welfare restructuring, work & poverty€¦ · policy makers admit. during the past five years,...

Policy Matters #2

Welfare Restructuring,Work & Poverty

Policy Implications from Oregon

Authors: Joan Acker, Sandra Morgen, and Lisa Gonzales

with Jill Weigt, Kate Barry and Terri Heath

Center for the Study of Women in Society

University of Oregon

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About the Series: Policy MattersThis series considers issues of public policy affecting women andtheir families and communities. While our emphasis is on Oregonand the Pacific Northwest, the issues we address often affect womenacross regions, national borders, and racial, ethnic, and class lines.The goal of the series is to gather, analyze, and interpret informationthat will be valuable to the pubic, researchers, and those involved inthe development of policies designed to create a brighter future forour communities.

This report was published by the Center for the Study of Women inSociety, University of Oregon. Copyright 2002.

Writer: Debra GwartneyCopy Editor: Cheri BrooksDesigner and Graphic Artist: Christine BenedaPrice: $10.00

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About the Center for the Study of Women in SocietyThe Center for the Study of Women in Society (CSWS) is a multi-disciplinary research center founded at the University of Oregon in1973. CSWS generates, supports, and disseminates research on gen-der and all aspects of women’s lives. Currently, CSWS supports threemajor research initiatives: Women in the Northwest; the FeministHumanities Project; and the Research Program on Women’s Health.In addition, CSWS provides highly competitive research grants toUO faculty members and graduate students and supports tenresearch interest groups.

Center for the Study of Women in Society1201 University of OregonEugene, Oregon 97403-1201(541) [email protected]://csws.uoregon.edu/

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Welfare Restructuring,Work & Poverty

Policy Implications from Oregon

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Policy Matters Paper #2

Joan Acker, Sandra Morgen, and Lisa Gonzales

with Jill Weigt, Kate Barry, and Terri Heath

Welfare Research Team

Center for the Study of Women in Society

University of Oregon

May 2002

Series: Policy MattersA Publication of the Center for the Study of Women in SocietyUniversity of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon

Policy Matters Paper #2Welfare Restructuring, Work & Poverty: Policy Implications from Oregon

By Joan Acker, Sandra Morgen, and Lisa Gonzales

© Copyright 2002 by the University of Oregon. Eugene, Oregon.

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States.

Center for the Study of Women in Society1201 University of OregonEugene, Oregon 97403-1201(541) [email protected]://csws.uoregon.edu/

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Contents

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Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IX

List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X

Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Introduction: Are the New Welfare Policies Working? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Section I — A Study of Former Welfare Recipients in Oregon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

What did we study?Whom did we study?Who are the TANF-diverted?TANF Leavers vs. Food Stamp Leavers

Section II — The Struggle for Self-sufficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Are former welfare recipients working?What kind of wages are former recipients earning?How do wage levels fit into the bigger picture?Can families make it on low wages alone? Is “welfare reform” helping families climb out of poverty?Who is making it? Who isn’t making it?

Section III — The Low-wage Labor Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Is welfare-to-work working?What is a good job?Will job prospects for former recipients improve?What makes a good job for single parents?

Section IV — The Work of Raising Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Who has problems with childcare?How important is childcare assistance?Is daycare the only solution?Why can’t poor mothers care for their own children?

Section V — Non-employment and Unemployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Do employers care about the lives of low-wage workers?What happens when people who are poor get sick?

Section VI — The Demographics of Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Who’s poor in Oregon?Does the low-wage sector discriminate?Does labor have a gender divide?

Section VII — Education, Training and Job Advancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Does “welfare reform” provide a route out of poverty?Why can’t people who are poor access education?What makes educational attainment possible?

Conclusion — Setting and Meeting the Goal of Poverty Reduction . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Is “welfare reform” reducing poverty in Oregon?RecommendationsAn end to poverty?

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

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AcknowledgementsA project of this magnitude and length involves the assistance ofmany people to make it successful. Our deepest thanks go to theunnamed women and men who generously shared their time by participating in our telephone and in-depth interviews.

Faculty, staff, and students associated with the Center for the Studyof Women in Society at the University of Oregon contributed theirmany talents to the production of this report. Cheri Brooks, ShirleyMarc, Diana Taylor, Judith Musick, Beth Piatote, Dan Gilfillan, LinReilly, and Holly Langan provided invaluable assistance, each in heror his own way.

Other colleagues at the University of Oregon lent expert assistance tohelp ensure the quality of this report, including Patricia Gwartneyand her staff at the Oregon Survey Research Laboratory, MargaretHallock, Leslie Harris, Ken Hudson, Anne Johnstone, and statisticalconsultant Robin High.

This report owes a great deal to the support and assistance wereceived from the Oregon Department of Human Resources, Adultand Family Services Division, especially Jim Neely, deputy adminis-trator, and Sue Smit, Ron Taylor, and Donald Main. Former and current AFS staff members Elizabeth Lopez and Ellen Pimental alsowere instrumental in assisting us at critical moments.

There are many tireless advocates for poor people in this state whovoiced criticisms and gave suggestions on this project over the lastseveral years. We thank them for their concern and assistance.Among those are: Cassandra Garrison and Kim Thomas of theOregon Food Bank; Lorey Freeman of the Oregon Law Center; andCharles Sheketoff of the Oregon Center for Public Policy. We alsowould like to thank other researchers associated with the WelfareResearchers Roundtable.

Joan Acker, Sandra Morgen, and Lisa Gonzales

May 2002

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List of FiguresDemographics of Those Surveyed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Reasons Respondents Tried To Get Back on Cash Assistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Hours of Work per Week for Employed Respondents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Percent With Family Incomes Above and Below the Poverty Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

1999 Federal Poverty Guidelines for the 48 Contiguous States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16and the District of Columbia

Average Income of Employed Respondents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Strategies Used to Stretch Limited Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

“Do you have sufficient resources to meet your basic household . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23and family needs?” What Study Participants Said

Use of Safety Net or Transitional Programs by Former TANF Leavers, . . . . . . . . . . . . 24TANF Diverted, and Food Stamp Leavers

Fastest Growing Employment Fields in Oregon, 2000–2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Occupations of Respondents at First Phone Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Percent of Employed Respondents without Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Employed Respondents with “Good Jobs” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Childcare Problems for Working Parents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Work Status and Reasons for Not Working (12–15 months after leaving assistance) . . 39

Top 15 Barriers to Getting and/or Keeping a Job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Work Status in Relation to Poverty Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Types of Health Insurance Coverage Among Respondents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Race and Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Mean Monthly Earnings: Men and Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Education and Employment Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Educational Attainment and Poverty Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

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Executive SummaryWelfare Restructuring,

Work & PovertyPolicy Implications from Oregon

E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y : W E L F A R E R E S T R U C T U R I N G , W O R K & P O V E R T Y 1

By Joan Acker, Sandra Morgen, and Lisa Gonzales

The state of Oregon is nationally recognized formaking strides in instituting new welfare poli-cies, engaging in restructuring experiments wellbefore the passage of the federal PersonalResponsibility and Work Opportunity ReconciliationAct (PRWORA) in 1996. Oregon began experi-menting with welfare-to-work policies in theearly 1990s, although features of its JOBS pro-gram changed during the course of the decade.Mirroring the national pattern, Oregon saw dra-matic declines in the number of families receiv-ing cash assistance, with caseloads dropping 45percent between 1996 and 1999.

This report presents results from a two-yearstudy of the experiences of families who left orwere diverted from cash assistance (TANF) orFood Stamps in the first quarter of 1998. Ourresearch questions examine the economic statusand family well-being of those who left or werediverted from public assistance, focusing onwhether poverty and economic hardship werediminished. Our findings and recommendationsare based on three sources of data: administra-tive records; telephone interviews at two pointsin time over two years with a state-wide ran-dom sample of families; and in-depth, in-personinterviews with a sub-sample of seventy-eightfamilies at two additional points in time.

Our data show that the effects of PRWORAand state welfare restructuring policies areboth more complex and less rosy than manypolicy makers admit. During the past five

years, the combination of a strong economyand intensive welfare-to-work policies havereduced caseloads. However, these policieshave been far less effective in helping familiesmove out of poverty. The conditions of low-wage work, the scarcity of living-wage jobs,the accumulation of debt, and pervasive prob-lems securing and paying for childcare, hous-ing and health care all profoundly shape thecircumstances of poor families’ lives. These are issues that should be addressed in the up-coming debates on reauthorization of TANF.

Moreover, both the nation and many states,including Oregon, currently face a muchbleaker economic picture than in 1996 whenCongress initially passed PRWORA. At thiswriting, Oregon has the highest unemploy-ment rate in the country, at 8 percent. This isOregon’s highest unemployment rate sinceJanuary 1993. Not surprisingly, betweenJanuary 2001 and January 2002, welfare case-loads in the statehave been slowly onthe rise, showing a15.8 percent increase.*

The findings we present in this report are con-sistent with research gathered from manyother states. Congress now has the opportuni-ty to reconsider policies in light of the exten-sive documentation of the impact of PRWORAacross the country. There is much work to bedone if welfare restructuring is to be part of aconcerted social policy focus to reduce pover-ty and to protect the economic security of ournation’s families.

*Oregon TANF caseload statisticsare available online at

www.afs.hr.state.or.us/papage.html

Major Findings of the Oregon Study

1. While welfare-to-work policies appear topromote employment (at least when theeconomy is strong), a significant numberof employed respondents reported inade-quate wages, limited employment bene-fits, and little to no job mobility.

• Eighty percent of respondents were work-ing at some point during the two years ofour study.

➢ 58 percent were employed at both sur-vey times

➢ 61 percent of those not employed at thefirst survey had worked during the pre-vious year

• However, a significant number of respon-dents were not employed.

➢ 34 percent were not employed at ourfirst contact

➢ 28 percent were not employed at oursecond contact

• Despite working long hours, few respon-dents earned wages that met the basicneeds of their families.

➢ 18–21 months after exiting programs, 48 percent of respondents had familyincomes below the poverty line

➢ during the same period, the averagemonthly take-home pay for respondentswas $1,016

➢ women were earning 72 percent of whatmen were earning

• Data from the Oregon EmploymentDepartment (third quarter 1999) show thatformer recipients saw scant increases in pay.

➢ 49 percent experienced a modest earn-ings increase over a twenty-one-monthtracking period

➢ 24 percent saw their earnings decline➢ 27 percent had too little employment to

calculate earnings trajectories

• Most employed respondents worked in thelow-wage sector.

➢ less than 14 percent held jobs thatallowed them access to more than apoverty-level wage, health insurance,and other benefits

2. After having left (or being diverted from)TANF or Food Stamp programs, manyrespondents lived with economic hard-ships and reported an ongoing need forsome form of public assistance.

• Respondents defined three major barriersto getting and keeping a job:

➢ problems with job availability and jobquality

➢ problems with childcare quality andcosts

➢ health problems

• Data from the Oregon Department of Adultand Family Services (AFS) show that manyformer welfare clients have continued toneed public assistance.

➢ at some point during the two years ofour survey, 90 percent of those who leftor were diverted from TANF used FoodStamps

➢ 85 percent of those who left the FoodStamp program returned to it

➢ 87 percent of those who left or werediverted from TANF relied on theOregon Health Plan

➢ 42 percent of those who left or werediverted from TANF used the employ-ment-related daycare program

➢ 35 percent of those who left or werediverted from TANF had to go back onTANF

E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y : W E L F A R E R E S T R U C T U R I N G , W O R K & P O V E R T Y2

• Many suffered significant economic hard-ship, including:

➢ an inability to afford the cost of adequate housing

➢ an inability to afford quality childcareand healthcare

➢ ongoing food insecurity

➢ increased vulnerability to debt

• Childcare problems were significant forthese families.

➢ more than one-third of respondentsreported problems with childcare atboth surveys, most commonly problemswith cost, accessibility and quality

➢ at our second survey, half the respon-dents with children under the age of sixreported problems with childcare

➢ even those who said they were satisfiedhad to rely on cumbersome and oftenprecarious childcare arrangements

• Many families had limited access to healthinsurance or related benefits.

➢ nearly 30 percent reported they had nohealth insurance coverage

➢ 41 percent of respondents employed atboth survey times lacked employer-provided health insurance benefits

➢ 50 percent had no paid sick leave

3. Increased economic security for low-income families requires an investmentin education, training, and the mainte-nance of safety-net programs to meet both short- and long-term needs.

• Poverty rates fall as education levels rise;but very few respondents were able toobtain education or participate in special-ized job training programs during the study.

• More than 80 percent of respondents withless than a high school degree had

incomes below the poverty line comparedto 72 percent of those with a high schooldegree and 47 percent of those with anassociate’s degree.

• Those who report they are “doing better”at meeting basic needs tended to haveaccess to critical resources, including:

➢ regular help from extended family members

➢ access to a second income

➢ support through low-income housingsubsidies

• Respondents voiced the need for a systemwith more flexibility to address the short-and long-term needs of low-income fami-lies. Common problems included:

➢ an abrupt decrease or loss of neededFood Stamps, health benefits, or child-care subsidies when incomes began torise, even modestly

➢ serious hardship when diversion strate-gies blocked access to TANF and otherforms of public assistance

4. One size does not fit all. States need adegree of flexibility to respond to the dif-ferent structural reasons for poverty thataffect different groups, including women,families of color, people with disabilities,and people in communities without anadequate supply of jobs.

• In Oregon, Hispanic respondents are morelikely to have family incomes below thepoverty line, compared to white respon-dents and other respondents of color.

• As long as the wages of women, especiallywomen of color, continue to be lower thanthose of men, and women bear dispropor-tionate responsibility for caring for children,


economic supports for families headed bywomen will be necessary to foster familyand child well-being.

• Families in some rural areas have neitherthe job opportunities nor many of thehuman and educational services availableto those who live in many urban areas.

Policy RecommendationsThe primary goals of welfare policy should bethe reduction of poverty and the enhance-ment of economic security of this nation’smost vulnerable families. Based on ourresearch we advocate these policies:

1. Provide living-wage jobs.

• Develop the workforce and implement taxpolicies that foster the creation of living-wage jobs and meaningful job ladders.

• Raise the minimum wage so that fulltimeemployment brings a family’s incomeabove the poverty line.

2. Make childcare resources more widelyavailable to low-income families.

• Increase federal funds for childcare sothat families who need childcare assis-tance get it.

• Expand eligibility for subsidized childcare.

• Enforce quality standards for state-subsidized childcare.

• Encourage more childcare options outsidethe eight-to-five work week.

• Make childcare tax credits refundable atboth the federal and state levels.

3. Expand eligibility for safety-net programs,such as the Earned Income Tax Credit,Food Stamps, the Oregon Health Plan, and childcare and housing subsidies.

• Change program eligibility so that crucialsupports (food, health care, childcare andhousing subsides) decrease more graduallywhen people are working and theirincomes rise modestly.

• Increase outreach to ensure that low-income families with and without anemployed breadwinner understand eligibility criteria and can access publicassistance.

4. Broaden health care availability for low-income families to alleviate financialhardship and the accumulation of exten-sive medical debt.

• Expand income eligibility levels for subsi-dized health care (e.g., the Oregon HealthPlan, Medicaid).

• Develop tax credits and other strategies to encourage employers to provide affordable, decent health insurance toemployees and their families.

