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ORIGINAL RESEARCHPhil Wilayto Don't look to Wisconsin as model for welfare reformMILWAUKEE -- In the Feb. 6, 2000, Minneapolis Star Tribune, authors John H. Hinderaker and Scott W. Johnson of the Minneapolis-based Center of the American Experiment presented an argument for why Minnesota should adopt the Wisconsin model for welfare reform. If nothing else, their article is a good example of how conservative propagandists falsely define a problem, conjure up racially charged stereotypes, and then offer "solutions" that just happen to benefit private, for-profit corporations. The Wisconsin program, called Wisconsin Works (W2), has been held up as a national model primarily because the state's welfare rolls have dropped 92 percent since 1986, the sharpest reduction in the country. Last December, the Hudson Institute of Indianapolis released a study conducted to determine what had happened to former AFDC recipients in Milwaukee County. Hudson is the think-tank that played a leading role in the development of W2, an effort underwritten by Milwaukee's ultraconservative Bradley Foundation. Amazingly, the "study" was conducted through a telephone survey, guaranteeing that those who had suffered the most from W2 couldn't be contacted. Even so, the results were a clear indictment of the new program. Of the former AFDC recipients responding to the survey, Hudson reported that 22 percent did not "convert" to W-2 and didn't sign up for any other government program. According to Hudson, those who didn't convert were people most likely to have serious obstacles to working, such as a disability or health problem, people with disabled children and people with no high school education or GED. What happened to those thousands of single mothers with small children? Some of them became homeless. According to the Apartment Association of Southeastern Wisconsin, a landlord organization, the number of forcible evictions in Milwaukee County increased from 700 a year before W2 to well over 2,000 today. All the homeless shelters in the county are full to overflowing, with the increase primarily among women. In addition, the numbers of children taken into the foster-care program has skyrocketed. Remember that this all took place during a time of economic expansion and low unemployment, and the only major socio-economic factor that had changed was the introduction of W2. What about those who did find jobs? Wisconsin's Department of Workforce Development, which oversees W2, did its own study of women who had left either AFDC or W2 in the first quarter of 1998. This study found that 38 percent of the women surveyed were not working six months after leaving the welfare system. Of those with jobs, 42 percent worked fewer than 40 hours per week and 19 percent worked fewer than 30 hours. The average hourly wage was $7.42, and the median was only $7. Sixty-eight percent reported they were "just barely making it from day to day," and many of the new jobs are through temporary employment agencies. Advocates for W2 point to a wide range of services available to W2 participants. What they don't explain is that the private agencies contracted to administer W2 are allowed to keep whatever service funds aren't used. As a result, these agencies have adopted what is called the 'light touch' approach -- not volunteering information that isn't expressly requested. The human costs of this policy have been devastating. In the first year of W2, the infant mortality rate in Milwaukee rose a stunning 17.6 percent, according to a report just released by Start Smart Milwaukee, a child advocacy group. In the same period, according to Dr. Patricia McManus, who serves on the state African-American Infant Mortality Task Force, the black infant mortality rate in the city shot up an incredible 37 percent. "Milwaukee took a major hit with the implementation of W2," McManus said. Unfortunately, there's more. Between January 1996 and July 1999, enrollment in the federal food-stamp program fell by 32 percent in Milwaukee and 40 percent statewide, the largest declines in the country. A 1998 investigation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture concluded Wisconsin was failing to meet federal regulations requiring benefit agencies to inform clients of assistance programs available to them under the law. On the other hand, the W2 agencies are very good about telling people about local food pantries, which are now overwhelmed and unable to meet the growing need. The same "light touch" approach has been applied to other programs, such as child care, transportation and job-related loans. On the other hand, some people have done quite well under W2. For example, there are the five agencies contracted to administer the program in Milwaukee County. For the years 1997 to 1999, these agencies were able to pocket $23 million in unrestricted profits, plus $28 million in "unspent" money, some of which they are supposed to reinvest in the community. Two of these agencies are private, for-profit operations, so the money went directly into private hands. The three nonprofit agencies were able to afford handsome executive salaries with generous