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CalWorks in Los Angeles County: Two case studies of time limits and a discussion of marriage policy

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Content Copyright 2004
CALWORKS IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY:
TWO CASE STUDIES OF TIME LIMITS
AND A DISCUSSION OF MARRIAGE POLICY
by
Sonya Maryann Geis
A Professional Project Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
JOURNALISM
(PRINT JOURNALISM)
August 2004
Sonya Maryann Geis
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90089-1695
This thesis, written by
Scn'YA _____________
under the direction o f h fc r thesis committee, and
approved by all its members, has been presented to and
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Table of Contents
Abstract...................................................................................................................................iii
Chapter 1: Timing off welfare in Pasadena..........................................................................1
Chapter 2: Cambodian Americans hit hard by welfare time limits.................................. 9
Chapter 3: The new frontier of welfare policy: M arriage..............................................17
Bibliography.......................................................................................................................... 24
ii
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Abstract
CalWorks, California’s version of the federal welfare program (Temporary
Aid to Needy Families, or TANF), includes a five-year lifetime limit for adults to
receive cash benefits. Adults in Los Angeles County began losing welfare benefits in
January 2003.
This paper presents two cases studies of communities affected by this lifetime
limit on welfare recipiency. Chapter 1 describes the impact of the policy on families
and social services in Pasadena. Chapter 2 describes Cambodian American families
who have lost welfare benefits in Long Beach.
Chapter 3 discusses one aspect of the federal bill to reauthorize the TANF
program, H.R. 4. The chapter presents the controversy surrounding a provision in the
bill to include money for marriage promotion as a novel approach to ending poverty.
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Chapter 1: Timing off welfare in Pasadena
PASADENA—Last year, Andrea Tyler was struggling. The single mother of
two had little work experience, no high school diploma and no job. She had been on
welfare nearly five years.
Then one afternoon, the daily struggles were overshadowed by disaster: her
small house and most of her possessions went up in flames. No relatives could take
them in. She was a renter with no insurance. Her savings went "real fast," she said.
Worse, since the fire, Tyler has "tim ed off welfare,” in the jargon of the new
welfare-reform era, and is no longer eligible for federal benefits. For the last 16
months, she and her children have shuttled from one homeless shelter to another.
Tucked into small rooms and dingy apartments across the San Gabriel
Valley, formerly welfare-dependent families such as Tyler's are struggling to come
to grips with a new welfare policy: the Personal Responsibility and Work
Opportunity Act of 1996.
That law set a clock ticking. After five years of benefits, the adult portion of
every welfare check is permanently cut. It's the first time the safety-net program for
women and children has been time-limited since President Franklin Roosevelt
introduced the concept of federal welfare 70 years ago.
A little more than a year after the first California welfare recipients hit the
five-year time limit, Tyler and others in her position are now facing life without
federal assistance. While she's by no means clear about how she's going to make it,
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Tyler, 28, remains optimistic. "W e'll be fine without welfare, because poor is a state
of mind," she said.
Tyler is calm and quiet as she describes the events that led her to Door of
Hope, an independent Christian residence for homeless families in Pasadena. She
pushes back her neatly twisted hair, and smiles when she talks about her children.
Her daughter listens silently from a lower bunk where she sits doing her hair. Her
son plays quietly on the bed above.
" I see a lot of people—they get kind of lost when there's no aid, no shelter,"
she said. " I found myself getting kind of lost."
"There were many times I just wanted to lay here and cry. ... But I still have
children to raise."
A welfare check would help her family get back on its feet and into a place
they could call home, Tyler said. "T hat way I wouldn't have to have my 12-year-old
and 7-year-old in the same room with me and my husband."
But for Tyler, no more welfare checks will be coming.
In Los Angeles County, a mother with two children who is not working will
see her income drop from $704 to $568 per month. To a family subsisting on the
margin, that income can make the difference between getting by and desperation.