5. Increase federal and state funds foraffordable housing and make housingsubsidies available to a larger proportionof those who are income-eligible.

• Address the dire shortage of housing sub-sidies and public housing to reducehomelessness and waiting periods forsubsidized housing.

E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y : W E L F A R E R E S T R U C T U R I N G , W O R K & P O V E R T Y4

6. Welfare policies should not discouragethe education (including higher educa-tion) and hard-skills job training. Givestates more flexibility and adequateresources to provide high-quality educa-tion and training opportunities.

• Lengthen the federal twelve-month timelimit for vocational education and training,and change state policies that disalloweducation and training as work activities.

• Define “training” more broadly to includethe attainment of hard skills and post-secondary education.

• Increase funding for training and educationthrough the Workforce Investment Act.

7. Expand eligibility for legal immigrantsfor TANF and other public assistance.

• Allow states to use federal TANF funds toprovide support to legal immigrants whohave lived in the U.S. for less than fiveyears.

• Ensure that state welfare programs offerservices in the languages of immigrantgroups in their communities and offerand count English-language training aspart of job-readiness training.

8. Address the high rate of poverty of singlemothers through employment servicesand supports, public assistance, andopportunities for education and training.

• In the absence of paid maternity leave,TANF should remain a viable option forlow-income women who need economicsupport in order to care for infants andyoung children.

• Congressionally mandated participationin employment activities should considerthe value and demands posed by unpaidcaregiving work in the home.

9. Improve welfare case management.

• Mandate reasonable caseloads to enablecaseworkers to address client needs.

• Support the development of workers’knowledge and skills.

• Foster a supportive and respectful atmos-phere for welfare clients.

ConclusionReal national security depends on enhancingthe economic security of all our nation’s fami-lies, especially those who are most disadvan-taged. We need social welfare and other poli-cies that

• ensure that those who work for a living cansupport their families on the wages they earn

• value the socially necessary work of caringfor and sustaining families

• provide necessary resources for those whowant to pursue advanced education andhard-skills training

• maintain a decent safety net to protect fam-ilies during a recession, when local/region-al labor markets do not provide sufficientjobs for all workers, or when health orother problems make employment difficultor unwise for family well-being.


The state of Oregon is nationally recognizedfor making strides in instituting new welfarepolicies, engaging in restructuring experi-ments well before the passage of the federalPersonal Responsibility and Work OpportunityReconciliation Act (PRWORA) in 1996. Oregonbegan experimenting with welfare-to-workpolicies in the early 1990s, although features ofits JOBS program changed markedly duringthe course of the decade. Mirroring the nation-al pattern, Oregon saw dramatic declines inthe number of families receiving cash assis-tance, with caseloads dropping 45 percentbetween 1996 and 1999.

However, even a dramatic caseload declinedoes not in and of itself fully answer thequestion: Are the new welfare policiesworking?

To more accurately answer that question, it isnecessary to examine how the familiesimpacted by these polices are faring.

• Are respondents employed, and if so in jobs thatallow them to earn enough to meet the basicneeds of their families?

• Do the new policies help families climb out ofpoverty?

• Are families falling through the cracks in thenew policies and, if so, what can be done toassist them?

• Should efforts to remove individual “barriers” toemployment (transportation, childcare, promot-

ing “job readiness”) be matched by intensiveefforts to address structural realities of the labormarket?

• What policy changes are needed to betteraddress the continuing problems of poverty inthis country?

This study explores these questions, and more.Our findings shed light on a series of criticalquestions that policy makers must confront asthey consider how to meet the complex needsof poor families and communities.

This report presents results from a two-yearstudy (1998–2000) of the experiences of fami-lies who left or were diverted from cash assis-tance (TANF) or Food Stamps in the first quar-ter of 1998. It is based on research done by ateam of social scientists from the Center forthe Study of Women in Society (CSWS) at theUniversity of Oregon. The study was fundedby the Oregon Department of HumanResources, Adult and Family ServicesDivision, and by the Women in the NorthwestResearch Initiative based at CSWS.

Our findings and recommendations are basedon three sources of data: administrativerecords; telephone interviews at two points intime over two years with a state-wide randomsample of families; and in-depth, in-personinterviews with a sub-sample of seventy-eightfamilies at two additional points in time. Thisresearch design enabled us to follow the livesand changing fortunes of a statewide sample

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Are the New Welfare

PoliciesWorking?

I N T R O D U C T I O N : A R E T H E N E W W E L F A R E P O L I C I E S W O R K I N G ?

I N T R O D U C T I O N : A R E T H E N E W W E L F A R E P O L I C I E S W O R K I N G ?8

of respondents over a two-year period. Thisextended period of contact, along with accessto administrative data from welfare andemployment departments, produced rich andlayered results.

Our data show that the effects of PRWORAand state welfare restructuring policies areboth more complex and less rosy than manypolicy makers admit. During the past fiveyears the combination of a strong economyand intensive welfare-to-work policies havereduced caseloads and promoted employmentfor a majority of families. However, these poli-cies have been far less effective in helpingfamilies move out of poverty. The conditionsof low-wage work, the scarcity of living wagejobs, the accumulation of debt, and pervasiveproblems securing and paying for childcare,housing, and health care all profoundly shapethe circumstances of poor families’ lives.These are some of the issues that must beaddressed in the upcoming debates on thereauthorization of TANF.

Moreover, both the nation and many states,including Oregon, currently face a muchbleaker economic picture than in 1996, whenCongress initially passed PRWORA. At thiswriting, Oregon has the highest unemploy-ment rate in the country, at 8 percent. This isOregon’s highest unemployment rate sinceJanuary 1993. Not surprisingly, between

January 2001 and January 2002,welfare caseloads in the state havebeen slowly on the rise, showing a15.8 percent increase.* However,just as caseload declines should not

be a singular indicator of programmatic suc-cess, rising caseloads should not be interpret-ed as failure — if one presumes that our coun-try can and should provide a safety net forfamilies during times of economic hardship.

The findings we present in this report are con-sistent with research findings from many

other states. Congress now has the opportuni-ty to reconsider policies in light of the exten-sive documentation of the impact of PRWO-RA across the country. There is much work tobe done if welfare restructuring is to be partof a concerted social policy focus to reducepoverty and to enhance the well-being of ournation’s families.

*Oregon TANFcaseload statistics

are availableonline at

www.afs.hr.state.or.us/papage.html

What Did We Study?In March 1998, the Center for the Study ofWomen in Society at the University of Oregon(CSWS) began a two-year project under a con-tract with the Adult and Family ServicesDivision of the Oregon Department of HumanResources (AFS) called “Oregon Families WhoLeft Temporary Assistance to Needy Familiesand Food Stamps: A Study of Economic andFamily Well-being.” We gained insight directlyfrom those who had left or were diverted fromcash assistance (TANF) or Food Stamps inaccordance with new welfare rules.

We began by asking more than nine hundredwomen and men from across the state detailedquestions about their experiences since leavingTANF or Food Stamps. We inquired about

• whether the work they found provided ade-quate wages and benefits

• what their childcare arrangements were

• if health insurance was available to allowfamilies to access medical care

• and most importantly, if their experience ofeconomic hardship and insecurity haddiminished.

Over a two-year period, we contacted the larg-er sample twice. Out of the larger sample, wedrew a quota sample of seventy-eight families

to interview in-depth. We interviewed theseseventy-eight families between and after thetwo telephone interviews.

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A Study of Former Welfare

Recipientsin Oregon

• It looks at a wider range of poor familiesthan many other studies, including notonly those who left TANF, but also thosewho were diverted from TANF, as well asthose who left Food Stamps.

• Our random sample indicates tremen-dous variation in the family situations ofrecipients, defying stereotypical explana-tions for why people end up needingassistance.

• Oregon received a federal waiver toexperiment with new welfare programsseveral years before the federal welfarereform act, making it a state with alonger history of restructuring.

• Oregon is perceived nationally to have ahigh-quality welfare system.

• Oregon’s demographics — predominant-ly white, with a significant population ofrural poor —emphasizes the reality thatpoverty exists across race boundariesand beyond urban centers.

Why the CSWS Study Is Important

Whom Did We Study?The Oregonians in our sample represent peo-ple you’d expect to see on a bus, in the gro-cery store, or walking their children to school.They are not a collection of people with uni-form problems, challenges, or joys. Their par-ticular circumstances vary greatly from one

another. What they share is a strug-gle against poverty. Just a fewexamples of those* who participat-ed in our in-depth interviews are:

• Celia Cerillo, a forty-two-year-old divorcedLatina woman who left TANF and moved

with her teenage son rural Oregon seekingfinancial stability

• Leslie Houseman, a mixed-race mother inher early twenties who is separated fromher husband; diverted from TANF, shelives with her young child in a city

• Sophie Davis, a single white woman in hertwenties who has a young daughter; sheresides in a small town in eastern Oregon

• Dan Olsen, a divorced white man in hisearly forties who left the Food StampsProgram and lives alone in a coastal town;he is the father of two children, neither ofwhom live with him.

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The study conducted by the Center for theStudy of Women in Society consists of three parts:

• telephone survey interviews with astatewide random sample of programleavers at two points in time (12–15 monthsand 18–21 months after program exit ordiversion)

• in-depth, in-person interviews with a sub-sample of the survey sample

• administrative data collected by the Adultand Family Services Division of the State ofOregon (AFS) and wage data from theOregon Department of Employment, cover-ing the period of the study.

The statewide random sample was drawn bythe Oregon Survey Research Laboratory froma complete listing of TANF leavers and divert-ed, as well as Food Stamp leavers, who hadleft those programs in the first three monthsof 1998. This list was supplied by AFS.

Of this sample:

• 970 respondents completed the first tele-phone survey* (28 percent of the originalsample)

• 756 of this group completed the secondtelephone survey (78 percent of originalrespondents)

A quota sample of 78 was drawn from theoriginal 970 respondents for in-depth inter-views. The sample was chosen to reflect thediversity of the original sample by race, gen-der, geographic location, family structure,respondent age, and number and age of chil-dren. Sixty-five of these respondents werelocated for a second in-depth interview.

*In the first telephone survey, we reached 28 percent ofthe randomly selected statewide sample. Our examina-tion of earnings data, demographic data, and welfare usedata for a sample of non-respondents and the sample ofrespondents shows that there are only slight differences.The people we were not able to reach are not substan-tially different from those we did. We also comparedthose we reached in the first survey but not the second,and, again, the distribution of earnings histories anddemographic characteristics were similar, indicating thatwe did not lose a group systematically different from theoriginal group of respondents.

Study Sample and Methods

*We have changedthe names of study

participants.

Like the rest of our sample, these Oregoniansstruggle within those circumstances to balancework and family, to stay healthy, and to estab-lish a long-term sense of stability for theirfamilies. What makes these people — and theothers we spoke to — different is that theyface serious economic insecurities and oftenconfront hunger, poverty, and despair.

Three groups were interviewed for our study:

• TANF leavers, made up of families whohad received cash assistance in the past,but had left the program and did notreturn to TANF for at least two monthsafterwards

• TANF diverted, made up of families whohad applied for assistance but did notbecome recipients for a variety of reasons

• Food Stamp leavers, made up of familieswho had received Food Stamps but had leftthe program and did not return for at leasttwo months.

Who Are the TANF Diverted?Those diverted from TANF are not oftenincluded in studies of families who have exitedwelfare. We decided to examine the experiencesof this group to understand how the state’sdiversion policies — meant to decrease welfarerolls — affect families who seek, but do not getcash assistance.

Diversion policies manifest an implicit goal ofreform, which is to decrease the number ofpeople who enter the welfare rolls initially.

One strategy AFS employs to divert TANFapplicants is to provide one or more pay-ments, as a way to address a family’s immedi-ate need for support. Another form of diver-sion requires applicants to engage in a lengthyassessment and job search process prior toqualifying for TANF supports. Some appli-cants do find a job or some other solution dur-ing this process.


Demographics of Those SurveyedTANF TANF Food StampLeavers Diverted Leavers

Gender Men 7% 21% 14%Women 93% 79% 86%

Race White 82% 85% 80%African-American 7% 5% 3%Hispanic 5% 5% 10%American Indian 4% 1% 3%Asian-American 1% 1% 1%Mixed 1% 2% 3%No Answer 0% <1% 0%

Adults in 1-adult household 81% 67% 62%Household 2-adult household 19% 33% 38%

More than 2 adults <1%

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These diversion policies and practices assumethat families diverted from TANF are strug-gling due to a temporary crisis that can beaddressed primarily by getting a job. Wefound that TANF-diverted respondents weremore likely than other respondents to ulti-

mately go on (or back on) TANF during thetwo-year period of the study.

AFS administrative data indicate that 46 per-cent of those diverted from TANF during theproject either went back on TANF or reapplied

S E C T I O N I : A S T U D Y O F F O R M E R W E L F A R E R E C I P I E N T S I N O R E G O N12

Our study found that a significant proportion

of families diverted from TANF did not receive

the services or help they originally needed.

Reasons Respondents Tried to Get Back on Cash Assistance

Note: Figures do not add up to 100 percent because respondents could choose more thanone reason.

Why TANF Diverted Sought Cash AssistanceWhy TANF Leavers Sought Cash Assistance

59%

37%

22%

12%

12%

8%

6%

100 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

72%

29%

37%

14%

20%

9%

11%

Income too lowto support family

Lost a job

Own or other’smedical problems

Got pregnantor had a baby

Got separatedor divorced

Domestic violence

Other reasons

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for it. Those who left TANF had a return rateof 24 percent. By the time of our second sur-vey, 49 percent of TANF diverted respondentshad returned to AFS in search of services.

This suggests that the constellation of needsexperienced by diverted respondents is similarto TANF recipients, that their hardship is notoften temporary, and that diversion policiesshould be re-examined.

TANF Leavers vs. Food Stamp LeaversSome policy makers and many in the generalpublic imagine a bold line dividing two cate-gories of poor families:

• those who depend on cash assistance forincome

• those who need only Food Stamps — moreoften than not, families with at least oneemployed adult.

In fact, most low income families — in Oregonas well as nationally — move in and out of thelabor force and on and off cash assistance.This explains why we found so few differ-ences between Food Stamp leavers and TANFleavers.

Many TANF leavers have long work histories;just as many Food Stamp leavers have at onetime or another received cash assistance. Veryfew families remain welfare-reliant for longperiods of time.

In this report we argue that the hardshipsdescribed by respondents — across all welfarecategories — are shaped in significant ways bythe conditions of low-wage work.


Are Former WelfareRecipients Working?At the time of the first survey, 66 percent ofour respondents reported being employed. Six months later, 72 percent were employed.Nearly 80 percent of respondents worked atsome point over the course of the two interviews.

• 58 percent of respondents were employedat both survey times

• 13 percent were employed at the first sur-vey but not the second

• 8 percent were employed at the second sur-vey but not the first

• 19 percent were not employed at eithersurvey

• 61 percent of those not employed at the firstinterview had worked within the last year.

Forty-two percent of respondents at our firstsurvey had a job tenure of thirteen months tomore than five years. At our second survey,that number rose to 47 percent. Employedrespondents said they were eager to have a jobthat was secure and stable, and one to whichthey could build commitment.

