 309 dollars per month, at the federal level this program is called the TANF and the lifetime limit is 60 months or five years”. States have the ability to change the maximum amount of time a family can receive benefits. This power the states have over the program can dramatically decrease the amount of people who need benefits. A family that extinguishes their time limit for benefits will have an extremely hard time if they ever have the need for additional benefits in that state. Later in the interview with Leach, he states “The goal of our welfare program is self-reliance which is the name of our program here in Idaho, the purpose being to move people who are currently having challenges to become more self-reliant by providing a variety of forms of assistance such as SNAP (food stamps) and TAFI (Temporary Assistance for Families in Idaho).” This goal is the same throughout the United States welfare system. Unfortunately this is not happening in most cases. Sandra Morgan and Jeff Maskovsky do a good job explaining this in their article The Anthropology of Welfare "Reform": New Perspectives on U.S. Urban Poverty in the Post-Welfare Era, “ … many of those affected by welfare “reform” experience quite the opposite: intensiﬁed surveillance, punishment, and ultimately the abrogation of their citizenship rights” (329). The U.S. welfare system needs to be reevaluated to address these serious issues.

Since welfare reform, noticeable decreases in applicants for assistance have been present. Despite this downward trend in demand for benefits “… the number of families with children in poverty increased by 17 percent over this period [1995-2010], from 6.2 million to 7.3 million, and the number of poor children climbed by 12 percent or by 1.7 million children”(Trisi and Pavetti 1). The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that only one in six federally eligible children receive child care subsidies. Just over 14.5 million children are eligible to receive child care subsidies, but only 2.5 million children are actually receiving aid for child care costs (see table 1 below for exact numbers).

Table 1: Number of Children Potentially Eligible and Percent of Eligible

Children Receiving Child Care Subsidies, Average Monthly, 2006

	Children Potentially Eligible for CCDF Under Federal Parameters	Children Receiving Subsidies	Percent of Potentially Eligible Children Receiving Subsidies	Ratio of Potentially Eligible Children Receiving Subsidies
All Children	14,574,000	2,506,000	17%	1 in 6

(Data from the Department of Health and Human Services ASPE Issue Brief)

New eligibility requirements are scaring people who need assistance from completing the application. One of these requirements steering away potential needy families from obtaining assistance is the incorporation of a drug test. Arthur Sulzberger writes in his New York Times article States Adding Drug Test as Hurdle for Welfare, “As more Americans turn to government programs for refuge from a merciless economy, a growing number are encountering a new price of admission to the social safety net: a urine sample” (para 1). This is just one of many examples of how the government and society stereotype welfare recipients. This negative perception implies that everyone is a drug user, now requiring normal people who have been laid off from their job due to rough economic times to take a drug test if they wish to move forward with the process of receiving benefits. Someone that has been laid off from a corporate job would not be too keen on taking a drug test, and why should they be? This person is a hardworking citizen that shouldn’t be forced to take a drug test because he or she lost their job due to the state of the economy. Not all states have passed this type of legislation, however a number have generated support for drug testing welfare recipients.

Individuals receiving welfare benefits have to live with this “negative perception”. Recipients often report that their caseworkers disrespect them and treat them unfairly. Karen Seccombe writes, “Women repeatedly described many problems [with the welfare system]: they complained that the system is far too impersonal, caseworkers are unhelpful; the push is on to find a job, any job, regardless of the quality of it; there should be more one-on-one help; child support payments should be more closely enforced and monitored; and the delivery of medical services through the Public Health Unit were problematic” (qtd. in Swarts 39). Drug users who receive benefits are also perceived negatively by the public and government. The common misconception exists that an overwhelming majority of people on welfare are abusing their financial assistance using the money to support their drug habits. “Some [women] mentioned that every time they met their caseworker, they were threatened with loss of their beneﬁts” (Luck, Elifson, and Sterk 119). United States social workers need to help people in situations like this and not chastise them for having a problem. Finding addicts treatment options would be far more beneficial than simply judging and treating them with disrespect. “A number of women gave the food stamps to relatives who were caring for their children, although some women who were heavily involved in drug use admitted using food stamps to buy drugs. However, the latter are the exception, not the rule” (Luck, Elifson, and Sterk 119). There are many reasons that welfare recipients have obtained such a bad reputation. This negative attention frustrates individuals receiving benefits and families end up dealing with the unneeded stress of not knowing how their next appointment with their caseworker will turn out. In a study done by the National Poverty Center (NPC) they found that “psychiatric disorders, especially major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, are more prevalent than drug and alcohol dependence among welfare recipients” (Jayakody et al. 2). Drug use is not at the top of the list for personnel issues who are on welfare, but still welfare recipients are widely known as “drug users”.

