This excerpt from 'The 'The Captured State: Selected Statistics Show Harms of Wealth Concentration to American Life' discusses a new approach to social welfare spending and offers some hope for better outcomes.
'The question arises: can we spend our way out of our current political hatred and violence by making a more costly safety net for disadvantaged Americans?
We may find other countries with
better safety nets and less political violence than the United States. We might
learn from them. A corollary assumption is that countries with better safety
nets spend more money on them than we do. However, the facts show that more
spending, by itself, does not make things better.
We already spend as much per
capita as most countries with better social welfare results. We spend enough
money, we just don't spend it right. Chapter Z. Alternate Solutions to Social Welfare Problems on page 28 discusses
different spending methods to improve our performance
Expectations help determine the outcomes of social
welfare programs as they do in educational institutions. The United States uses
one set of expectations and shows poor social policy results. Some Nordic
countries use a very different set of expectations and show better social
policy results. [Page 14]
1. High Expectations
in Social Welfare Programs [i]
Educational experiments show that students perform
better when teachers have high expectations of them. Conversely, students do
poorly when teachers have low expectations for them.
'The students of high expectation teachers show larger
achievement gains, while the students of low expectation teachers make smaller
or negative gains. The positive attitudes and equitable teaching practices of
high expectation teachers also lead to higher levels of engagement, motivation
and self-efficacy in students.'
United States social welfare programs appear to
demonstrate low expectations of the recipients. Some programs may be modeled on
the Southern Strategy to delay racial integration. ‘The Southern strategy [to
integration] was one of holding out, of being so difficult, so painful to deal
with that, hoping that the North would then do what it had done during
Reconstruction, get disheartened and then leave.’ [ii]
Contrarily, welfare programs in other countries take
the opposite approach of assuming that welfare recipients are family members
who have fallen on hard times. The welfare program supports people as they move
toward better circumstances.
2. United States’
Expectations
In our effort to reduce the inequality gap by
transferring income and assets to the less fortunate among us, we make it hard
to qualify for the programs and then we make it hard to prove your
qualification.
Some people who need the assistance do not receive the
aid available to them; and, in many cases, they fail to apply or complete the application.
Most ‘means tested’ welfare programs in the USA fail
to deliver because many qualified recipients of the aid do not apply.
‘…avoidable
and unavoidable costs, states' distorted incentives, and social norms are the
major sources of impediments to benefits and that most of these impediments are
embedded in or result from certain legal mechanisms of the welfare system. Law
and Inequality: A Journal’[iii]
Many highly disadvantaged people do not apply for
substantial benefits for which they are eligible by their circumstances.
‘An
estimated 46 million Americans live below the poverty line. But millions aren’t
covered by any of the welfare programs. Records show that 72% of people living
in poverty received help from at least one welfare program. Among those living
in deep poverty - an income that falls 50% below the poverty threshold - 70%
received assistance, while the remaining 5.5 million people did not. At least
13 million people live in poverty and don’t receive any benefits from welfare
programs.’ Urban Institute [iv]
‘Complaints of mistreatment in navigating the welfare
state are commonplace, with most unpleasant encounters arising from
interactions between welfare recipients and social workers. The dominant
approach to social work was casework which emphasized the personal
characteristics or moral deficiencies of the recipient rather than social
reform. In some cases the said deficiency was grounds for denying assistance.
Casework fostered a paternalistic and demeaning relationship between social
workers and clients. Caseworkers are the persons who have the most opportunity
for showing respect or described not as
much in terms of what they receive in their checks but rather in terms of the
relationship that they have with their caseworker; a study found that the way in
which a client was shown respect was often more important to the client than
what the provider in the situation did to solve the client’s problems.’ Nadasen, Premilla (June 17, 2014). Welfare
Warriors:’[v]
Most ‘means tested’ welfare programs in the USA fail
to deliver because many qualified recipients of the aid do not apply.
‘…avoidable and unavoidable costs, states' distorted incentives, and social
norms are the major sources of impediments to benefits and that most of these
impediments are embedded in or result from certain legal mechanisms of the
welfare system.’[vi]
Many highly disadvantaged people do not apply for substantial benefits for
which they are eligible by their circumstances.
1. High
Expectations in Social Welfare Programs
[i] Effect of high expectations, Libretexts Social Sciences:
[https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Education_and_Professional_Development/Foundations_of_Education_and_Instructional_Assessment_(Kidd_et_al.)/10%3A_Effective_Teaching/10.06%3A_What_is_the_effect_of_having_high_expectations_for_students#:~:text=Pygmalion%20Effect%20and%20Self%2DFulfilling%20Prophecy&text=If%20the%20student%20feels%20that,5).]
[iii] Source: Unwelcome Benefits: Why Welfare Beneficiaries Reject Government
Aid?
Law and Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice,
Vol. 24, No. 107, 2006
[iv] Five
Things You May Not Know about the US Social Safety Net, Sarah Minton and Linda
Giannarelli February 2019, [https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/99674/five_things_you_may_not_know_about_the_us_social_safety_net_1.pdf]
[v] WIKIPEDIA, Nadasen, Premilla (June 17, 2014). Welfare
Warriors: The Welfare Rights Movement in the United States. Routledge. ISBN
9781136743696.
[vi] Source: Unwelcome
Benefits: Why Welfare Beneficiaries Reject Government Aid?
Law and Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice,
Vol. 24, No. 107, 2006
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