| 摘要 | In their new book, “$2 a Day,” two college professors, Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer, describe a nation where – based on cash income only – 1.5 million American households live on $2 or less per day. If one includes food stamps, their estimate drops to 800,000 households. There is no real safety net they claim.
Harsh statistics, but are they true? The World Bank’s principal poverty line is $1.25 per person per day, not $2. That standard does not differentiate cash from in-kind income, so the proper measure is to include food stamps as income. In addition, often innocently, the poor routinely underestimate how much income they receive from various sources in government surveys. For these reasons, the number of destitute households in America is probably considerably below the 800,000 estimated by Edin and Shaefer.
The authors interviewed several families under the $2 line. All said that cash welfare was “dead,” that it just wasn’t given out any more. Some had tried to apply for it, but welfare agencies had made it too difficult, so they gave up. They said this even in Chicago, a major city once known for welfare.
Is welfare really dead? Did welfare reform really create this situation?
Critics however point to the other 40 percent who left the aid program without having a job. These “detached” mothers have since grown in number. Are they suffering? Critics usually cite only statistics without showing concrete evidence of harm. Edin and Shaefer claim to have found the “smoking gun” of hardship, but is welfare reform to blame?
In fact, cash welfare is still alive. This year, some 1.6 million families, or 4.2 million people, are still living on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, according to national figures. In Illinois (which chiefly means Chicago), the corresponding figures were 19,000 families or 43,000 people. It is true, as critics say, that only a third of families who are poor enough to qualify for the program now receive it. But at the same time, in 2011, the latest figures, 44 percent of all applicants were approved. Nor have all mothers who do get aid been made to work for it. In 2012, only 34 percent of cases satisfied the work test (39 percent in Illinois).
So why are many of the $2 families failing to get help? A few do not ask for aid for fear of being rejected. Government cannot help unless the needy come forward. In addition, some states have made welfare harder to get for those who seek it by demanding more paperwork or job search efforts up front. Closing the door to aid allows them to use the funds for other things.
Yet, despite the program’s heavy delegation to the states, federal administrators have not lost all authority. They should insist that localities reach out to hardship cases, perhaps insisting as well that states spend a minimum share of their Temporary Assistance for Needy Families grant on cash aid to eligible families. The program was meant to condition aid on work and set a time limit. It was not meant to abolish all aid. There is no need to abandon reform today to provide help for the truly indigent.
Edin and Shaefer also contend that hardly any of the $2-a-day-poor work regularly. According to them, some families are destitute either because they cannot find work, or the jobs they can get are too abusive and difficult to do. The fact is that jobs are probably not lacking, except in depressed rural settings. In 2014, only 8 percent of nonworking poor adults blamed inability to find work for their joblessness. The authors never mention America’s 11 million illegal immigrants, most of whom work at jobs that poor citizens might well do. More likely, the $2 adults are just less employable than other workers. While the authors call for more job creation through government programs, as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families did during the Great Recession, to date a lack of jobs has not been a serious problem in the program.
The number of families probably living on $2 a day is too small to discredit welfare reform. They are dwarfed by the many millions of poor mothers and children who gained from it. The authors propose giving away more cash to distressed families without insisting on a work requirement, but their case fails to persuade.
Paradoxically, while Edin and Shaefer call for more unconditional aid, they also report how the mothers they interviewed take great pride in working when they do. Most of them believe that their children are better off with the mother working instead of staying home. So whatever is done with welfare, it must keep a strong tie to work. Employment is still the road that leads to a better life and social integration, even for the poorest of the poor. Welfare reform may have problems, but the answer is to implement it correctly. |