S E C T I O N I I : T H E S T R U G G L E F O R S E L F - S U F F I C I E N C Y 15

The Struggle for Self-sufficiency

Don’t know(.79%)

19 or less

20-29

50 or more

40-49

30-39

9.28% 10.1%45.75% 43.7%

24.06% 22.9%11.64% 13.6%

8.49% 9.7% 19 or less

20-29

50 or more

40-49

30-39

Hours of Work Per Week for Employed Respondents

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The majority of respondents reported workingthirty or more hours per week at both surveys(79 percent at the first survey and 77 percentat the second). More than 50 percent ofrespondents were working forty or morehours a week at both surveys.

What Kind of Wages AreFormer Recipients Earning?Despite employment and long hours of work,the majority of our survey respondents hadlow earnings. The mean monthly take-homepay of those employed at our first survey was$995.60. Six months later, it was $1,016.32, anincrease of 2 percent. One quarter of ourrespondents reported that their earnings actu-ally decreased during the six-month periodbetween the two surveys.

Though the proportion of survey respondentswho had incomes above the federal povertylevel increased modestly over time, the pro-portion of families living below the poverty

S E C T I O N I I : T H E S T R U G G L E F O R S E L F - S U F F I C I E N C Y16

Even with jobs, most families continued to suffersignificant financial hardship because their earnings

are low, on average about $1,000 per month.

43%

55%

FoodStampLeavers

TANFDiverted

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Percent With Family Incomes Above and Below

the Poverty Line

Number Gross Monthly Gross Yearlyin Family Income Income

1 $687 $8,2402 $922 $11,0603 $1,157 $13,8804 $1,392 $16,7005 $1,627 $19,5206 $1,862 $22,3407 $2,097 $25,1608 $2,332 $27,980

Over 8 add +$235 +$2,820for each child

1999 Federal PovertyGuidelines for the 48Contiguous States

and the District of Columbia

Note: As measured by “last month’s family income,”Survey 2.

line remained high. At our secondsurvey, 48 percent of respondentsreported family incomes belowthe poverty line.*

How Do Wage Levels Fitinto the Bigger Picture?Oregon’s status today as a state officially inrecession, along with the expected continuedloss of jobs in all sectors, puts low-income fam-ilies at an even higher risk of hardship and ris-ing poverty. Many respondents reported work-ing part-time and/or in temporary jobs. Low-wage jobs, filled by part-time and/or contin-gent labor, are less likely to provide consistentaccess to wages or to unemployment insurancewhen the job is lost. Even for those who doqualify, the benefits (which only make up partof one’s lost income) do not always meet fami-lies’ basic needs. Lacking the financial buffersrequired to weather job and income losses,low-income people are extremely vulnerable tocrises. With the cutbacks in eligibility for TANFand other welfare programs, families facing jobreduction and loss are less able to access wel-fare as a safety net.

Such hardships may affect rural families dif-ferently and, perhaps, more severely thanOregon’s urban poor. Our study revealed a

contrast between urban and rural configura-tions of poverty and work within the state.The diminishing access to secure jobs withhigher wages, along with the vagaries of sea-sonal work and the more limited availabilityof community resources, has created a grimrural pattern of need.

In addition, the perception of a booming econ-omy has obscured the level of debt many poorfamilies carry in order to make ends meet. Thedebt-to-income ratio for low-income house-holds is rising and the ability to stave offcrises is diminishing during the current eco-nomic downturn.** A significantnumber of families in our in-depth sample described beingburdened by accumulated debt.Frequently, this debt came as theresult of health problems thatrequired medical care during times when fam-ilies were without insurance coverage. Manyrespondents described the strain they experi-enced trying to manage the onslaught of debton limited and often unstable incomes.

A study by Lisa Keister,*** analyzing wealth inthe United States, describes anincrease in the number of familieswho had zero or negative financialwealth during the early 1990s.Between 1989 and 1995, the per-centage of families without any financialwealth rose to 29 percent. Without the abilityto save money, families incur substantial debteven during short periods of unemployment orin the face of health, housing, or other crises.

Can Families Make It on Low Wages Alone?Many of our employed respondents foundthemselves in financial trouble as they lost eli-gibility for critical assistance programs. The


*Earnings data arefor survey respon-

dents. “Familyincome” includesincome from all

sources, such as asecond earner, child

support, or socialsecurity.

Mean take-homepay per month

Survey 1 $995.60

Survey 2 $1,016.32

Difference $20.72 or a 2% increase

Average Income ofEmployed Respondents

Note: Data includes employed respondents whoanswered both surveys (total = 765).

**NationalCampaign for Jobs

and IncomeSupport, “A

Recession Without a Safety Net,”October 2002.

***Lisa Keister,Wealth in America,

CambridgeUniversity Press,

2000, p. 60.

welfare system regards Food Stamps, childcaresubsidies, the Oregon Health Plan, and otherprograms as temporary safety nets for peoplein transition to the work force. However, manyfamilies continue to rely on such programsbecause low wages alone cannot meet theirmost essential needs. As a result, losing eligi-bility becomes a serious blow.

Unfortunately, a twenty-five-cent per hourraise in wages — just a few dollars per pay-check — can snatch away subsidies on whichfamilies rely. A small increase in income canmean that critical help with childcare is deniedor that housing is no longer affordable due tothe loss of a subsidy. A tiny raise in pay mightequal the end of health insurance and FoodStamps. Robbed of the assistance programs

that kept their financial situation from collaps-ing, low-income workers can become quicklysmothered in debt, despite putting in long,hard hours at their jobs.

For example, Connie Rounds, a white, forty-nine-year-old mother of two teenagers, leftTANF after securing a twenty-hour-per-weekjob as an aide in a residential health facility forthe elderly. Because she was working halftimeand, therefore, did not qualify for health insur-ance through her employer, Rounds relied onthe Oregon Health Plan for benefits. With thesupport of her welfare case manager, she usedoff-work time to prepare for certification as alicensed practical nurse.


Tom Nelson and his family live in a small townin eastern Oregon. During an in-depth inter-view, he expressed frustration with AFS poli-cies and processes that don’t take into accountthe circumstances of differing communities.“You have to understand that [AFS] is gearedmore to people that are in the big city, but outhere you have to follow the same rules.…We’ve taken advantage of the food bank fromtime to time. We haven’t recently, although wecould, and part of it is we live far enough outthat we have to drive thirty miles.”

Nelson noted that rural communities face par-ticular circumstances that stem from a limitedeconomic base, including less job availabilityand a predominance of seasonal work. Theaccessibility of welfare and other communityresources for families scattered long dis-tances also can pose a problem. And ruralresidents have fewer opportunities to enterschool or specialized job training.

According to a recent report from the OregonCenter for Public Policy, nearly all of rural

Oregon has experienced unemployment rates20 percent higher than the national averagein recent years.*

Oregon’s rural counties havebeen especially dependenton declining resource-basedindustries. And rural workersoften have shored upincome gaps with periods ofunemployment insuranceand/or welfare supports,both of which have becomeless obtainable during theera of reform.**

So, although the state’s current recession ishitting residents in the cities as sharply asthose in the country, long-term economicdevelopment and job growth has been slow-er in rural areas. Thus, rural people tend to bemore vulnerable to poverty and have fewercommunity resources than urban and subur-ban Oregonians.

Rural Issues

*M. Leachman and C.Sheketoff , “Helping RuralOregonians Avoid Hunger,”Oregon Center for Public

Policy, 2000, p. 3.

**See also an updated listlabor surplus areas in

Oregon from theEmployment and TrainingAdministration Office of the U.S. Department ofLabor (November 2001).

But then Rounds’s boss began to insist shework additional hours to cover an employeeshortage. In order to keep her job, she workedthe extra hours. And shortly, she received aletter stating that because she earned $5 overthe limit, she was no longer eligible for theOregon Health Plan. When, a few monthslater, Rounds discovered a potentially cancer-ous lump, she was still uninsured. Sheincurred a $3,000 debt for the biopsy, a debtshe still is trying to repay. The inflexible struc-ture of the system created an undue hardshipfor a woman trying hard to improve her jobprospects. Working as a fulltime employeeactually undermined her financial stability.

Historically, those who received welfare oftenstruggled with hardships associated with low-wage work, but they could seek cash assis-tance or other supports from the state in timesof crisis. This buffer is far less available undertoday’s welfare policies. In fact, the structureof “reform” inadvertently punishes those try-ing to get ahead. Ironically, the system some-times frightens clients into avoiding pay raisesor better jobs — because they risk losinghealth insurance or subsidized housing.

“We got it real fast, a hard kick,” noted RobinCrocker, a white married woman in her earlytwenties whose family fell on hard times whentheir income became too high to qualify forFood Stamps. “The second you get in a bindthey are not willing to stand back and helpyou out of that bind,” she added. “Once youget there, you can’t get out without help. Andnobody is willing to help.”

Receiving emergency assistance can some-times make all the difference. For instance,Darcy Williams, a divorced white woman inher early twenties, was able to find employ-ment and adequate childcare largely becauseAFS helped her with car repair costs. “Theyput close to $400 in the vehicle just to keep meout on the road and get me a job,” she said. “Ifit wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t have the job andI wouldn’t have daycare.”

These kinds of support payments can be criti-cal for families, but their availability dependson sufficient federal and state funds.

Is “Welfare Reform” Helping Families Climb Out of Poverty?Some families in our study report that theyare doing slightly better under welfarerestructuring. Others are doing about thesame. And some are facing even more finan-cial hardships.

Most families in our survey suffered seriousfinancial strains. Respondents had to employ arange of strategies that were hard on their fam-ilies, despite the fact that the majority earnedan income. Eighty percent of those we spoke tosaid that, out of necessity, they paid bills late.Half were forced to ask family members or


The Oregon Center for Public Policy(OCPP) has examined the tax burden forthe lowest income quintile population inthe state. Researchers found that, com-pared to other states, Oregon’s tax struc-ture places a higher overall taxation rateon lower income households.

“The bottom 20 percent of Oregon house-holds pay 12.3 percent of their income instate and local taxes, while the top 20 per-cent pays only 11.8 percent,” writes JeffThompson in the OCPP’s report, “Clearingthe Air on Tax Day: Assessing the TaxBurden in Oregon” (April 2001).

The Tax Burden for Low-income Families

friends for money and gifts. Almost half ate ata food kitchens or picked up a food boxes reg-ularly. One-quarter skipped meals becausethey didn’t have enough money to buy food.

The hardships reported in our study reflectbroader patterns across the state. Census sta-tistics from 2000 reveal that 11.6–12.8 percentof Oregonians live at or below the federal

poverty line.* The number of poorpeople has increased along withthe state’s population. Access toaffordable housing has decreasedsteadily over the last decade, with76 percent of poor householdspaying more than 30 percent oftheir income in rent.**

Food insecurity is a growing prob-lem for Oregon families.According to recent census statis-tics, 160,000 households in Oregonare food insecure.***

When we surveyed families six months afterinitial contact, most were still just hanging onby thin threads. Although percentagesdropped modestly, many respondents stillwent without medical care, took in roommates,or sold personal possessions. They were barelyscraping by, even though they had done every-thing the welfare system said they should do.

The data we collected powerfully indicate that,though most people who left TANF had jobs,the dearth of decent wages subverted ratherthan encouraged their long-term stability.

Many families in our study were not making iton low wages alone. Almost 60 percent saidtheir income was too low to adequately sup-port their families. Thirty-five percent of theserespondents were hovering so close to povertythey found it necessary to return to TANFduring the two-year period of our study.

Who Is Making It?Those in our study who reported the mostsuccess in meeting basic household and familyneeds were families that had two adults bring-ing home an income. Whether the adults weremarried or not, two-income households werefar more likely than single-parent householdsto have sufficient resources.

However, the very presence of dual-incomeparents in our sample (122 woman and 49men) indicates that many two-parent families


In 1999, the U.S. Department of Agriculture(USDA) released the findings of a nation-wide study of food insecurity and hunger.*Oregon was one of eleven states with levelsof food insecurity above thenational average, and 5.5 per-cent of Oregon’s families wereconsidered “hungry,” comparedto 3.6 percent nationally.

In a recent report on national trends, theUSDA emphasized the variation of foodinsecurity and hunger across householdtypes: Households with incomes below thepoverty line, households headed by singlewomen, and households headed by racialor ethic minorities experiencefood insecurity and hunger atmuch higher rates. Comparablestudies conducted at the statelevel show similar results.**

Welfare reform was associated with thereduction in households receiving FoodStamps. In Oregon this has been accompa-nied by a parallel increase in use of emer-gency meal sites and food banks. However,with changes in eligibility requirementsand an outreach program, Food Stampusage increased rapidly in 2001, after ourstudy was completed.

Food Insecurity

*USDA, “FoodSecurity in theUnited States:Conditions andTrends, 2001.”

**For instance, seeOregon Food Bank,“Profiles of Poverty

and Hunger inOregon, 2000.”

*This range isderived from two

averaged statisticsfrom the U.S.

Census Bureau andthe Current

Population Survey(March 1999, 2000,

and 2001).

**U.S. CensusBureau, “Populationand Housing Profile:

Oregon,” 2001.

***M. Leachman,“Hunger in Oregon,”

Oregon Center forPublic Policy, 2001.

are not, in fact, doing well. Two parents livingtogether does not necessarily mean povertyreduction, particularly since many such house-holds depend on one parent working insidethe home caring for the children.

Eleven percent of in-depth interviewees werenot making ends meet. Three-quarters of thefamilies were either barely making it, meaningthey were struggling month to month to meettheir basic needs, or they were able to makeends meet but had no buffer for emergenciesor unexpected costs. Thirteen percent werecategorized as “doing better,” because theyreported enough financial stability to managemonthly expenditures without constant pres-sure, while they began to move out of debtand began to establish some bit of security.

Nine out of ten of the families who reportedthe fewest financial difficulties had two

incomes. Others got regular help from extend-ed family members. And many were able torely on extended family members to providefree childcare.

Housing subsidies are another resource thatmakes economic survival possible, accordingto a number of our respondents. In the secondsurvey, 20 percent of the respondents reportedreceiving a housing or rent subsidy. A third ofthe families in our in-depth study reportedeither rent subsidies, low-income house loans,or rent-free housing.

The cost of housing varied greatly acrossrespondents, but the likelihood that low-income families were spending a large part oftheir monthly budget on housing was high.

Another source of income for families doingrelatively better is child support, but the issue


Note: Includes TANF Leavers, TANF Diverted, and Food Stamp Leavers

5%

3%

27%

12%

7%

100 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

42%

80%

24%

25%

Evicted or did not pay rent

Ate at a food kitchen or got food box

Kept children home from school until clothesor supplies could be purchased

Paid some bills late

Didn’t go to doctor or purchaseneeded medical supplies

Skipped meals

Utilities turned off

Telephone disconnected

Vehicle taken away

Strategy Percentage of 970 respondents who said “yes”

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Strategies Used to Stretch Limited Resources

of child support can be extremely complex. Arelatively small proportion of single parents inour study received regular child support pay-ments, even when a court order mandatedthem. As low-wage earners, some divorcedparents cannot afford to pay child support.However, when the state prepares materialsfor policy makers about welfare leavers’income supports, it assumes receipt of childsupport as a regular source of income.