LaSandra Johnson, 31, rents a small house for $600 per month in Northwest
Pasadena for herself and her four children, ages 1 to 10. Her check, too, has been cut,
and "rent's fixing to go up," Johnson said.
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The welfare income provisions are complex. They depend on the number of
children in the family, whether the adult has found work and how much money the
family earns on its own. If family members work, look for a job or are in school at
least 32 hours per week, the county welfare office will supplement their income.
Once a parent is working the county provides childcare and transportation,
but timed-off families must look for a job on their own.
Johnson, a thin, listless woman with round glasses, has not found work. "I'm
needing a job real bad. It's hard because I can't go nowhere with no car and these
kids," she said flatly.
Many families go on welfare for just a short period, or cycle on and off as
their financial fortunes rise and fall. Some, unwilling to work or unable to find a job,
refuse to participate in the work requirements; they will see their checks reduced
even before they hit the five-year time limit.
Mario Puente, a supervisor in the Pasadena DPSS office, said attitude is a big
factor in who finds work. Puente, who has worked in the welfare system for 15
years, said time limits can push people to take the job search seriously.
"O nce a participant knows that they have only five years, those that are
motivated are going to get a job," he said.
Women who stay on welfare five years in a row tend to be, like Tyler, single
mothers with long periods of unemployment and no high school diploma, according
to a 2003 report by Economic Roundtable, a research group that studied welfare
reform in Los Angeles.
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By last November, over 21,000 Los Angeles County adults such as Tyler and
Johnson had reached the end of their welfare benefits. Most of them were heads of a
household with children, according to DPSS.
A patchwork of overburdened public and private programs is struggling to
respond.
Union Station Foundation opened a new 50-bed shelter for families in
Pasadena last June because of increasing demand, Larry Johnson, director of
program service, said. "The shelter remains full virtually all of the time, and could
be full if it were four or five times its size," Johnson said.
The loss of welfare benefits combined with a serious lack of affordable
housing has strained the organization's resources, he said.
Joe Colletti, executive director of the Institute for Urban Research and
Development, which measures homelessness in Pasadena, concurred: "There's no
doubt that the homeless ranks are beginning to swell with families with children."
Though a shelter is better than sleeping on the street, it can be hard on a
family. Before finding their way to Pasadena, the Tyler family stayed at the San
Fernando Rescue Mission. There they slept on thin mats on the floor for eight
months, Tyler said. The children continually got sick.
"They'd get better, but then they'd have to sleep on the floor again," Tyler
said. "They got real bad colds."
Families losing their welfare benefits are also straining food pantries and
emergency referral systems. Foothill Unity Center in Monrovia has seen traffic at its
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food pantry increase by 50 percent in the last two years, said Joan Whitenack, the
center's executive director.
And the ranks of the timed off are growing.
Private agencies are trying to prepare for the hardship to come, but "w hat
kind of preparation can you have?" Union Station's Johnson asked. "W e're talking
about thousands and thousands and thousands of people here. Which is certainly
beyond the ability of the private sector to deal with, but is also more than the city can
handle."
As families time off welfare, county workers try to equip them for the
change. Every week DPSS offers workshops in English and Spanish about the time
limits.
Turnout has been thin. Though hundreds of invitations to such meetings are
mailed out, only four middle-aged women showed up for a recent El Monte
workshop. They listened as caseworkers explained that treatment for domestic
violence, substance abuse or mental-health problems could stop the clock, allowing
them to extend their benefits. Workers also told the women how to access resources
such as low-cost legal advice and emergency cash to prevent eviction.
Bertha Cedillo, 40, jotted down the phone number for subsidized car
insurance from the front row. A big-boned woman with long bleached hair, Cedillo
said her efforts to earn a GED or find a long-term job have come to nothing. She has
spent five years in the county's job-search program and has two daughters, one of
whom has a child of her own.
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Cedillo said she is anxious to get a job before her benefits run out in six
months. She enjoyed a short-term job she held at a Ralph's grocery store replacing a
striking worker.