The welfare recipients family structure is easily affected, welfare benefits bring with them a certain lifestyle. From all the negative feedback from caseworkers and society to not being able to buy groceries because they do not receive enough money from welfare, families easily find themselves in a bad environment in and outside their home. Smoking, which is fairly common in the United States, also shows a significant presence in the realm of welfare among youths. Danielle Fettes and Gregory Aarons state in their article Smoking Behavior of US Youths: A Comparison Between Child Welfare System and Community Populations, “CW-involved youths had significantly higher rates of lifetime smoking (43% vs 32%) and current smoking (23% vs 18%) than did youths in the community population” (2342). The current welfare system is setting up families for failure. Not providing them structural support when families need help. Not providing them with this structural support causes many of them to find the support themselves, via smoking or robbery or theft. The living conditions for children in homes of welfare recipients is too commonly a negative environment, with the intervention of the welfare system, by providing counseling to show the parents of these children ways to deal with being laid off from work and not taking these hardships out on their families.

In summation, the welfare system has many issues and is in need of re-evaluation. There have been many changes to the welfare system in the last twenty years. The largest of these changes was welfare reform which took effect in 1996. This replaced AFDC with TANF, which placed a time limit on benefits (Albelda 123). Most families living in poverty find difficultly in acquiring a job that pays enough to bring them out of poverty status. Welfare reform granted states the power to move funds intended for welfare recipients, in addition states could mold their programs. States could shorten the lifetime limit a recipient could receive benefits. Another change some states initiated is incorporating a drug test into the requirements to acquire benefits (Trisi and Pavetti 2). The addition of these requirements and limits has caused some people in need of benefits not to apply for them. When a family finally qualifies for benefits the stress is not over. Caseworkers and a majority of the public look down on welfare recipients, often treating them with disrespect. Drug users, in a majority of the cases are not abusing the welfare program, using benefits to provide for their children, but are still treated as being inferior and insignificant (Luck, Elifson, and Sterk 119). Smoking is more prevalent in children of families receiving welfare benefits. Family structure plays a large role in the upbringing of children. Children of welfare families are often in an environment that is anything but ideal (Fettes and Aarons 2342). Individuals eager to become actively involved in changing the welfare system can write a formal letter to the United States House of Representatives or their local senator describing concerns about the program. The welfare system is flawed, but if policy makers listen to welfare recipients’ complaints and read scholar’s thoughts of the program, then there may be hope to fix this broken system.

Works Cited

"Estimates of Child Care Eligibility and Receipt for Fiscal Year 2006." ASPE : Issue Brief. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 22 Apr. 2010. Web. 29 Sept. 2012. <http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/10/cc-eligibility/ib.shtml>.

Albelda, Randy. "Welfare-To-Work, Farewell To Families? US Welfare Reform And Work/Family Debates." Feminist Economics 7.1 (2001): 119-135. Academic Search Premier. Web. 19 Sept. 2012.

Cecilio Morales. Welfare: Opposing Viewpoints. Ed. David M. Haugen and Andrea B. DeMott. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2008. Print.

Daguerre, Anne. "The Second Phase of US Welfare Reform, 2000-2006: Blaming the Poor Again?" Social Policy & Administration 42.4 (2008): 362-78. Print.

DeNavas-Walt, Carmen D. "Current Population Reports." Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2011. U.S. Census Bureau, Sept. 2012. Web. 27 Sept. 2012.

Fettes, Danielle, L., and Gregory, A. Aarons. "Smoking Behavior Of US Youths: A Comparison Between Child Welfare System And Community Populations." American Journal Of Public Health 101.12 (2011): 2342-2348. CINAHL with Full Text. Web. 19 Sept. 2012.

Jayakody, Rukmalie, Sheldon Danziger, Kristin Seefeldt, and Harold Pollack. "Substance Abuse and Welfare Reform." National Poverty Center. University of Michigan, Apr. 2004. Web. 30 Sept. 2012. <http://www.npc.umich.edu/publications/policy_briefs/brief02/>.