Instead, child support should be regarded bywelfare authorities as an unreliable source ofincome and, also, as a family-sensitive issue.

Some families work out informal arrange-ments — the absent parent supplies food,cash, transportation, and/or childcare as he orshe is able. In such situations, child supportenforcement can damage family stability, par-ticularly in cases where formerly cooperativearrangements fall apart in an increasinglyadversarial climate fostered by the interven-tions of child support enforcement.

Who Isn’t Making It?Those in our study who received neither regu-lar child support payments nor financial helpfrom extended family members described aprecarious reality. For example, TANF leaverMaya Bronson is a single mother in her earlytwenties. After leaving welfare she hadworked for the same company for more thantwo years, gaining responsibility and more


Oregon’s unemployment rate for January2002 rose to 8 percent, a job loss increasewell above rates seen in recent years. Statestatistics on the TANF caseload shows arise over the same period. According toAFS figures from January 2002, there wasa 15.8 percent increase in the number ofTANF cases compared to the year before.

Even before the economic slowdown,many families we surveyed who left orwere diverted from TANF had to rely onstate assistance — when they could qualify— just to get by.

• 90 percent used Food Stamps at somepoint during the study

• 87 percent relied on the Oregon HealthPlan

• 42 percent relied on Employment RelatedDay Care (ERDC)

The percentage who reported they neededhelp but could not get it rose from 22 per-cent to 27 percent by our second survey.Many respondents explained that theirincomes were slightly too high, or that theycould not afford the required co-paymentswith the Oregon Health Plan or ERDC.

Help During Hard Times

The AFS quarterly report for March 2001suggested that 51 percent of Oregon fami-lies with court orders would receive a childsupport payment sometime during theyear. Thirteen percent of these familieswere identified as TANF recipients.Although the number of recipients whocould access support seems low, the fig-ures would be even lower if AFS recordstracked the amount of money and the num-ber of payments families actually received.

About half of the respondents in our studyhad court orders for child support, butfewer than 20 percent received it regularly.During the last six months of the study, two-thirds of those with orders did not receivesupport in the correct amount or on time.

Child Support Hard to Enforce

stable hours as her experience in the work-place increased. Rather than easing her diffi-cult financial situation, however, this regularemployment added to her economic stress.

A twenty-five-cent per hour raise causedBronson and her young daughter to lose theirFood Stamps and also raised Bronson’s child-care subsidy co-payment to a level she couldno longer afford. When we last spoke to her,she was relying on her mother across town forchildcare, which meant that Bronson’s daugh-ter spent most nights with her grandmother.Not only was Bronson unable to spend ade-quate time with her daughter, the two weren’teven able to sleep in the same house.

The most disastrous blow dealt to Bronsonwas loss of the Oregon Health Plan, againbecause she earned slightly more than the eli-gibility income level after a small raise. Sheabruptly was told one day that she no longerhad coverage. She explained, “They don’t give

you any time to make arrangements, like tolook into something else.”

Working a fulltime, regular shift at a consis-tent job did not ultimately improve Bronson’sfinances, nor did it create more stability forher child. The gain in pay was offset by theloss of Food Stamps, childcare subsidy, andhealth insurance, leaving this small family indire circumstances, with little chance ofimprovement in the foreseeable future.

Sophie Davis is another woman who felttrapped by poverty, though she was workingfulltime. A single mother with a four-year-olddaughter, Davis’s low-wage job in a fast foodrestaurant did not provide even enoughmoney for the family to eat regularly. Davissoon had to resort to dropping her child off atdaycare in time for snacks and eating whatshe could at McDonald’s, her place of employ-ment. Despite working long hours, Davis andher daughter continued to live far below the


The Oregon office of the federal Housingand Urban Development agency (HUD)reports that the incidence of unmet hous-ing needs rose continuously in the statethroughout the 1990s:

“While Oregon’s population grew by 16percent between 1990 and 1999, the num-ber of families paying more than half of theincome for housing rose 23 percent, indi-cating a growing number of householdswith extreme housing needs.”

—as quoted by J. Thompson and M.Leachman in “Prosperity in Perspective:The State of Working Oregon,” OregonCenter for Public Policy, 2000, p. 30

Oregon’s Unmet Housing Need

Yes, but we haveno contingencyresources

Yes, we’redoing all right

No, we can’tmake endsmeet

No, we’re barelymaking it

40%

13%

11%36%

“Do you have sufficientresources to meet yourbasic household and familyneeds?” What StudyParticipants Said

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federal poverty line and often lacked even themost fundamental needs, such as food.

Self-sufficiency is an elusive goal for familiesdependent on the low-wage labor force orwho have health or other problems thatmake employment difficult. Many of thesefamilies continue to need the benefits provid-

ed by a safety net. As our data show, a verylarge proportion of families continue to usethe Oregon Health Plan and Food Stamps.Others required childcare assistance or hadto return to TANF for a period of time.Access to these programs is crucial for thewell-being of poor families.


Food StampLeavers

TANFDiverted

TANFLeavers

Food StampLeavers

TANFDiverted

TANFLeavers

Food StampLeavers

TANFDiverted

TANFLeavers

Food StampLeavers

TANFDiverted

TANFLeavers

100%

90%

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

100%

90%

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

TANFFood Stamps

Employment Related Day CareOregon Health Plan

Never used benefits

Used benefits

Never used benefits

Used benefits

92%

81%76%

24%

8%

9%

24%

14%

84%

46%54%

76%85%

90%

15%10%

91%

19%

54%46%

65%

35%

66%

34%

Use of Safety-net or Transitional Programs by Former TANF Leavers, TANF Diverted, and Food Stamp Leavers

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Is Welfare-to-Work Working?

The number one reason that people in our survey exited the TANF or Food Stamps pro-grams was that their incomes became too high— though, in most cases, they were onlyslightly above the cut-off line. Oregon’s man-dated raise of the minimum wage, on January1, 1999, from $6 to $6.50 per hour explainsmany of our respondents’ modestly increasedincome levels during the study period. Inaddition, the boom economy of the late 1990sled to an expansion in low-wage positions inthe service and clerical sectors. This trend ispredicted to continue.

During the period of our study, the economywas more vibrant and low-wage work moreplentiful than it is today. As stated earlier, wefound that nearly 80 percent of those employedworked more than thirty hours per week. Morethan half worked fulltime. Even with this regu-lar work, half of the families had incomes thatfell below federal policy guidelines.

These numbers indicate that a major problemfor poor families is not an unwillingness towork, but rather a lack of jobs that pay a liv-ing wage.

Despite good economic conditions in thecountry during the late 1990s, low-wage posi-tions in retail, the service sector, and clericalpositions made up the bulk of job opportuni-ties for respondents. Benefits packages some-times were offered, but they were often unus-able or incomplete. When sick leave was avail-able, it was frequently without pay. Thoserespondents who did get paid sick days aspart of their work contracts (33 percent) weresometimes afraid to risk their jobs by takingthe time they needed.

Health insurance was available to 40 percentof our employed respondents, though thepremium required was unaffordable to many.Insurance was available sporadically to 19percent of our employed respondents, while41 percent of those working had no access tojob-related insurance at all. Rare indeed wasa benefits package that included the critical

S E C T I O N I I I — T H E L O W - W A G E L A B O R M A R K E T 25

TheLow-wage

Labor Market

Too often, respondents told us, the lack support for

minimum-wage employees during illness, childcare

difficulties, or job transitions plunged them into a

sense of hopelessness about their economic fate.

elements of paid sick leave and affordablehealth care coverage.

Low-wage workers, such as caretakers for theelderly, assembly-line manufacturers, andhotel housekeepers, often labor under condi-tions that are physically taxing. Many of our350 respondents who were employed in theservice, caretaking, and clerical sectors saidthey received only limited training, alongwith erratic schedules that caused difficultieswith their family lives. In general, they fore-

saw little or no chance of advancement withintheir workplaces.

Without outside training or further educa-tion, an office assistant or receptionist has lit-tle opportunity to move up. Positions in fastfood restaurants, daycare centers, and ship-ping warehouses offer so few avenues foradvancement, employees became frustratedand disheartened.

Lela Barnes, a white woman in her late twen-ties with two children, found out for herself

S E C T I O N I I I — T H E L O W - W A G E L A B O R M A R K E T26

Retail sales

Office clerks

Computer support specialists

Cashiers

Waiters and waitresses

Sales supervisors

Food preparation workers

Cooks

Truck drivers (light delivery)

Truck drivers (tractor-trailer)

Gardeners and groundskeepers

Registered nurses

Laborers

Receptionists/information clerks

Clerical supervisors

Post-secondary teachers

Farm workers

Sales reps (non technical)

Janitors and cleaners

Fast food prep and service workers

10,404

5,295

5,234

5,161

4,938

4,709

3,995

3,198

3,101

3,069

3,030

2,949

2,724

2,432

2,363

2,255

2,233

1,364

980

622

in thousands10 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Employment Field Expected number of new jobs to be created

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Fastest Growing Employment Fields in Oregon, 2000–2010

how difficult it was to find support in the sys-tem for seeking a decent-paying job. A TANFleaver with only twenty-five credits remain-ing for a bachelor’s degree in psychology,Barnes believed she was qualified for a well-paying position.

But living in a rural area with her fiancé —who worked on a large farm — Barnes wasinformed that, as part of the JOBS program,she could not be selective about her employ-ment. In fact, she was told she had to find a jobwithin thirty days or the state agency would


Occupation Type Number Who Specified Occupation (out of 629)

Clerical 127(cashier, receptionist, hostess, office assistant, customer service, secretary, bank teller)

Blue collar 114(manufacturing, auto mechanic, trucker, carpenter, yard maintenance)

Medical or care-taking 84(elder care, disabled care, medical care, or other patient contact)

Food services 66(server, bar tender, deli worker, cook, dishwasher)

Managerial 51(office manager, store manager, supervisor)

Retail Sales 40

Education 26(teacher’s aide, library assistant, preschool teacher, trainer)

Childcare provider 25

Agriculture 25(packer, tree planter, ranch hand)

Services 22(housekeepers, janitors)

Professional/technical 14(lab technologist, artist, craftsperson)

White collar 13(loan officer, account executive, insurance agent, controller, tax auditor, draftsman, legal assistant)

Personal services 11(hair stylist, manicurist)

Other human services 7(housing advocate, family resource manager)

Small business owner 4

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Occupations of Respondents at First Phone Survey

find one for her, most likely in a minimum-wage service position. If she refused to work atthat job, all benefits would be stopped.

Finishing her education was not an optionunder the rules of the system. “I was horri-fied,” Barnes said. “I mean, I have three yearsof college education. To go to work for BurgerKing is horrifying to me. They would ratherhave somebody work a minimum-wage joband bust their butts for forty hours a weekand barely survive than to help them get adecent job and not have to worry about goingon the system again.”

Susan Wells, also a TANF leaver and themother of two daughters, was lucky to havehad a different experience. When she enteredthe job skills program, Wells had extremelylimited experience in the paid labor force butwas given job training in an AFS branch office.Eight months of supported work experienceled to a temporary position at AFS, whichoffered no benefits. Though she struggledthrough this period with no health insuranceor Food Stamps, Wells eventually was hired asa fulltime employee.

At our concluding interview, she was makinga decent salary, had benefits including healthinsurance, and was a member of a union.Wells attributes her success, in part, to herhighly supportive caseworker — a womanwilling to mentor and advocate for Wells asshe got through her training. “They weregreat,” Wells said of the AFS workers in gener-al. “They were the ones that gave me inspira-tion and helped me to define skills I didn’tknow I had.”

Unfortunately, this success story endedmonths after our study ended, when serioushealth problems forced Wells to leave her job.


According to a study of job gaps in theNorthwest,* Oregon experienced an extend-ed period of job growth during the 1990s.

Sectors that experienced themost growth will keep expanding,including jobs in the serviceindustry, helpers and laborers,and clerical work — jobs that usu-ally offer low wages with little orno access to benefits.

More Jobs, Less Benefits

*Northwest PolicyCenter, Northwest

Federation ofCommunity

Organizations, andOregon Action,

“Searching for Workthat Pays, 2001,”

2001.

Health Insurance

Paid Sick Leave

Paid Vacation

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 60%50% 70% 80% 90% 100%

48%

59%

41%

Percent of Employed Respondents Without Benefits

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What is a Good Job?A “good job” has traditionally been defined asone that is fulltime, stable, pays a wage thatcan sustain a family, and has good benefits.For the purposes of our study, we defined a“good job” as one that was at least thirty-fivehours per week; had take-home earnings over$1,200 a month (about the poverty level for athree-person family); had predictable shiftsand sick leave; and offered some paid vacationand health insurance.

During our first contact with respondents, wefound that only 11 percent of the TANFleavers, 5.8 percent of the TANF diverted, and9.4 percent of the Food Stamp leavers heldgood jobs. Six months later, there was littlechange in these statistics.

Will Job Prospects forFormer Recipients Improve?While the workers we surveyed experiencedrelatively few challenges finding low-wagejobs, moving up to a better paying positionproved difficult. The kind of work they weredoing when we interviewed them was, for themost part, similar to the kind of work theypredicted they’d be doing in the future. Thereality of leaving the low-wage sector andclimbing a ladder of economic mobility is slimwithout access to income supports, highereducation, or specialized training.

Viola Prince, an African American woman inher early thirties who has four young children,is one respondent who typically earned morethan $1,200 per month. Prince is self-employed,providing childcare in her home. She chose thisoccupation largely because she wanted to haveher children with her during the day.


FoodStampLeavers

TANFDiverted

TANFLeavers

FoodStampLeavers

TANFDiverted

TANFLeavers

100%

90%

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

21-24 months afterleaving assistance

12-18 months afterleaving assistance

11%5.8% 9.4%

13.8%

4.3%11.8%

Employed Respondents with “Good Jobs”S

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Prince powerfully illustrates one irony associ-ated with welfare restructuring: She is notsupported under the system to stay home andcare for her own four children, but the statesubsidizes her to take care of children fromother families. Prince’s position is also indica-tive of the “Catch-22” in which many low-income families find themselves: Because sheis self-employed, AFS can not financially sup-port her in taking computer classes or trainingcourses that could lead eventually to a better-paying job.

Despite an income higher than most formerrecipients we spoke to, Prince’s job and herpursuit of financial stability were a dailystruggle. Income level alone does not presenta true picture of how Prince’s family is far-ing, given the myriad demands on that

income. For a family of five, Prince’s incomeis still below the federal poverty line, andshe receives no child support from the chil-dren’s fathers. Neither can Prince’s incomelevel convey other pressures — the condi-tions of her work, her erratic schedule, herlack of benefits, and the lack of support forthe work she does to care for her own chil-dren and household.

Prince’s earnings, in actuality, are quite incon-sistent. Her wages fluctuate dramaticallybecause they are based on a state reimburse-ment rate of $2.12 per hour paid for each childin her care (excepting her own). Because thebulk of Prince’s clients are low-income, sheoften has to face the difficulty of collectingpayments from people with meager resources.It is not unusual for Prince to work sixteen-hour days, with children arriving before 7 a.m.and leaving after 10 p.m. Though the statepays Prince to care for children from low-income families, she works without healthinsurance, paid sick leave, or job security.