"I've been going back and forth, back and forth" to the welfare office,
Cedillo said. " It makes me wonder, is it me? Is something wrong with me?"
The problem is not just finding a job, but finding a job that will move a
family out of poverty before the welfare check is cut. According to Nancy Berlin, an
advocate at the Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness, many of
the jobs are minimum wage and part-time.
Many families "did what they were supposed to do: they went out and got a
job," Berlin said. "B ut they're not earning enough, and still they lose their subsidy."
Often the jobs welfare recipients take are in fast-food restaurants, said
Amanda Reza, a counselor at Pasadena employment organization Woman at Work.
Earning the minimum wage of $6.75 an hour, 40 hours per week— an
optimistic schedule, as most fast food outlets give fewer weekly hours to avoid
paying benefits— a worker would take home $270 per week.
"It's not enough money for a woman to survive, especially with children,"
Reza said.
Defeated and despondent, many no longer seek work. Economic Roundtable
found that 48 percent of those who were on welfare between 1998 and 2001 earned
no money at all in 2001.
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Tyler and her family of four get by because their food and rent are subsidized
by Door of Hope. Tyler also has help from her husband, whom she met and married
this year. He works as a supervisor at the San Fernando Rescue Mission.
They make an effort to save part of his monthly income of $1,120, plus the
$200 they receive in food stamps. Tyler searched for a job while on welfare, but
never earned enough to stop receiving checks. After she lost her house, it got harder.
"N o one wants to hire you when you're homeless and don't have anywhere to
stay," Tyler said.
According to homelessness-watcher Colletti, the welfare system asks too
much of the labor market.
"T he biggest flaw in welfare reform is, in order for welfare reform to be
successful, the county would have to generate more jobs than it ever did in its
history, including World War II, and it just isn't going to happen," he said.
Puente, the welfare-office supervisor, conceded the job search can be
difficult. "Unfortunately the economy right now is not as good as it used to be a few
years back," he said.
Nevertheless, job developers at the county stay in touch with employers in
the fast-food, retail and hotel industries, and publicize job openings, he said. "W e
wish that we could help everybody," he said. "W e are optimists here."
Tyler is also an optimist. Although she mourns the loss of government help,
she also called the welfare system " a crutch."
" I didn't want to be on (welfare) in the first place, but I needed it," she said.
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This week Tyler started the first job she has held since she became homeless,
as a braider at a local hair salon. She also expects to earn her high school diploma
this year and proudly displayed a report card filled with A ’s from a GED program.
Tyler, a "born-again believer," said her faith keeps her strong. Someday she
expects to have another house and the privacy and stability that come with it.
" It doesn't seem impossible at all," Tyler said firmly. " It is a very high
mountain, but I know I'll be able to get over it."
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Chapter 2: Cambodian Americans hit hard by welfare time limits
LONG BEACH— Him Chhim has seen his people go through hell. First the
killing fields in Cambodia in the 1970s. Next the crowded refugee camps in
Thailand. Then the long, sometimes fruitless struggle to assimilate in Southern
California.
So when Chhim talks about Cambodian Americans in Long Beach whose
welfare benefits have been diminished this year, he leans forward and lowers his
voice in urgency. His people are getting poorer, he says. They are going to bed
hungry.
Cambodian Americans are more likely to have used up their 60 months of
state welfare-to-work benefits than other ethnic groups in Los Angeles County,
records show. The trend reflects the number Cambodian American families who
have stayed on welfare for years at time, while non-immigrant groups have cycled on
and off. Those at the end of their benefits are seeing their welfare checks reduced.
“The 60 months is unfair to all of us, the mainstream and the refugee,” said
Chhim, a trim, graying man in his 60s, and a refugee himself. Chhim runs the
Cambodian Association of America, a social service agency in Long Beach.