Leach, Shane. Telephone interview. 21 Sept. 2012.

Luck, Philip A.Elifson, Kirk W.Sterk, Claire E. "Female Drug Users And The Welfare System: A Qualitative Exploration." Drugs: Education, Prevention & Policy 11.2 (2004): 113-128. Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection. Web. 19 Sept. 2012.

Morgen, Sandra, and Jeff Maskovsky. "THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF WELFARE "REFORM": New Perspectives On U.S. Urban Poverty In The Post-Welfare Era." Annual Review Of Anthropology 32.1 (2003): 315-338. Academic Search Premier. Web. 20 Sept. 2012.

Office Of The Assistant Secretary For Planning And Evaluation Office Of Human Services Policy. "Table 1: Number of Children Potentially Eligible and Percent of Eligible Children Receiving Child Care Subsidies, Average Monthly, 2006." ASPE Issue Brief: U.S. Department of Health And Human Services, 2010. Web. 30 Sept 2012. http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/10/cc-eligibility/ib.pdf.

Seccombe, Karen. Welfare. Ed. Katherine Swarts. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2008. Print.

Sulzberger, A. G. "States Adding Drug Test as Hurdle for Welfare." The New York Times, 11 Oct. 2011. Web. 19 Sept. 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/us/states-adding-drug-test-as-hurdle-for-welfare.html?pagewanted=all>.

Trisi, Danilo, and LaDonna Pavetti. "TANF WEAKENING AS A SAFETY NET FOR POOR FAMILIES." Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. N.p., 13 Mar. 2012. Web. 19 Sept. 2012. <http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view>.

Annotated Bibliography

Albelda, Randy. "Welfare-To-Work, Farewell To Families? US Welfare Reform And Work/Family Debates." Feminist Economics 7.1 (2001): 119-135. Academic Search Premier. Web. 19 Sept. 2012.

This source discusses how welfare reform is hurting poor people who require assistance by requiring that they have jobs and leave the welfare program after five years. It continues to cover how after recipients are “kicked” off welfare they will not make enough to cover their day to day living expenses. “Both state and federal welfare laws now require the group of women who traditionally made the least in the labor market, and do not have reliable family income sources to raise their children, to find alternatives to cash assistance. Most often this means getting a job, usually in the low-wage labor market. In the US, jobs in this sector typically have minimal flexibility (for workers) and few “family-friendly” benefits” (Albelda 2001 PG 121). This quote will help me address some of the issues with the welfare reform. In general many families are worse off after they leave the welfare system.

This article compares children whose families are receiving welfare benefits and children whose families are not receiving welfare benefits smoking habits between the ages 12-14. “The prevalences of lifetime and current smoking are signiﬁcantly higher among CW [Child Welfare] involved youths than among community population youths. Youth smoking has a strong inﬂuence on adolescent and adult physical and emotional health, so the higher rates of smoking among CW-involved youths are particularly distressing. The relative lack of evidence regarding the causes of those higher rates highlights the need for further research to improve the long-term health of youths and to reduce the tobacco-related burden on the health care system (Fettes and Aarons 2012). This excerpt from the article helps support my claim that the current welfare system is setting up families for failure. Not providing them structural support when families need it. Not providing them with this structural support causes many of them to find the support themselves, via smoking or robbery or theft. The living conditions for children located in homes of welfare recipients is too commonly a negative environment, with the intervention of the welfare system, providing counseling to show the parents of these children ways to deal with being laid off from work and not taking these hardships out on their children.

This article discusses the common misconception that an overwhelming majority of people on welfare are abusing their financial assistance and using it to support their drug habits. It also states that most women were on welfare longer than they were using drugs. “Additionally, the women reported negative experiences with social or caseworkers who, on occasion, treated them inappropriately and with hostility. Some mentioned that every time they met their caseworker, they were threatened with loss of their beneﬁts. The women stated that they might have been treated with disrespect by the social workers because of their drug use” (Luck, Elifson, and Sterk 2012 PG 119). This enforces the fact that people on welfare are being treated in a negative way instead of trying to help addicts overcome their drug problem. Our countries social workers need to help people in situations like this and not chastise them for having a problem. Finding addicts treatment options would be far more beneficial than simply judging and treating them with disrespect. “A number of women gave the food stamps to relatives who were caring for their children, although some women who were heavily involved in drug use admitted using food stamps to buy drugs. However, the latter are the exception, not the rule” (Luck, Elifson, and Sterk 2012). Drug users more commonly give their assistance away than use it to acquire drugs.