Even though Prince opted to spend time withher children at home, rather than take a betterpaying job with more consistent hours, shefeels she is cheating her family. “How muchtime can I give them if I am with other peo-ple’s kids?” she wondered. “I may see them,but it’s different when you’re working andyour kids are there than it is if you’re homeand it’s just you and your kids.”

Ellen Martinez certainly does not hold a goodjob but struggles daily to maintain stability forherself and her four-year-old daughter. Amixed-race woman in her mid-twenties,Martinez expressed dismay over her inabilityto improve her job prospects.

With a high school education, she found astate job as an in-home health-care providerfor a woman with a chronic, debilitating ill-ness. She kept this job for two years, workedat least thirty-five hours per week, but earned


The Northwest Policy Center has formulat-ed measurements for defining a living-wage job or “work that pays,” using amuch higher wage level than the federalpoverty guidelines. In their 2001 Job GapStudy, the center identified a “living wage”as a one that allows families to meet basicneeds and that “provides them some abili-ty to deal with emergencies and planahead.” The study explained, “It is not apoverty wage.”

The center took a wide array of living costsinto account, including housing, food,healthcare, childcare, transportation, taxburdens, and even the possibility of accu-mulating a basic savings. By their calcula-tions, the current state minimum wage of$6.50 is less than 60 percent of a livingwage for a single adult, and less than 35percent of a living wage for an adult withtwo children.

Earning a Living Wage

only $7.94 per hour and received no benefits.Her one significant raise was triggered by theupward shift in the minimum wage.

“I just wish some of the people from the statewould come in and look to see what we do,”Martinez told us. “Maybe they would feel thatthese people deserve a little higher pay. Maybelet them work one day…. Maybe then theywould know.”

Martinez knows the only way to reallyimprove her chances of getting a “good job” isto obtain a license to provide more advancedhealth-care services. However, she has beenunable to take time off or leave her currentposition to go through the training. And shelacks the extra money to pay for the course.

Donna Murphy, a white woman in her latetwenties with an elementary-school-agedchild, once felt a similar frustration over thelack of support for finding a better job.Working mainly in group homes and specialvocational programs, Murphy earned poorwages and had an erratic schedule.

She recalled that looking for better work was stressful: “It was frightening because Ihad a fulltime job and knew how much I wasmaking. It was the same every day and Ihated it. I didn’t know where my incomewas going to come from but I couldn’t dothis anymore. There was no room foradvancement. It was terrible.”

However, Murphy eventually was able to getanother job. When we spoke to her, she hadworked for three years as an educational aidfor her local school district — at first as a sub-stitute with unpredictable wages, then in amore long-term substitute position, and finallyas a permanent employee. Though she paid ahigh price to gain this position, Murphy feltthe years of self-imposed training were worthit. The educational aid job, which is unionized,offers security and decent working conditions,

as well as opportunities for ongoing educationand training. It’s a “good job.”

Murphy told us that she wished welfare“reform” was geared more toward helpingrecipients gain the skills they need for sustain-able jobs: “It’s important to know there’s alight at the end of the tunnel and that no, youdon’t have to work a six-dollar-an-hour job.You can get a little education and have a betterjob, a better life for your kids.”

What Makes a Good Job for Single Parents?The majority of respondents in our study wereheads of single-parent households — 81 per-cent of those who had left TANF, 67 percent ofthose who were diverted from TANF, and 62


Respondents to our survey who held jobscovered by a union contract reported thehighest level of satisfaction with theiropportunities for pay raises and promo-tions. Two-thirds of those in union jobs,compared to half of those in other jobs,reported satisfaction with opportunities forwages or job mobility.

Union workers in Oregon haveconsistently higher wages andbenefits. According to an OregonCenter for Public Policy report,*the wages of workers belonging tounions (in 1997) were 15 percenthigher than non-union workers’wages, even after taking work experience,education, region, industry, occupation,and marital status into account.

The Benefits of Union Work

*J. Thompson andM. Leachman,“Prosperity in

Perspective: TheState of WorkingOregon,” OregonCenter for Public

Policy , 2000, p. 30.

percent of those who had left the Food StampProgram were single parents. Most were sin-gle mothers.

The question of what makes a good job forthese single parents is a difficult one, especial-ly since they have the additional responsibili-ties of home and family care. Most single par-ents reported difficulties balancing work withtheir children’s needs. And they voiced frus-tration that a significant portion of the wagesfrom their ill-paying jobs were going to paychildcare providers.

Besides decent pay and benefits, single moth-ers — and, in a few instances, fathers — alsoneed a certain level of flexibility to take care oftheir dependent children. The kinds of jobsavailable to low-income parents often create aterrible bind. Precious few low-wage jobs offerbenefits or allow workers the flexibility tomeet family needs. When positions — teacheraide, for instance — do offer flexibility arounddaycare, sick children, and school functions,single parents often seek out that type ofemployment. Better paying jobs then becomedifficult to find and keep, because moreresponsibility and increased pay often meanless latitude around children’s needs.

Overall, the balance between work outsidethe home and the enormous responsibility ofcaring for a family is overlooked in the wel-fare system. There is little recognition of theunpaid labor necessary in maintaining afamily and household, or of the time suchwork takes.

“I really want to get out and better myself andget a better job,” TANF leaver Pamela Stewarttold us. “But either that’s going to come withmore school or with lots of time. The time iswhat I don’t have. I don’t have the freedom togo do interviews, to go fill out applications.”

Like many we interviewed, Stewart—themother of two toddlers—spent every wakinghour juggling her low-income job and herfamily’s needs. And while she was deter-mined to provide financially for them, shealso wanted to preserve a relationship withher children. “If I had the opportunity, I’d behome more with my kids than I am now,”she said. “I would like to be more involvedin their lives. I would certainly like to havethe choice.”

However, we discovered that choice is elusivefor people on the edge. Sitting with womenand men in their own homes, or discussingtheir hopes and frustrations over the phone,we could discount the myth that low-incomepeople use the system to avoid work. Almostuniformly, the people we spoke to want tomake a living and yearn for the sense of ful-fillment that comes from meaningful work.Yet, many find the system does not allow apursuit of education and training; others haveserious health problems and a lack of healthinsurance; many struggle to create deep andlasting bonds with their children, particularlyin light of the limited time they have to spendwith them.


The kinds of jobs available to low-income parents

often create a terrible bind. Precious few

low-wage jobs offer benefits or allow workers

the flexibility to meet family needs.

Teresa Pena, a thirty-five-year-old Hispanicwoman, is typical of many whom we inter-viewed. Her low-wage job in a nursing home,with unpredictable shifts and high physicaldemands, was the only position she could findto support her family. When Pena becamepregnant with her second child, she workedinto the eighth month. And because she wasoffered no maternity leave benefits, shereturned to AFS for temporary help to get herfamily through the brief period when shecould not work.

“Just to help me out for the month until Icould go back to work,” she explained. “Myrent was due, past due already a month, andthe bills were piling up, shut-off notices wereabout to come, and food was shy.”

Pena did not receive assistance. She reportedthat the process of reapplication was compli-cated and lengthy at a time when she wasalready overwhelmed. Thus, her family’s situ-ation quickly went from bad to worse. Shereturned to work soon after the cesarean-sec-tion birth of her child, against medical advice.The family was desperate for income and heremployer would not hold the position openfor any length of time while Pena cared for herinfant. Once back on the job, her low-wagesalary put the family over the line to qualifyfor the Oregon Health Plan, though her salarywas too low to allow her to purchase themonthly insurance premium her job offered.

Pena and her baby suddenly had no healthbenefits. She was able to cover her ten-year-old daughter’s medical needs through childSocial Security benefits. Though Pena’s part-ner lives with her and the children, a serioushealth condition prevents him from contribut-ing financially and, in fact, adds to the fami-ly’s debts, as he also lacks insurance coverage.

Like many mothers with whom we spoke,Pena expressed deep frustration at the lackof help offered through the welfare system:

“What I really needed help with was hous-ing and they didn’t give me any opportunityor help to do that. I’m almost on the street,but because I wasn’t on the street they didn’thelp me.”

She stressed that just a few months of helpwhile she was on maternity leave would havevastly benefited the stability of her family: “Ihad a job, I just couldn’t work at that time.You still have expenses every day, livingexpenses that you can’t come up withbecause you’re on your back. If they couldhelp out people like that temporarily, itwould be a big plus.”


Who Has Problems with Childcare?Childcare — whether it’s provided within orbeyond the family unit — is crucial, but goodchildcare can be difficult to obtain. Our sur-veys and in-depth interviews suggest that theobstacles families face in finding good child-care are more systematic than individual, andnot easily resolvable. Material disadvantagesand working conditions plainly limit poorfamilies’ options in this arena.

More than one-third of our sample reportedone or more problems with childcare at both

surveys — most commonly: cost, the scarcityof high-quality childcare, trouble with currentarrangements, and transportation to and from.At the time of the second survey, 50 percent ofrespondents with children under six years ofage reported problems with childcare. The factthat the percentage with problems changed lit-tle over the course of the study indicates that,for our sample, childcare problems are ongo-ing rather than temporary.

During in-depth interviews, we learned thatone-third of those with children under agetwelve have significant problems meshingchildcare, work, and transportation. Becauserespondents could choose more than one

S E C T I O N I V — T H E W O R K O F R A I S I N G C H I L D R E N 35

The Work of Raising Children

First SecondSurvey Survey

Childcare issues

Cost 25% 22%

Transportation to and from 8% 13%

Locating high-quality care 25% 25%

Trouble with childcare 15% 18%

Total respondents with one or more childcare problem 38% 36%

Respondents with children six years or younger 51%reporting one or more childcare problem

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Childcare Problems for Working Parents

childcare problem, these percentages combinethose with one and those with multiple child-care difficulties. However, our in-depth inter-views left no doubt that childcare problemswere pervasive and persistent.

Many respondents described arrangementsthat were complex, precarious, and took agood deal of coordination. Though theyreported that childcare was manageable forthem, a great many experienced stress inmaintaining it day to day. Parents with erraticwork schedules rely on others to get their kidsto and from daycare. Some are forced to spendnights away from their children, as that is theonly way to work around tight schedules.

How Important is Childcare Assistance?Childcare subsidies are a very importantresource for poor families. More than one-third of all respondents used the EmploymentRelated Day Care (ERDC) program at somepoint during the two years we followed them,including 46 percent of TANF leavers, 35 per-cent of TANF diverted, and 34 percent of FoodStamp recipients. Given that so many familiessay that childcare costs are a problem, why doonly one-third use the subsidy program?

First, we found that many families stoppedusing the program before their need for itended. This is often a result of a dramaticincrease in the co-payment required of fami-lies when their income rises even modestly.Once the co-payment becomes unaffordable,families stop using the ERDC program, oftenbecause the high co-payment means a subsidyso low that it is not worth the paperworkrequirements. As a consequence, parents maybe forced to change their childcare arrange-ments to reduce costs, often sacrificing qualityfor affordability.

For example, Jenny Nall lost her ERDC whenshe received a small pay raise. But the raise didnot compensate for the additional childcarecosts. Nall then had to pull her son from whatshe believed was excellent center-based careand had to rely on her mother to providechildcare instead. Nall deeply regretted this.Not only did she miss the quality of care herson had received, but she and her motherbegan arguing over how to best raise the child.

Andrea Watson met with bureaucratic road-blocks when she tried to restart her childcaresubsidy after a maternity leave. It took twomonths and numerous trips to the AFS branchoffice to reinstate her childcare payment. Inthe meantime, her children, her finances, andher job all suffered.

Many respondents go to a great deal of trou-ble to find childcare situations that meet theirstandards for quality and safety. But far toomany struggle with prohibitive costs. LydiaMendez, for example, decided to transfer herdaughter into more expensive care when sherealized the girl was not being carefullywatched. But the result was a terrible strain onthe family’s finances.

Others are faced with such limited resourcesthey have to rely almost exclusively on unpaidcare by relatives or friends. This helps explainwhy the average childcare costs among thefamilies we studied were relatively low: two-thirds of those with children under age twelvespent $100 or less per month on childcare.

Childcare by family members is sometimesgood care, yet for many in our study it repre-sented the only option they could afford. Whenrelatives or friends provide unreimbursed care,they too can become overburdened and sufferfinancially — something we saw not infrequent-ly. Moreover, respondents often expressed con-cerns about the quality of care provided by rela-tives or friends, even though they rarely voicedthis concern directly to the caregiver who was,after all, doing them a “favor.”

S E C T I O N I V — T H E W O R K O F R A I S I N G C H I L D R E N36

Childcare assistance is a very important sup-port for low-income families. But program eli-gibility and reimbursement policies oftenwork against use of the program by the fami-lies that most need help. Policy makers needto realize that relatively low usage rates ofthese subsidies do not signal a lack of need asmuch as indicate problems that changes in eli-gibility and reimbursement could resolve.

Is Daycare the Only Solution?Many of the parents we spoke to expresseddeep concerns over the amount of time theyspend away from their children. “When Iwork nights it’s hard,” said Sally Reid, themother of three teenagers who often had toput in overtime hours to make ends meet.“They get lonely and a bit worn down. Theyget tired of being grown up, basically, is whatthey are when I’m gone. Every night you go tobed and think of the hundred things youcould have done better.”

Reid was one of many who endure a welfarepolicy that denies poor mothers the choice ofwhen to prioritize bread-winning over nurtur-ing duties in their family’s lifecycle.

Respondents (mostly women) with access toadditional resources — including financialassistance from a partner or reliable child sup-port — were better able to afford regular, quali-ty childcare services and/or were able to spendmore time with their children. They reportedthat their kids were less angry, did better inschool, and had healthier relationships.

For instance, Alicia Glenholme, a marriedwhite mother of two preschool-age children,provided for a portion of the household’sincome with part-time teaching work. Becauseshe did not bear sole responsibility for the

family’s finances, she felt she was better ableto meet her children’s emotional needs:

“When I do work five days a week, my kids…I just notice a big change in them. They’rereal clingy and whiny and fighting with eachother. I’ve had some days where I walk outthe door, and especially my little one doesn’twant me to go and is crying and wantsmommy and gives me about ten hugs. That’sthe clue to me that it’s too much.”

Glenholme is more able to negotiate a flexiblework schedule than most of the women wespoke to, particularly because she has a col-lege degree.

Linda Agnaci, a mother of three in her earlyforties, is another story. Agnaci worked part-time in order to have adequate hours for herchildren’s needs and also to take classes at acommunity college. But even though shereceived regular child support, Agnaci quicklysunk into debt from not working fulltime. Shefinally resorted to delivering newspapers at2:00 a.m. with one of her sons to bring in anadditional $400 per month. “All I can thinkabout it is, okay, we need the money, and thisis the only time of day that I can work andstill be home and go to school,” she explained.

At last contact, Agnaci’s job fluctuatedbetween part-time and fulltime, yieldingAgnaci an average of $950 per month. Afterborrowing hundreds of dollars from hermother each month in order to get by, shefinally found a job as a receptionist. Afterbecoming increasingly discouraged with theimpossibility of making ends meet while shepursued an education, Agnaci quit school.