“I say the refugee as opposed to the immigrant. The immigrant comes
prepared, their family intact, no mental health problems, no [post-traumatic stress
disorder]. Our people come with all of that. It makes it very difficult to learn English
and go to school, get a job.”
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Community leaders estimate Cambodian-Americans make up less than one-
half of one percent of the population of the county, yet they represent about 4 percent
of those who have exhausted their welfare benefits, according to data from the
county Department of Public Social Services.
The problem is not as simple as a reluctance to work. Many of those reaching
the time limit did work during the past five years, but they did not have jobs that led
to economic self-sufficiency. And many others are ill-suited to the job market,
county officials said. They are often parents of four or more children. Some never
learned to read in either Khmer or English. Some have been on welfare for 20 years
or more.
The vast majority of Cambodians who found their way to the United States
were not simply foreigners dreaming of a better life. They were holocaust survivors.
During the 1975-1979 reign of the communist Khmer Rouge, city-dwellers
and educated people were targeted for mass executions. Millions were forced into
labor camps, tortured or starved to death.
Those who arrived in the United States in the early 1980s were deeply
traumatized. Some had been tortured. They had seen their families killed. They had
nearly starved.
They were also frequently illiterate. Many were rural people who grew up in
areas without schools. These former farmers and fishermen turned to state and
federal programs, including welfare, to survive.
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“They came here and don’t have an education at all,” said Eng Lorn Yin,
himself a Cambodian refugee, now a case manager with the welfare office that
serves refugees in Long Beach. “They get a job, but it doesn’t support the family.
They try to live independently but based on their background, it’s difficult.”
Time-limited welfare
Cambodian Americans, like other ethnic groups, never lived comfortably on
welfare. But they did enjoy a degree of certainty about how much money they could
expect each month. That changed when President Clinton signed the Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act in 1996.
The bill transformed the welfare system from a state entitlement to a time-
limited program with work requirements. California’s version of welfare reform,
known as CalWorks, became law at the beginning of 1998. It set a five-year lifetime
limit for adults to receive cash aid. The childrens’ portion of a welfare check is not
time-limited.
The program requires welfare recipients to spend 32 hours per week
searching for a job, working or training for work. In return, the state will keep the
family above a minimal level of income.
The calculations for each month’s grant are complex. They depend on
amount of work, family size and the county in which the family lives. But all the
amounts are small.
In a welfare-dependent family with two adults and two children, for example,
where one person works half-time at a minimum wage job, the family will take home
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her wages - about $540 per month - plus a $652 supplement from the state. The
family may also be eligible for food stamps and MediCal.
After five years have passed, though, the adult’s portion of the welfare check
is eliminated, even if both adults have worked continuously. Two-parent families -
typical for many Cambodians - experience a steeper drop in income than single
parent families, because both adults lose their benefits. In the above example, the
family’s welfare check would plunge by 60 percent, to $391.
The effects of that kind of income decline are easy to see among Cambodians
in Long Beach, social workers say.
A lot of thinking, a lot of stress
Nou Yon and Korn Men, a married couple, have been relying on handouts to
eat since they timed out of adult welfare benefits last year. They have one child still
young enough to be eligible for welfare plus five adult children scattered around the
United States.
Men, 64, has a weather-beaten face and thick gray hair. Arthritis in all his
joints makes him move stiffly. Since they left Cambodia in 1979, he has developed
memory problems, he explains apologetically through a translator. It is difficult for
him to remember his children’s ages and birth order. He tends to think more about
Cambodia than about their life here in Long Beach.
His wife Yon says she thinks more about today’s problems. Yon, 53, has
flowing black hair and a furrowed brow, and does most of the talking for the couple.
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In April, their youngest child will age out of the welfare system, leaving them with
no welfare money at all.
“I’m very worried. There is a lot of thinking, a lot of stress,” she said through
a translator.
When the welfare rules changed to require work in 1998, Yon found a job
packing fruit for a non-profit organization. It was hard labor and was made more
difficult, she said, because she spoke no English and could not read. She could not
understand directions she was given in English and made many mistakes, Yon said.