fringe benefits. Then there are the private companies that receive virtually free labor from W2 participants working under the "community service" job category. Hinderaker and Johnson described these jobs as "clerical or janitorial work for nonprofit organizations." In fact, many are women engaged in light manufacturing and industrial work for private businesses. The women are receiving their regular welfare check, while the employer pays no wages. The conservative philosophy behind W2 holds that the old system of AFDC essentially trapped poor women into an intergenerational cycle of poverty, robbing them of self-esteem and the incentive to work, while "rewarding" them for having babies out of wedlock. Hinderaker and Johnson build on this false stereotype, then raise the specter of a mass migration to Minnesota of poor, pregnant teenagers from Chicago, a city whose name is taken by many as a code word for the black community. In fact, the average welfare recipient -- whether in the hills of eastern Kentucky or the inner city of Milwaukee -- had two children and spent less than two years on welfare. Were there cases of families receiving benefits for longer periods? Yes, there were -- in the neighborhoods devastated by the factory shutdowns of the '70s and '80s. The resulting rise in unemployment among unskilled workers was further exacerbated by the massive introduction of hard drugs into low-income communities, the skyrocketing numbers of young men being sent to prison and the continuing social costs of the Vietnam War, including veterans suffering homelessness, mental illness and family breakdowns. But don't expect conservatives to mention those issues as factors in the emergence of "intergenerational poverty." W2 is based on a philosophy that blames the poor for being poor, one that completely ignores economic and social factors beyond the control of any individual or single community. It devises a system that forces people to work, regardless of their personal situation, while denying them both a living wage and a realistic support system. But it does create a low-wage, captive work force that can bring super-profits to businesses. It does open the door to the massive privatization of government services. And it does obliterate the concept that the government has any inherent obligation to promote the general welfare. And those achievements -- not the elimination of poverty -- were the real goals of the forces behind W2. sign in, or register to email stories or comment on them.
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MORE ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs'Right Wing foundation-funded anti-environmental think tank grabbing a wider audience for 'free market environmentalism' On the 15th anniversary of Terry Anderson and Donald Leal's book "Free Market Environmentalism" -- the seminal book on the subject -- Anderson, the Executive Director of the Bozeman, Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC - formerly known as the Political Economy Research Center) spoke in late-January at an event sponsored by Squaw Valley Institute at the Resort at Squaw Creek in California. While it may have been just another opportunity to speak on "free market environmentalism" and not the kickoff of a "victory tour," nevertheless it comes at a time when PERC's ideas are taking root.
Bill Berkowitz Neil Bush of Saudi ArabiaDuring recent visit, President’s brother describes the country as a 'kind of tribal democracy' In late February, only a few days after Saudi Arabia beheaded four Sri Lankan robbers and then left their headless bodies on public display in the capital of Riyadh, Neil Bush, for the fourth time in the past six years, showed up for the country's Jeddah Economic Forum. The Guardian reported that Human Rights Watch "said the four men had no lawyers during their trial and sentencing, and were denied other basic legal rights." In an interview with Arab News, the Saudi English language paper, Bush described the country as "a kind of tribal democracy."
Bill Berkowitz Newt Gingrich's back door to the White HouseAmerican Enterprise Institute "Scholar" and former House Speaker blames media for poll showing 64 percent of the American people wouldn't vote for him under any circumstances Whatever it is that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has come to represent in American politics, the guy is nothing less than fascinating. One day he's espousing populist rhetoric about the need to cut the costs of college tuition and the next day he's talking World War III. One day he's claiming that the "war on terror" may force the abridgement of fundamental first amendment rights and the next he's advancing a twenty-first century version of his Contract with America. At the same time he's publicly proclaiming how "stupid" it is that the race for the presidency has already started you know that he's trying to figure out how to out finesse Rudy, McCain and Romney for the nomination. And last week, when Fox News' Chris Wallace cited a poll showing that 64 percent of the public would never vote for him, he was quick to blame those results on how unfairly he was treated by the mainstream media back in the day.