Mothers like Agnaci typically are consigned tolower-wage positions with little opportunityfor advancement due to family demands. It’snot unusual for women to turn down betterpaying jobs that would take them away fromtheir families. And it’s typical for mothers to

S E C T I O N I V — T H E W O R K O F R A I S I N G C H I L D R E N 37

accept certain types of employment—such ashousecleaning, elder care, or childcare—because these jobs offer a bit of flexibility.Some mothers we spoke to resorted to nightjobs so they could work while their childrenslept, even though this pattern often resultedin mental and physical exhaustion.

Tamara Ryan, an African American mother offour, works twelve-hour night shifts over theweekend so she can put in a week’s work inthree days and, thus, have more time to be athome. Even though it would be less taxing towork on weekdays, she said she can’t bear todo that to her children. “I’d never make theparent/teacher meetings, the conferences,” shesaid. “I’d never make any of those.”

Lydia Mendez, a Hispanic woman with twochildren, expressed similar sentiments abouther night job. “I want to be here when they goto school and when they get home,” shesaid—even if that means adding physicalexhaustion to her load of not-enough-money,lack of healthcare, and substandard housing.

Why Can’t Poor MothersCare for their Own Children?Some respondents were troubled by the ironyof putting their children into daycare, wherecaregivers earn low wages, just so they couldgo off to low-wage work. Many felt it wouldbe better for the children to be home withtheir mothers.

One of the most troubling welfare restructur-ing policies for our respondents is the Oregonrule that forces women to enter the workforce,or pursue work activities, when their newbabies turn three months. “I didn’t want to doit,” Pamela Stewart said of leaving her infantwith a sitter when she returned to her low-wage job. “I wasn’t ready to go. I wanted tostay with my baby.”

Stewart and other respondents expressed adeep dissatisfaction with a policy that deprivesinfants of their mothers’ care. They urge achange in welfare regulations to allow mothersto spend their child’s first, crucial year at home.

“I don’t think you should have to go back towork that early, because kids need you beyondthat,” said Suzanne Mueller. “When it takesaway from the child, I think that’s too much.”

While single mothers we spoke with acknowl-edge that they have both bread-winning andcare-taking responsibilities, they believe a wel-fare system that gives them more say in bal-ancing care-taking and employment willultimately allow them to better meet the needsof their children.

S E C T I O N I V — T H E W O R K O F R A I S I N G C H I L D R E N38

Under today’s welfare, the rules dictate that poor mothers do

not get to make the choice to stay home to raise their young

children, while many higher-income women can and do make

that choice, especially when they have infants.

When we last spoke to her, Margaret Lowry, amother of a two-year-old daughter, was aboutto begin a thirty-hour-per-week, minimum-wage job at a retail store. Shortly after thebirth of her child (when we first met her), shehad found herself in a situation in which itwas almost impossible to work: She discov-ered her mother, who has a chronic disease, inher apartment unconscious and near death. Atthat instant, Lowry was swept into the full-time and extremely strenuous position of car-ing for both her infant and her ailing mother.It was a time in her life that she couldn’t pos-sibly also have taken on a job.

Although Lowry was able to receive help in theform of cash assistance, because of a sympa-thetic caseworker, there is no built-in safeguardunder welfare restructuring for people whodeal with the necessity of non-employment.

Though the majority of our respondents earnan income through employment, about one-third of those we spoke to during our firsttracking did not work outside the home. Somewere seeking employment, but others—for avariety of reasons—could not work.

Five percent of our sample classified them-selves as unable to work due to a disability.Based on our in-depth interviews, this smallnumber is not representative of how manyrespondents actually suffer from debilitatingillnesses and injuries. Others struggle withchildcare difficulties or the lack of transpor-

tation. Some make the decision to go toschool or pursue a training program. Othersopt to stay home and tend their children,though this frequently leads to considerableeconomic hardship.

Many of those who had jobs when we inter-viewed them felt no certainty about stayingemployed, expecting that they would, at somepoint, face unemployment. We found little jobsecurity among people we interviewed, butrather a sense of being trapped in a pattern ofhorizontal job mobility.

S E C T I O N V — N O N - E M P L O Y M E N T A N D U N E M P L O Y M E N T 39

Non-employment and

Unemployment

Keepinghouse – 12%

Going toschool – 4%

Looking forwork – 8%

Unable towork – 7%

Other – 3%

Working – 66% Not working – 34%

Work Status and Reasonsfor Not Working (12–15 months after leaving assistance)

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Employees in the low-wage sector are plaguedby uncertainty. It’s not unusual for businessesto cut back on positions suddenly or to dis-miss workers for the slightest cause—one toomany days away with a sick child or hoursmissed because of an unreliable car.

Do Employers Care about theLives of Low-wage Workers?Sometimes, workers get to the point wherethey realize that the low wages they’re makingare so inadequate, they have to seek anotherjob. Respondents said the low-wage workinglife is an unpredictable, bumpy road of beingemployed one day and out of work the next.

Elana Heiser powerfully illustrates this point.A divorced woman of mixed race in her thir-ties — and the mother of five children (someof whom live with their fathers) — Heiser wasengaged in a painful custody battle for severalyears. Even at the height of the legal complica-tions, she was told by her AFS case managerthat she had to find a job.

“They’re so wrapped up in their policies thatthey don’t look at the individual,” Heiser said.She maintains that she and her family wouldhave achieved a stronger sense of stability ifshe had been able deal with crises beforebeing forced to work.

But Heiser did go to work. And just aboutevery job she found was temporary. She either

S E C T I O N V — N O N - E M P L O Y M E N T A N D U N E M P L O Y M E N T40

Rank Order Employed Not Employed

1 Available jobs have low pay (13%) Own health (20%)

2 Transportation problems (11%) Transportation problems (11%)

3 Cost of child care (9%) Lack of training, skills (11%)

4 Lack of training, skills (8%) Permanent disability (9%)

5 Own health (8%) Other barriers (9%)

6 Can’t find quality child care (7%) Pregnancy (6%)

7 Jobs have irregular hours (6%) Cost of child care (6%)

8 No jobs available (5%) Can’t find quality child care (6%)

9 Other barriers (3.5%) Available jobs have low pay (5%)

10 Jobs available don’t have benefits (3%) Being in school (5%)

11 Trouble with child care (3%) Jobs have irregular hours (4%)

12 Pregnancy (1%) No jobs available (3%)

13 Domestic violence (1%) No adequate place to live (2%)

14 Being in school (<1%) Trouble with child care (2%)

15 Permanent disability (<1%) Jobs available don’t have benefits (3%)

Top 15 Barriers to Getting and/or Keeping a Job

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was fired or left the position by mutual con-sent, because of the constant interferencecaused by court dates, calls from attorneys,and the like. Her family life grew increasinglyunstable as Heiser was financially and emo-tionally pummeled, and she found herselfunable to maintain a steady course for herselfand her children.

After her legal situation calmed down, Heisersought a job that would truly get her back onher feet. But her AFS case manager pressuredher to quickly secure employment, no matterwhat it was. Heiser argued that it was betterto remain unemployed for a few weeks ormonths so she could hold out for a decent job,

one with a good salary, benefits, and opportu-nities for advancement. “I really don’t want ajob I’m not going to be happy at,” she saidduring her second in-depth interview. “Itdoesn’t work for me to go out and get a job, arun-of-the-mill job and then get back on assis-tance in a few months.”

To push Heiser and others like her into jobsbefore their lives are stable enough for goodemployment is to court disaster and perpe-tuate hardship. The frequent bouts of non-employment and unemployment experiencedby those we spoke to, once again, reveals theneed for stable, living-wage jobs that offersome hope for advancement.


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Food StampLeavers

TANFDiverted

Employed

Not Employed

56.5%

43.5%

48.1%

51.9%

38.5%

61.5%

63.3%

33.7%

100%

90%

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

10

20

30

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50

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70

80

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%

%

%

%

%

%

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%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

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%TANFLeavers

50.7%

49.3%

29.3%

70.7%

povertyline

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Work Status in Relation to Poverty Status

Note: Poverty status measured in relation to “last month’s family income,” Second Survey

What Happens When PeopleWho Are Poor Get Sick?When asked to identify the primary barrier towork, 20 percent of those not employed at ourfirst survey said illness or injury had keptthem from getting or keeping a job. Eight per-cent of those who were employed told us theirown health challenges made job security pre-carious. More than one third of the respon-dents in our in-depth sample reported experi-encing serious disabilities and/or illnesses.Half of this group were unable to work orwere severely limited by their conditions.

It’s no surprise that poverty affects poorhealth. The lack of wholesome food and regu-lar meals is a major deterrent to vitality, as issubstandard housing, persistent fatigue, stressassociated with poor-quality childcare and badjobs, and anxiety over how to make ends meet.

Those who experience injury on the job, or whocome down with a serious illness or disease,often are mired in poor health for years. Low-

income families have few opportunities for sus-tained and careful healing. Many are barelyhanging on to the Oregon Health Plan, whileothers live with no health insurance at all.

Sally Arnold, a divorced mother of three chil-dren, is perhaps the most striking example ofthe challenges those with poor health faceunder the welfare system. Arnold, who diedof cancer during the course of our study, hadsought aid from welfare because her illnessso threatened her family’s financial stability.Her chemotherapy treatments, hospital stays,and surgeries caused major disruptions in heremployment—she was employed in clericalwork, accounting, and later manufacturing.Twice, she was asked to resign by employerswho could not manage with her frequentabsences. Even when she found a moresecure and supportive job, her wages weretoo low to sustain her family. At one pointwhen her income did rise to a more reason-able level, she no longer qualified for muchneeded Food Stamps.

People such as Arnold who are seriously ill faceoverwhelming difficulties in finding and keep-

S E C T I O N V — N O N - E M P L O Y M E N T A N D U N E M P L O Y M E N T42

As this report went to press,Oregon’s unemployment ratebecame the highest in thenation, reaching 8 percent as of January 2002.*

Unemployment Insurance is often inade-quate or unavailable to workers in the low-wage labor sector, because they have notbeen in the workforce long enough orbecause they are part-time workers.Welfare restructuring has greatly restrictedthe ability of unemployed workers toreceive immediate assistance.

Unemployment On the Rise (While Assistance Falls)

*Statistics citedfrom the Oregon

Labor MarketInformation System,Oregon Employment

Department.

Oregon Health Plan/Medicare

Other

None

Don't know <1%

38%

32%

29%

Types of Health InsuranceCoverage AmongRespondents

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ing a job. And yet, if they don’t find employ-ment, they are often forced to live in poverty.

For instance, Irene Miller, a woman in herearly forties who has raised three children,was plagued with health problems during ourstudy. Since leaving TANF, she had undergonetwo major surgeries related to a chronic pul-monary condition. She lives in constant painand is easily winded. She suffers from depres-sion, as well. Miller, whose main preoccupa-tion was trying to minimize her pain, couldnot maintain any kind of regular work sched-ule. Yet, when we spoke to her, she hadn’tbeen able to receive Social Security disabilitybenefits and she was cut off from TANF cashassistance, because her youngest child hadrecently turned eighteen. Her situation wasvery bleak.

Valerie Peters, a thirty-six-year-old womanwith teenage children, was diagnosed withdiabetes around the time of our interviews.Unable to seek work because of serious healthproblems, Peters, too, lost TANF cash assis-tance and, like Miller, has not been able toreceive Social Security disability payments.

Freda Perez, who lost her eligibility for FoodStamps, had to undergo major surgerybecause of a central nervous system condi-tion. Continuing health problems after thesurgery made it impossible for Perez to returnto the taxing physical work she had done formany years. She and her husband, who wasalso disabled, can no longer receive TANFcash assistance, because their children areover eighteen—even though at least one childand one grandchild still live in their home—

and have to rely on relatives for small bits offinancial help.

Others we interviewed were the only caretak-ers available for ill or hurt family members.Although this type of care has high demands,it is often not an acceptable activity under wel-fare restructuring guidelines.

Lois Taylor, for instance, was the primary care-taker for her ill mother. Taylor had to work afulltime night shift so she could care for hermother during the day. Even while she was atwork, Taylor was on-call for emergenciesconcerning her mother, a situation thatsporadically caused her to lose hours at work.Stressed, exhausted, and lacking resources,Taylor lived in constant anxiety that her con-flicting family obligations might cause her tolose her job at any moment.


Although caring for ill or hurt family membershas high demands, it is often not an acceptableactivity under welfare restructuring guidelines.

Who’s Poor in Oregon?The population in Oregon is predominatelywhite, a fact reflected in the demographics ofour study: 82 percent of our respondents werewhite. Clearly, people of color involved in thestudy—7 percent of whom were Hispanic, 4percent African-American, 3 percent AmericanIndian, 2 percent mixed race, and 1 percentAsian-American—have issues related to racethat create additional challenges for their fami-lies as they struggle to move out of poverty

During our study we found that somerespondents were consigned to agricultural,housekeeping, or other physically demand-

ing work due to language barriers. Forinstance, Lydia Mendez, a forty-four-year-old Hispanic woman with two young chil-dren, as well as an older daughter andgrandchildren, speaks Spanish and limitedEnglish. She lacks a high school degree butdoes have a computer certification. Her lackof English-language skills, however, kept herfrom getting a job in the computer industry.Since moving to Oregon, Mendez has beenstuck in low-wage jobs in canneries or inagricultural fields that require her to standfor hours and perform repetitive tasks.

Compared with whites, Latino workers are themost disadvantaged in terms of wages.

S E C T I O N V I — T H E D E M O G R A P H I C S O F P O V E R T Y 45

The Demographics

of Poverty

Nationwide, the incidence of poverty isgreater among families of color. According tothe Northwest Job Gap Study,* people ofcolor who are looking for work are more likelyto be unemployed or marginally employed.

In August 2001, the Oregon Center for PublicPolicy released a report** on economic dis-parities across race in Multnomah County, themost populous county in the state. The reportconcludes: “Blacks and Latinos togetherrepresent about 23 percent of the total work-force in the state, but 34 percent of the work-force earning less than a poverty-level wage.”

Workers of color in Oregontend to be concentrated inindustries paying lowerwages and offering contin-gent work. The OCPP reportcites some key reasons forthis—language barriers, edu-cation differences, job seg-regation, and job and wagediscrimination. Underlyingall these issues is the legacyof historic racism in Oregon, along withongoing patterns of racial discrimination.

Poverty and Race

*Northwest Job Gap Study,“Searching for Work that

Pays,” 2001.

**Leachman, et al., “WhatColor is Your Paycheck?

Disparities in Annual PayBetween White and

Minority Workers Living inMultnomah County,”

Oregon Center for PublicPolicy (August 2001).

Hispanic respondents in our study stand outstatistically as the most disadvantaged, whenwe compare their household incomes to thepoverty level. Compared with whites andother respondents of color, Hispanic familieswere much more likely to report incomesbelow the poverty line.

According to 2000 Census data, 7.4 percent ofOregon residents were born outside theUnited States (mainly arriving from Mexico,

other Latin American countries,Asian countries, Russia, orEuropean countries). Non-citizenimmigrants account for 4.9 per-cent of Oregon’s population, andare more likely to be employed inlow-wage work or to be living ator below the poverty line.*

Immigrant children, or children born in theUnited States who live in households withnon-citizen relatives, are more vulnerable topoverty as well. Language is a considerablebarrier for many immigrants, often narrowingtheir job options and limiting their ability tofind adequate housing, health care, and other

resources. The actual status of the state’simmigrant population is difficult to determine,when so many undocumented residents arenot represented in official data and are not eli-gible for public supports of any kind.