This article analyzes the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, indicating that the program is not reaching a great deal of families in need of assistance. The article includes statistics that show the decline in requests to enroll in the program despite an increase in poverty. Many useful statistics are present in this article. I will be using some of these statistics in my essay. “TANF caseloads declined by at least 27 percent in every state and by more than 50 percent in 36 states. Meanwhile, the number of families with children in poverty increased by 17 percent over this period, from 6.2 million to 7.3 million, and the number of poor children climbed by 12 percent, or by 1.7 million children” (Trisi and Pavetti 2012). I think this quote will aid in placing the current welfare condition into perspective for my readers. “Since TANF’s inception, states have taken advantage of the block grant’s flexibility. When TANF caseloads declined in the late 1990s as the unemployment rate fell to 4 percent, they shifted TANF funds to other purposes. However, when the economy slowed and the need for cash assistance substantially increased, states were unable to reclaim those dollars to help the growing number of families that needed it; instead, they responded by cutting TANF benefits and tightening eligibility rules, often by shortening or tightening time limits“ (Trisi and Pavetti 2012). This quote will help show how the states have been handling their power over the budget allotted for the TANF program given by the latest welfare reform policy.

This source covers the recent addition of passing a drug test to the eligibility requirements to receive welfare benefits in some states. It also contains information about states that are pushing legislation to make this a requirement and statistics about drug use and employment. “As more Americans turn to government programs for refuge from a merciless economy, a growing number are encountering a new price of admission to the social safety net: a urine sample” (Sulzberger 2011). This is one example of how the government has generalized welfare recipients as “drug users”. This negative perception implies that everyone is a drug user, now requiring normal people who have been laid off from their job due to rough economic times to take a drug test if they wish to move forward with the process of receiving benefits. I know that someone laid off from a corporate job would not be too keen on taking a drug test, and why should he? He is a hardworking citizen that shouldn’t be forced to take a drug test because he or she lost their job due to the state of the economy.

This article has an abundance of information on welfare reform, including the new requirements applicants must meet to receive benefits. This article discusses the government’s notion of welfare dependency, how most receiving welfare aid are not abusing it or depending on it but are “staying afloat” with it. “Welfare reform claims to empower the poor by bringing them into the mainstream of society, i.e., the workforce. But many of those affected by welfare “reform” experience quite the opposite: intensiﬁed surveillance, punishment, and ultimately the abrogation of their citizenship rights” (Morgen and Maskovsky 2003). This quote will help me explain my point of the difficulty to acquire and continue to receive benefits.

Engdahl, Sylvia, ed. Introduction. Welfare. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2011. 14-17. Print.

This book talks about some of the major court cases involving welfare. Most of these cases involve protecting the welfare recipient’s rights; others cover states action to minimize traveling welfare cases, which is when a welfare recipient moves to a state offering a higher monthly benefit than their current state (Engdahl 2011). “Conflicting opinions about the role of the government in reducing poverty are based in a deeper conflict between differing political philosophies, and can therefore never be wholly resolved. The nation’s welfare policy has changed over time and will continue to change. The aim must be to find the best possible balance between opposing views” (Engdahl, 2011 PG 17). Since welfare’s inception there has been a constant disagreement in how the welfare program should be run and therefore changes have been made in policy fairly regularly.

Haskins, Ron, and Cecilio Morales. Welfare: Opposing Viewpoints. Ed. David M. Haugen and Andrea B. DeMott. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2008. Print.

This book is a very useful resource because it discusses welfare issues like many other articles and books, but this one has opposing viewpoints. This book has the views of professionals for and against certain welfare related issues. ”Between 1994 and 2004, the caseload declined about 60 percent, a decline that is without precedent. The percentage of U.S. children on welfare is now lower than it has been since at least 1970” (Haskins 2008 PG 25). “According to a federal estimate, for example, 14.7 million children in low-income families are eligible to receive subsidies for child care, but only 1.5 million actually receive them (Morales 2008 PG 33). These opposing views on welfare reform will help me display multiple viewpoints for my readers.

Mead, Lawrence M., and Premilla Nadasen. Welfare. Ed. Cynthia A. Bily. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven, 2009. Print.