Bill Berkowitz American Enterprise Institute takes lead in agitating against IranDespite wrongheaded predictions about the war on Iraq, neocons are on the frontlines advocating military conflict with Iran After doing such a bang up job with their advice and predictions about the outcome of the war on Iraq, would it surprise you to learn that America's neoconservatives are still in business? While at this time we are not yet seeing the same intense neocon invasion of our living rooms -- via cable television's news networks -- that we saw during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, nevertheless, a host of policy analysts at conservative think tanks -- most notably the American Enterprise Institute -- are being heeded on Iran by those who count - folks inside the Bush Administration.
Bill Berkowitz After six years, opposition gaining on George W. Bush's Faith Based InitiativeUnmentioned in the president's State of the Union speech, the program nevertheless continues to recruit religious participants and hand out taxpayer money to religious groups With several domestic policy proposals unceremoniously folded into President Bush's recent State of the Union address, two pretty significant items failed to make the cut. Despite the president's egregiously tardy response to the event itself, it was nevertheless surprising that he didn't even mention Hurricane Katrina: He didn't offer up a progress report, words of hope to the victims, or come up with a proposal for moving the sluggish rebuilding effort forward. There were no "armies of compassion" ready to be unleashed, although it should be said that many in the religious community responded to the disaster much quicker than the Bush Administration. In the State of the Union address, however, there was no "compassionate conservatism" for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Bill Berkowitz Frank Luntz calls Republican leadership in Washington 'One giant whining windbag'On the outs with the GOP, legendary degrader of discourse is moving to California He doesn't make great art; nothing he does elevates the human spirit; he doesn't illuminate, he bamboozles. He has become expert in subterfuge, hidden meanings, word play and manipulation. Frank Luntz has been so good at what he does that those paying close attention gave it its own name: "Luntzspeak."
Bill Berkowitz Spooked by MoveOn.org, conservative movement seeks to emulate liberal powerhouseFueled with Silicon Valley money, TheVanguard.org will have Richard Poe, former editor of David Horowitz's FrontPage magazine as its editorial and creative director As Paul Weyrich, a founding father of the modern conservative movement and still a prominent actor in it, likes to say, he learned a great deal about movement building by closely observing what liberals were up to in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Bill Berkowitz Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action jihadFounder and Chair of the American Civil Rights Institute scouting five to nine states for new anti-affirmative action initiatives Fresh from his most recent victory -- in Michigan this past November -- Ward Connerly, the Black California-based maven of anti-affirmative action initiatives, appears to be preparing to take his jihad on the road. According to a mid-December report in the San Francisco Chronicle, Connerly said that he was "exploring moves into nine other states."
Bill Berkowitz Tom Tancredo's missionThe Republican congressman from Colorado will try to woo GOP voters with anti-immigration rhetoric and a boatload of Christian right politics These days, probably the most recognizable name in anti-immigration politics is Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo. Over the past year, Tancredo has gone from a little known congressman to a highly visible anti-immigration spokesperson. "Tancredo has thoroughly enmeshed himself in the anti-immigration movement and with the help of CNN talk show host Lou Dobbs, he has been given a national megaphone," Devin Burghart, the program director of the Building Democracy Initiative at the Center for New Community, a Chicago-based civil rights group, told Media Transparency.
Bill Berkowitz Institute on Religion and Democracy slams 'Leftist' National Council of ChurchesNew report from conservative foundation-funded IRD charges the NCC with being a political surrogate for MoveOn.org, People for the American Way and other liberal organizations If you prefer your religious battles sprinkled with demagoguery, sanctimoniousness, and simplistic attacks, the Institute on Religion and Democracy's (IRD) latest broadside against the National Council of Churches (NCC) certainly fits the bill.
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The Feeding Trough
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