Under PWORA, immigrant eligibility forTANF and other public assistance programshas been greatly reduced. Oregon is one oftwenty-one states that do provide TANF tonon-citizen families who are able to qualify.Even so, federal restrictions often keep themfrom receiving other benefits, such as FoodStamps, Medicaid (the Oregon Health Plan),and Social Security income.

Even if immigrants are eligible, the atmos-phere of surveillance and fear that has accom-panied both welfare restructuring and immi-gration reform deter many from seeking muchneeded resources. The likelihood is high forlabor exploitation and hardship within such amarginalized population.

S E C T I O N V I — T H E D E M O G R A P H I C S O F P O V E R T Y46

“Greater fluency in English results in higherearnings. Those workers living inMultnomah County who reported speakingEnglish ‘well’ or ‘very well’ earn about$22,000 in an average year, while workerswho speak English ‘not well’ or ‘not at all’earn just $14,000. Even those bilingual andmultilingual workers who speak Englishwell, though, do not earn as much asworkers who speak only English.”

— Leachman, et al., “What Color is YourPaycheck? Disparities in Annual PayBetween White and Minority WorkersLiving in Multnomah County,” OregonCenter for Public Policy, 2001

“Many Hispanic workers, especially thosewith limited English abilities and less thanhigh school educations, can only find jobswhere their co-workers don’t speakEnglish and/or where there are very limit-ed opportunities for advancement. Thissegregation of the worker is often associ-ated with little or no on-the-job trainingthat would prepare workers for betterjobs.… Most jobs in agriculture, primarymaterials processing (especially agricultur-al products), hotels, fast food outlets,restaurants … domestic laborers, to namea few, have such limitations.”

— M. McGlade, & M. Dahlstrom, “SalirAdelante: A Needs Assessment of theHispanic Community in MultnomahCounty,” Latino Network, 2001, p. 14

*M. Leachman, et al,“Improving the

TANF Program forLegal Immigrants:Recommendations

based on theOregon experience,”

Oregon Center forPublic Policy, 2002,

p. 1.

Does the Low-wage Sector Discriminate?Patterns of discrimination and segregation inthe low-wage sector tend to position minoritywomen at the bottom of the earnings hierarchy.Linda Perkins, an African-American respondentin her late thirties who is raising two children,described experiences that point to institution-alized racism. Although she worked as headhousekeeper in the same establishment for six-teen months and had supervisory duties, shemade only $7 per hour with no benefits.Perkins was ambitious and received excellentratings on her evaluations. Yet, she was stuckwith wages that could not possibly supporther family.

The exploitation she experienced at the work-place was troubling: If other employees did notshow up for work, Perkins was expected tocover for them. If business at the motel sloweddown, she was expected to cut her hours. Andher schedule was so erratic, she could notmake proper arrangements for her children.

Perkins’s case is an example of a larger patternof disproportionate poverty among people ofcolor. While policy makers disagree about theextent to which racial discrimination shapesemployment and earnings, the experiencesshared by families of color in our study sug-gest that continued racial discrimination inter-sects with new welfare policies in ways thatdisadvantage children of color.


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Asian

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Black

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Race and Poverty

Note: Poverty status measured in relation to “last month’s family income,” Second Survey

Our study also reveals troubling evidence thatwelfare restructuring is harder on poorwomen than poor men. Across the low-wagesector, women tend to earn lower wages thanmen. In fact, women in our study typicallyearned only 70 percent of what men earned.

Does Labor Have a Gender Divide?While women earn less than men in the laborforce, they are expected to take care of manyfamily responsibilities in ways that dramati-cally affect their work options and choices.

Caring for children and aging parents, cook-ing, shopping, cleaning—domestic life is over-whelmingly the purview of women. And allthat work is invisible to the welfare system, atleast it appears to be when one looks at theexpectations placed on these individuals bycase workers and state policies.

Ivy Jacobs is a disturbing example of how lit-tle caring for children seems to be valuedunder welfare restructuring. A fifty-year-oldAfrican-American woman, Jacobs found her-self the sole caretaker for her grandson afterher daughter disappeared. She receives nochild support and, although she receives asmall TANF grant for the boy, she herself isnot entitled to TANF assistance because she isa grandparent, not a parent. She is sole care-taker with the monumental task of raising hergrandchild, even though she recently experi-enced a small stroke.

At the time of our interview, Jacobs was sur-viving on a pittance of cash assistance andFood Stamps. Unable to find steady work, sheand the boy were living in a noisy, dirty areaof town in squalid conditions. Even then,Jacobs did not know how she would pay therent. Left with few resources, she felt helplessand alone. Clearly, welfare’s income support

S E C T I O N V I — T H E D E M O G R A P H I C S O F P O V E R T Y48

The Oregon Center for PublicPolicy* found that AfricanAmericans in Oregon are “mostlikely to work in clerical and non-managerial service occupations.”More than 41 percent of all blackworkers in the state are employedin such low paying-jobs.

Job Segregation by Race

*Leachman, et al.,“What Color is Your Paycheck?Disparities in Annual Pay

Between White andMinority Workers

Living in MultnomahCounty,” OregonCenter for PublicPolicy, 2001, p.5.

Women

Men

$200 $400 $600 $800 $1,000 $1,200 $1,400 $1,600 $1,800

$939

$966

$1,325

$1,348

12-18 months after leaving assistance

21-24 months after leaving assistance

Mean Monthly Earnings: Men and Women

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system has a jagged crack in it for familiessuch as Jacob’s.

While Jacobs’s circumstances are extreme,other women we interviewed faced similarproblems. Nearly every woman in our in-depth sample voiced concern about the impos-sibility of balancing duties at home and atwork. Some expressed concern about theimpact time away was having on their chil-dren. Deep fatigue and unrelenting anxietywere taking a toll. “I come home, I’m tired,”said Janet Philips. “I’ve been on my feet all

day. My lower back is killing me. I’ve still gotdinner to make, get us all in the shower and tobed. There’s no quality time here.”

TANF leaver Janis Woods, a woman in herearly twenties, was supported by her case-worker in completing an Associate degree.When we last spoke with her, she was relievedto be placing her child in a better daycare.Since Woods and her husband both have full-time jobs, they were able to afford the higherfees. Even though the cost represents a contin-ual strain for the family, Woods said it isworth it for the peace of mind it gives her con-cerning her son’s care.


The earnings advantage of men persistswhen we look at earning differences bygender in both part-time and fulltime jobs.Our sample is similar to the U.S. popula-tion as a whole when we consider genderand work. Married women are in the paidlabor force at lower proportions than non-married women. Married men are moreoften employed than married women. Andoverall, women earn about 70 percent ofwhat men do.

Source: “Labor Force Participation Rates by MaritalStatus, Sex, and Age: 1960 to 1999,” Statistical Abstractof the United States, U.S. Census Bureau

The Gender Gap

Policies that force women into the labor market without

ensuring good childcare or adequate income tend also

to force women into relationships with men that can be

damaging to themselves and their children. For some,

having a man to help around the house and with the family

income seems like the only route to economic security.

Does “Welfare Reform”Provide a Route Out of Poverty?Gloria Mason, a young African-Americanwoman, cried the first time she dropped herchildren—three and four years old—at day-care. Like many mothers, Mason found itwrenching to leave her preschoolers in astranger’s care so she could go to work. “I fig-ured this is life,” the twenty-one-year-old tolda CSWS interviewer. “This is what being asingle mother is all about—working and notseeing your kids half the time.”

Mason expressed feelings shared by most ofthe single mothers who participated in ourstudy: Yes, she would like to stay home andraise her children but understands that, underwelfare restructuring, the complicateddemands of paid employment come first. Anadded frustration is the few educationalopportunities available that might offer hopefor a stronger, more prosperous future.

Mason wants to continue her education, whichshe sees as the only route out of poverty.However, welfare restructuring does not rec-ognize higher education or “hard-skills” train-ing as legitimate reasons not to work.

Even so, Mason set a goal of earning a collegedegree, even though the community collegecourses she took clarified painfully how diffi-cult the road ahead would be. She could not

qualify for TANF benefits if she was enrolledin college and not working. Thus, Masonstruggled under the multiple roles of sole par-ent, student, and low-wage earner in a depart-ment store job, which didn’t quite coverexpenses. Mason said she did not want ahandout, but she needed support. “It’s nottruly going to get better unless I complete col-lege,” she told the interviewer. “I just don’tknow where to begin.”

S E C T I O N V I I — E D U C A T I O N , T R A I N I N G , A N D J O B A D V A N C E M E N T 51

Education, Training,and Job Advancement

“While many women are moving quicklyinto jobs, the majority of those jobs areunstable and pay very low wages. This is aresult of many welfare recipients’ low basicskills and the gender-segregated labormarket that distributes women dispropor-tionately to low-paying ‘women’s jobs.’The tendency for women welfare recipi-ents to find employment in the lowest pay-ing sectors of the labor market is exacer-bated by overall labor market trends thatshow disproportionate growth in the serv-ice sector.”

—“Working First But Working Poor: TheNeed for Education and Training FollowingWelfare Reform,” Institute for Women’sPolicy Research, 2001, p. 5

Gender Segregation and Low-wage Jobs

Like Mason, Kim Smith, a woman in her earlytwenties raising two young children by her-self, longs for an education. She wants achance to improve her family’s financial situa-tion and to have a job she looks forward toeach day. Though Smith previously earned ascholarship that has allowed her to pursue anAssociate degree in health services, she faceddaily pressures to make ends meet, survivingonly because of Food Stamps, a housing sub-sidy, and free childcare from her extendedfamily. She did not qualify for TANF becauseshe was pursuing her education, instead ofseeking employment.

Then Smith’s already tenuous situationquickly unraveled. Tired of scraping by finan-cially, she accepted a job as a cocktail waitressto earn extra funds. Just as Smith was jugglingalmost more than she could handle, her moth-er fell acutely ill and could no longer care forSmith’s children. Stuck without adequatechildcare and not enough money to hire acaregiver, Smith dropped out of school, leav-ing her with an obligation to repay $1,800 ineducational grants.

During her last interview with us, Smithdescribed a bleak family life. She worked fournights a week at her $7-per-hour job awayfrom her children, while neighbors or otherrelatives cared for them. She saw her eldestchild only on Sundays, because the child’sschool schedule kept her away from homeduring Smith’s off-work hours. Smith waschronically sleep deprived, never finding achance to catch up. And completion of schoolwas a more distant dream than ever. Smith feltas though she’d hit a dead end: In her current

job she has no access to health benefits or paidleave; she has no opportunities for skill devel-opment or job advancement of any kind.

“They’ll pay for you to work—they’ll pay foryour daycare so you can work a minimum-wage job for the rest of your life if they choseto,” Smith said. “But they won’t pay for daycarefor a year or two for you to go to school and geta degree so you can get more successful.”

Beyond the many stories we heard aboutblocked access to education and training, wefound strong correlations between educationand employment and between education andthe ability to escape poverty. Those without ahigh school diploma or with only a highschool diploma had lower employment rates.Moreover, poverty rates fell as levels of educa-tion rose. More than 80 percent of our respon-dents without a high school degree hadincomes below the poverty line, while 47 per-cent of those with some college had incomesbelow the poverty line.

Why Can’t People Who ArePoor Access Education?Mason and Smith are only two of hundreds ofTANF leavers frustrated over their inability toseek higher or continuing education. In fact,84 percent of those interviewed in our studydesired more education or training to helpthem pursue higher-wage jobs. One in fiverespondents lacked even a high school degreeor GED. Many of those with a high schooldegree were motivated to seek further

S E C T I O N V I I — E D U C A T I O N , T R A I N I N G , A N D J O B A D V A N C E M E N T52

Low-wage workers are often stuck with

the prospect of a lifetime of horizontal mobility—

from one low paying job to the next.


education as a means of improving theirchances to secure better-paying jobs.

The ones who expressed some hope foradvancement worked in public-sector jobs,growing private industries, or unionizedworkplaces. But mothers who held other typesof low-wage jobs found that, without specifictraining or degrees, their jobs offered noupward mobility.

The frustrations of the women and men weinterviewed around the lack of access to edu-cation and training resources, as well the highcost of education, points to a growing problemin Oregon’s low-wage sector: Opportunities toincrease one’s skill level are too difficult forthe working poor to find.

Can former welfare recipients work, care forfamilies, and pursue education or training

Sou

rce:

Fir

st a

nd S

econ

d S

urve

y of

Wel

fare

and

Foo

d S

tam

p Le

aver

s an

d D

iver

ted

Stu

dy

Somecollege

Somecollege

High schooldiploma

High schooldiploma

No highschooldiploma


Bachelor'sdegree orgreater

Bachelor'sdegree orgreater

Associatedegree

Associatedegree

100%

90%

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

100%

90%

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

At first survey

At second survey

Employed Not employed

40%

60%

42%

58%

34%

66%

25% 25%

75% 75%

31%

69%

10%

90%

27%

73%

26%

74%

7%

93%

Education and Employment Status

simultaneously? Survey responses from womenand men who listed “more education” as a pri-mary goal helped us answer this question.

We discovered that education is an elusivetarget for low-wage workers. Out of the 756people we interviewed twice, only fifteenhad obtained a high school diploma in thetwo-year period of the study, even though 20percent of our respondents lacked this.Others made limited progress toward aneducational goal, though very few were ableto gain educational skills that would lead tobetter jobs.

What Makes EducationalAttainment Possible?

One woman who did earn a degree during thetime of our study is Janis Woods, a woman inher early twenties with a three-year-old son.Prior to earning her degree, Woods hoppedfrom one low-wage, low-skill job to another.The education she subsequently received—with the support of her welfare caseworker—greatly boosted her family’s economic stability.

With an Associate degree in hand, Woodsfound a permanent job in a state office, where

S E C T I O N V I I — E D U C A T I O N , T R A I N I N G , A N D J O B A D V A N C E M E N T54

Sou

rce:

Sec

ond

Sur

vey

of W

elfa

re a

nd F

ood

Sta

mp

Leav

ers

and

Div

erte

d S

tudy

100%

90%

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

%

58%

42%

46%

54%

44%

56%

59%

41%

73%

27%

Somecollege

Highschooldiploma


Bachelor'sdegree orhigher

Associate'sdegree

povertyline

Bel

ow P

over

ty L

evel

Abo

ve P

over

ty L

evel

Educational Attainment and Poverty Level

Note: Includes all three sample groups — TANF leavers and diverted and Food Stamp leavers

she receives regular raises, promotions, andcomprehensive benefits. The last time weinterviewed Woods, she was attending collegenight courses to finish a four-year degree.Woods was able to pursue her educationbecause of the support of her caseworker, whoallowed her to finish a community collegeprogram while receiving TANF. To a greatdegree, Woods’s access to an advanced educa-tion has led to a more stable income and betterprospects for the future.

Sharon Janey, an African-American woman inher thirties, is an example of someone whofound a good deal of stability through a train-ing program. Previously employed in child-care, Janey began taking computer classes at alocal community college after work. Eventhough she lamented the large periods of timeaway from her son—two days a week theydidn’t even see each other—she realized thatenduring the grueling schedule of fulltimework and night classes paid off.