This is another source that has multiple different views on specific welfare issues. “The overall poverty rate fell from 14.5 percent in 1994 to 11.3 percent in 2000, before rising to 12.6 percent in 2005” (Mead 2009 PG 38). “[In July 2006] a full time worker at the current federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour earns $10,700 annually, $5,000 below the poverty line for a family of three” (Nadasen 2009 PG 43). These quotes will help incorporate different views on welfare topics. The latter will assist in my discussion that just because a welfare recipient leaves welfare upon obtaining a job they are still earning below the poverty line.

Seccombe, Karen. Welfare. Ed. Katherine Swarts. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2008. Print.

This source examines the issues with welfare. This book contains statements from actual welfare recipients, describing how hard it is to live and how they are treated as welfare recipients. “Women repeatedly described many problems [with the welfare system]: they complained that the system is far too impersonal, caseworkers are unhelpful; the push is on to find a job, any job, regardless of the quality of it; there should be more one-on-one help; child support payments should be more closely enforced and monitored; and the delivery of medical services through the Public Health Unit were problematic” (Swarts 2008 PG 39). The negative image portrayed about welfare recipients is clear through this quote. This quote will assist me in describing this image to my readers.

This source gives statistics of estimates for the number of children that are eligible to receive aid and the number of children that are actually receiving assistance. The numbers discussed in this article are very sobering. Such a small amount of children eligible for aid are receiving it. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that only one in six federally eligible children receive child care subsidies. Just over 14.5 million children are eligible to receive child care subsidies, but only 2.5 million children are actually receiving aid for child care costs (1). This paraphrase will assist me in showing the gap between children eligible and children receiving assistance.

Daguerre, Anne. "The Second Phase of US Welfare Reform, 2000-2006: Blaming the Poor Again?" Social Policy & Administration 42.4 (2008): 362-78. Print.

This article discusses the progression of welfare reform since it was enacted in 1996. Welfare reform has made some important changes to the welfare program. One of these changes is the replacement of AFDC with TANF. TANF brought with it some new big changes, “TANF created a five-year lifetime limit for receiving cash assistance and obliged welfare recipients, 90 percent being single mothers, to find paid employment as quickly as possible” (363). This quote will assist me in portraying some of the restrictions when receiving welfare benefits.

DeNavas-Walt, Carmen D. "Current Population Reports." Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2011. U.S. Census Bureau, Sept. 2012. Web. 27 Sept. 2012.

This report lists the poverty threshold for 2011. In reading this source one can see how little money people in poverty make and are required to survive on. U.S. Census Bureau the 2011 poverty level for a family of three is $17,595, additionally, the federal minimum wage in 2012 is $7.25 per hour. Therefore, a single mother of two could hold a full-time job at minimum wage and gross $15,080 annually, $2,515 below the poverty level before taxes (49). This paraphrase will show that individuals working full-time at a job that pays minimum wage are still earning under the set poverty line.

This source discusses the relation of substance abuse and welfare recipients. There is a common misconception that all welfare recipients are drug abusers. This article states that “psychiatric disorders, especially major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, are more prevalent than drug and alcohol dependence among welfare recipients” (Jayakody et al. 2). This quote will help validate my claim that everyone receiving welfare benefits is not addicted to drugs. These stereotypes need to be broken for the welfare program to function more smoothly.

This table is from a previously annotated source. See “Estimates of Child Care Eligibility and Receipt for Fiscal Year 2006.”

Leach, Shane. Telephone interview. 21 Sept. 2012.

Shane Leach works at the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare where he is the supervisor of the Information Management Unit. During the interview Shane said, “TAFI or Temporary Assistance for Families in Idaho has a lifetime limit of 24 months, which is cash assistance of 309 dollars per month, at the federal level this program is called the TANF and the lifetime limit is 60 months or five years”. Later in the interview he states, “The goal of our welfare program is self-reliance which is the name of our program here in Idaho, the purpose being to move people who are currently having challenges to become more self-reliant by providing a variety of forms of assistance such as SNAP (food stamps) and TAFI (Temporary Assistance for Families in Idaho).” These quotes will assist in defining some of the Idaho specific restrictions and policy attributes.

Eradicating Extreme Poverty and Hunger Worldwide

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Title Page

Preface

Local Essay

Personal Writings

Brochure

Visual Elements