At our last interview, Janey had just accepteda position with a growing company and waspromised benefits, the potential for raises, andopportunities for growth. She even had begunsaving for a down payment on a house.Though she voiced no regrets, Janey said shewished she’d received more support for herdesire to gain new skills. “How can I be self-sufficient and work at the same time and go toschool?” she asked. “I don’t know. Unless youdo it at night. Well, when do you have time tobe with your family?”

Clearly, there is more the system can and mustdo to move from an emphasis on reducingwelfare caseloads to reducing poverty.


Is “Welfare Reform”Reducing Poverty in Oregon?Oregon’s Progress Board, an independentplanning and oversight agency created in1989, reports annually to the state legislatureon benchmarks meant to reflect Oregon’s goalof poverty reduction. Over the past threeyears, the Progress Board has assessed manycritical benchmarks and noted that povertyrates in Oregon are still too high, especially forchildren, women raising children on theirown, families of color, and the elderly.

In 1999, the Progress Board reported that evenfulltime work did not guarantee sufficientincome to provide a family’s basic needs. In

2001, the board reported that therate of families at or below thepoverty line has remained steadyover the past five years, despite theraise in Oregon’s minimum wageand a growing economy.*

Well before these findings were released,Oregon had set a new course on welfarerestructuring. The state was the recipient of afederal waiver allowing for changes severalyears before the federal reform law passed.Thus, Oregon had a system in place beforemany states. Between 1996 and 1999, the periodafter reform, Oregon saw a 45 percent reduc-tion in the number of its welfare recipients.

Yet researchers across the state have collectedevidence that welfare caseload reduction is nota proxy for poverty reduction, suggesting thatmuch more work needs to be done to reduceeconomic hardship and enhance child andfamily well-being.

Rather than assume from statistics that fami-lies have achieved stable economic lives, reau-thorization presents a challenge to confrontthe actual conditions of those—employed ornot—who have left welfare. Reauthorizationof welfare carries with it a significant opportu-nity to shift the focus of restructuring fromwelfare caseloads to reducing poverty.

Well-being for low-income families requiresliving wages, expanded childcare benefits,affordable housing, accessible health care, andtraining and education that lead to better jobs.Family well-being also requires the time andresources to care for one’s family.

Low-wage work may never lead to povertyreduction. While families across income levelsexperience the high cost of living in a work-first society— a culture that requires parentsto make hard choices between their jobs andtheir children— low-income families feel thestrain most acutely.

Today’s welfare program encourages parentsto make work a higher priority than their chil-dren. Even though we know society itselfends up paying the price for the lack of fami-

C O N C L U S I O N — S E T T I N G A N D M E E T I N G T H E G O A L O F P O V E R T Y R E D U C T I O N 57

Setting and Meetingthe Goal of

Poverty Reduction

*Oregon ProgressBoard, Achieving the

Oregon ShinesVision: The 2001

BenchmarkPerformance Report,

2001

ly care for children and adolescents, there isstaunch opposition to financial support formothers who want to stay home and tend totheir own.

Restructured welfare catches mothers in a diffi-cult bind. Issues surrounding care for childrenin low-income families have not been examinedclosely enough in studies of welfare restructur-ing, on which policy makers now rely.

Oregon’s legislature has set a goal to reducepoverty as part of the public policy effort tostrengthen the state’s economy. And yet,over the past ten years, policy changes andtax relief have aided primarily middle-classand wealthy families. Even though a viableservice/clerical workforce is essential for astrong economy, the most pressing needs oflow-wage workers are too often overlookedor disregarded.

Only improved pay and working conditionswill overcome poverty. At the same time, it’simportant to recognize that some Oregoniansare in situations that prevent them from work-ing, often only temporarily, and these familiesneed the supports offered by public assistance.

The gap between the wealthiest and the poor-est sectors in Oregon and nationwide contin-ues to grow. Poverty rates in Oregon still areas high as 20 percent for children. A seriouswage disparity between men and women andbetween whites and people of color persists.

There is little recognition of the importance ofwork and care in the home, most often doneby women. And many public policy/economicdevelopment programs pay scant attention torural areas. It is critical to consider the needsof Oregon’s poor families outside Portlandand the Willamette Valley regions. But evenliving in the valley does not protect workersduring economic downturns.

To help all Oregon families thrive, we mustguarantee a standard for well-being. Whenheads of households who are unable to workare penalized for failing to meet work require-ments, or when they are inadvertently pun-ished for exceeding income levels for safety-net programs and lose essential aids, entirefamilies feel the negative results.

C O N C L U S I O N — S E T T I N G A N D M E E T I N G T H E G O A L O F P O V E R T Y R E D U C T I O N58

In a recent report,* the Children’s DefenseFund reviewed welfare-to-work data from

several programs in order to lookmore closely at the effects of wel-fare restructuring policies on chil-dren. The most significant findingsindicate that child well-being isstrongly associated with programs

promoting increases in family income. Well-being is adversely affected by programs thatresult in losses in family income:

“The well-being of children was at the heartof concerns raised by both backers and critics

of the 1996 national welfare overhaul. Yet,until recently little has been known abouthow children fare when welfare policies shift.Research cannot yet isolate the reasons forthe success of the income-lifting programs.”

The lack of good measures of children’s well-being makes it difficult to address the needsof children in families that are poor. Theauthors of the report maintain: “Rather thanasking, ‘Is welfare reform working?’ policymakers should ask which policy changes arehelping children and which are not working.”

The Effects of Welfare Restructuring on Children

*S Arloc, “HowChildren Fare in

Welfare ExperimentsAppears to Hinge

on Income,”Children’s DefenseFund, 2001, p. 3.

If the goal is to end poverty, support mustinclude more than the mandate that heads ofhouseholds find jobs.

Recommendations

Promote Living-wage JobsThe well-being of our respondents was pro-foundly linked to the wages they earned.Respondents described the stress of managingon too little money, the anxiety of never beingable to get ahead, and the sadness of beingunable to meet the basic needs of their children.

Too few of those employed earn decent wages,a problem that cannot be solved without poli-cies that support the development of higher-wage jobs and meaningful job ladders in thelow-wage labor force. Additionally, the mini-mum wage should be sufficient to ensure thatfulltime employment brings a family’s incomeabove the poverty line.

Strengthen the Safety NetMore than 200 respondents voiced concernabout program eligibility, specifically thelimits for safety-net programs on which theydepend to stay afloat. Many asked for a sys-tem in which benefits decrease more graduallywhen people are working, instead of anabrupt loss of Food Stamps, childcare subsi-dies, or the Oregon Health Plan.

Families doing what they can to gain groundshould not suffer the loss of the very benefitsthat could help them make positive strides.

State tax policy should be changed to providerefundable state EITC and childcare subsidies,

so that the poorest residents of the state bene-fit along with those with higher incomes.

The state should increase and target outreachefforts so that low-income families with andwithout an employed breadwinner under-stand and can access public assistance pro-grams for which they are eligible.

Offer More ChildcareOptions

Family well-being depends partly on the qual-ity of care for children. Yet more than one-third of our sample reported problems withchildcare, most commonly problems with cost,accessibility and quality. More than half of therespondents with children under the age of sixreported problems with childcare. Even thosewho said they were satisfied with their child-care faced cumbersome and precarious logisti-cal arrangements.

Our respondents called for more and variedchildcare options to meet the diverse needs ofpoor families, including

• expanded eligibility for subsidized child-care

• increased funding for childcare, to broadensupport for families and improve workingconditions for providers

• support for childcare resources outside aneight -to-five work schedule

• benefits to mothers who require maternityand postpartum leave from workplacesthat lack such insurance

• allowance for parental choice — so moth-ers who want to can remain in the home asprimary care provider for infants and veryyoung children.


The above suggestions are all crucial elementsin the argument to end the arbitrary five-yeartime limit on welfare. Many continue to needto care for family members, or struggle withhealth or other problems.

Create Affordable Housing

Only with strong policies regarding affordablehousing will families overcome hardship.

Thirty-eight percent of our respondentsreported moving or changing residences with-in the previous eighteen months, signifying adegree of instability around housing that’s amajor impediment to family well-being.

At the same time, one-third of our respon-dents received rental subsidies, obtainedlow-income house loans, or lived rent-free,which gave them opportunities to establishstable homes.

These programs should be expanded so thatpeople like Sue Jackson, a Food Stamp leaver,can create suitable living conditions. Jackson,who works fulltime and makes $8.65 per hour,was able to purchase a three-bedroom housefor herself and her two daughters because shefound a loan through a federal program. Likemany of the people we spoke to, Jacksonnoted that housing subsidies make economicsurvival possible.

Make Health Care Available to All

Oregon’s official long-range planning goal isthat 96 percent of Oregonians will havehealth insurance coverage by 2010. If thisgoal is to be met, the Oregon Health Plan

must be expanded, and income levels thatdisqualify low-wage workers must be reex-amined. To ensure that Oregon meets thisgoal federal dollars for Medicaid and otherhealth insurance programs for poor familiesmust be increased.

However, today’s shrinking state budget isleading to proposals to reduce coverage,reductions that most directly affect poor fami-lies. Many of the families to whom we spokeearned barely over the level to remain eligiblefor the Oregon Health Plan, yet they could notafford other insurance. When health benefitsare offered through their workplaces, the pre-miums are often unmanageable.

Lucy Anderson is a case in point. When shetook on a short-term, part-time job to get outof debt, she became ineligible for the OregonHealth Plan. Anderson couldn’t afford privateinsurance and, because she could no longerpay for the medications she needs to maintainher health, she began rationing her pills andavoided seeing her physician. Because shemade a few dollars over the limit—and onlytemporarily—Anderson’s health was quicklyin jeopardy.

Without the safeguard of insurance, low-incomepeople have little choice but to push criticalhealth issues aside, which can cause long-termand even more serious health problems.

Income eligibility for subsidized health careshould be expanded to ensure that all familiesreceive some health insurance coverage.Moreover, tax credits and other strategiesshould be employed to encourage moreemployers to provide affordable, high-qualityinsurance to employees and their families.


Encourage Education and Training

Many respondents want increased access toeducational opportunity, particularly to high-er education that will open options foremployment and enhance their family’s finan-cial stability. A smart poverty reductionapproach to welfare restructuring wouldenable those in school to receive TANF, FoodStamps, OHP, and childcare. This assumptionis supported by ample evidence—that educa-tion and training lead to better jobs and long-term employment.

An expansion of the federal twelve-monthtime limit for vocational education and train-ing—along with a much broader definition oftraining that includes the attainment of “hard”skills—are needed to move workers to higher-wage employment. Funding for training andeducation through the Workforce InvestmentAct should be increased. This kind of invest-ment pays off in multiple ways for familiesand for the larger society.

Support Program Flexibility

States need a degree of flexibility to respondto the structural reasons for poverty that affectdifferent groups, including women, families ofcolor, legal immigrants, people with disabili-ties, and people in rural communities or com-munities without an adequate supply of jobs.

In Oregon, Hispanic respondents are morelikely to have family incomes below thepoverty line, compared to other respondents.If federal regulations prohibit the provision ofTANF to legal immigrants who have lived inthe United States less than five years, manychildren are adversely affected.

Moreover, as long as the wages of women,especially women of color, continue to belower than those of men, and while womenstill bear disproportionate responsibility forcaring for children, economic supports forfamilies headed by women will be necessaryto foster family and child well-being.

Furthermore, families in some rural areas haveneither the job opportunities nor many of thehuman and educational services available tothose who live in many urban areas. Yet theyare subject to the same rules and regulationsconcerning employment and employment-related activities, often subjecting them toextreme hardship.

One size does not fit all, and policies that failto take into account the particular needs ofthese different populations are both unfair andlikely to be ineffective.

Respond To Client Needs

When people receiving assistance are treatedwith respect, and when their situations areassessed in a timely and careful manner, theyare more likely to be helped out of poverty.Many public welfare workers put in greateffort to improve the lives of clients, but theyare too often limited by budgetary restrictionsand problematic rules in doing quality work.

Workers are forced to carry high caseloads,leading to client stereotyping. This can meanthey view their clients as poor welfare recipi-ents, rather than as individuals.

Our respondents had many suggestions deal-ing with AFS policies and procedures. Aboveall, they wanted to be treated with respectand dignity.


In fact, despite suffering hardship, some ofthose we interviewed were glad to be off assis-tance—not because they didn’t need it, butbecause they no longer had to endure “has-sles” and “put downs.” Many were greatlyrelieved at being released from “the system.”

Gloria Mason, for one, said she was glad to beoff welfare, where she felt disrespected. “Theytreat you like you’re always trying to get oneover them,” she recalled. “They make you sofrustrated sometimes that you don’t ever wantto deal with them.”

A large proportion of respondents clearlyindicated a need for welfare agency policychanges. Suggestions included improvingcaseworker attitudes and decreasing the cli-mate of shame. Many hoped for more indi-vidualized attention, while others wantedmore skilled caseworkers and more carefulrecord keeping.

An End to Poverty?Ending poverty requires workforce develop-ment, including the creation of jobs that payenough to keep families from a daunting stateof economic hardship. Changes in tax lawsand a host of other policies that are outsidethe purview of TANF reauthorization are alsonecessary. Furthermore, it is necessary to cre-ate a coordinated anti-poverty effort at boththe state and federal levels.

When state agencies become fragmented overresponsibilities in regard to welfare, poorwomen and men fall through bureaucraticcracks. The goal of ending poverty requiresthat agencies work together in clearly delin-eated and complimentary roles and that statesreceive sufficient flexibility and resources toaddress the causes and solutions to povertyfaced by their residents.

In reforming welfare, lawmakers now face anumber of challenges:

• how to create a system that encourageswork with decent wages and hope forlong-term stability

• how to maintain a safety net for those forwhom employment is not a realistic long-term option

• how to provide services that actually helppeople deal with barriers to work and eco-nomic well-being

• how to support unpaid but socially neces-sary family care work

• and how to pursue economic and laborforce policies that reduce economic polar-ization, poverty, and social inequalities.

Across the nation, anti-poverty advocates,researchers, and low-income people, such asthose who participated in our study, are urg-ing lawmakers to remedy problems that existin the current welfare policies, and to create asystem that not only makes work pay but rec-ognizes the value of the unpaid work of caringfor family members in the home.

The clearest result of our two-year study ofOregon families is that there is still muchwork to be done. And that work requiresmore than “tinkering,” a well-drawn planthat encompasses stronger efforts for povertyreduction.

Extrapolating from Oregon low-income fami-lies, it’s obvious that a national, unified effortis necessary to help our country’s disadvan-taged families.

This is a historical moment when security isat the top of our national agenda. Real nation-al security depends on enhancing the eco-nomic security of all of America’s familiesand individuals. Yet, there is a national crisisplaying out in far too many family homes, as


hunger, despair, and financial anxiety taketheir tolls. It is time to stop using “welfarereform” as a false proxy for much needed eco-nomic reforms that are critical to reversingtroubling social and economic ills that rundeep in U.S. society.

We can reverse the economic and political dis-enfranchisement that is harmful to so manywith policies that are fair, affordable, and thatvalue both paid work and the necessary workof caring for and sustaining families.


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B I B L I O G R A P H Y 65

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