She has never been to school.
Men, who went to school for three years in Cambodia, also briefly worked
for a non-profit. Together, their incomes still did not lift them out of poverty. Then
eight months ago, Yon lost her job. M en’s job was temporary. The couple and two of
their children who still live with them now scrape by on the welfare check intended
for their youngest child. They get donations of food from their church and other non
profits.
James Dok, director of the non-profit United Cambodian Community, said
many older people like Yon and Men find the changes in the welfare system
especially hard. The welfare changes requiring work might motivate younger people
to strengthen themselves by getting training and a job, he said. But those too old to
learn new skills and too young for Social Security income are in difficult straits.
Older people sometimes find work in grocery stores or restaurants in the
Cambodian community, Dok said. That work is often short-term and poorly paid.
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Invisible impact
Though social workers agree the welfare policy changes have had a profound
impact on poor Cambodian Americans, the effects are largely invisible to outside
eyes, said Yin, the welfare office case manager. There are two major private social
service agencies for the community in Long Beach, and the city has hired former
refugees to provide mental health counseling and help community-members access
other city services. But Cambodian Americans do not turn to homeless shelters or
raise a fuss at government agencies.
“If they don’t have enough money to pay for rent, pay utilities, they share
with somebody else,” he said. “They can stay 10 people in a two-bedroom
apartment.”
The problem also stays buried underground for cultural reasons, said Chhim.
A fear of government, stemming from the refugees’ grim history in Cambodia, fuses
with a cultural attitude of fatalism to minimize complaints to outsiders. “There’s a
tendency to believe it’s God-given: ‘I can’t do anything to get out of pain and
suffering’,” he said.
The loss of income brings along a host of related family problems, said
Raksmie Om, a case manager at the Cambodian Association of America who works
with welfare-dependent women in domestic violence situations. Since hundreds of
families have been timed off welfare in Long Beach, she said she has seen more
family violence, child neglect and substance abuse. These problems spill out into the
community and contribute to youth gangs, she added.
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Houy My, a gentle-voiced mother of four, is worried her teenage son might
be a candidate for one of those gangs. She spoke through a translator at the welfare
office for refugees in Long Beach, while her youngest daughter, a 4-year-old, slept in
her lap.
My came to the United States 23 years ago at age 19, too old for high school.
She had not been to school in Cambodia and has never learned to read. She worked
several menial jobs - dishwashing and restaurant work - before settling down to
have children.
My has not yet reached the end of her welfare benefits, but her check will be
reduced this year. And while her oldest child, a 14-year-old, earns all A ’s in school,
My said, her 13-year-old son is not doing so well.
“The boy is hard to raise because he doesn’t do well in school. He plays a lot,
and doesn’t stay home much,” she said.
Work to do
These are the stories that keep Him Chhim focused on his non-profit agency
in Long Beach while he plans his retirement in Cambodia. His organization offers
counseling, education and outreach programs. Many of these are funded by the
county.
Still, Chhim said, the government is not doing all it could. Tough rules that
use income reductions to force unemployable people into the labor market ignore the
difficulties many Cambodian Americans face when they are sent out to find a job.
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“It’s hard enough for mainstream Americans [on welfare] who have a job
here and there,” Chhim said. American citizens who speak English and are
acculturated will be first in line to get the jobs that lift a family out of poverty, he
said.
“It’s a big gap between getting out of welfare and into a job. For somebody
who doesn’t read and write, it’s an enormous gap.”
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Chapter 3: The new frontier of welfare policy: Marriage
LOS ANGELES— Rep. Wally Herger (R-Calif.) is frustrated.
Herger, a father of nine, has run nine political campaigns emphasizing family
values. Though he concedes fatherhood is not always a pleasure, he has little
patience for men who opt out of the joys of parenting and, more importantly, the
responsibility of paying for their children’s upkeep.
Too many men, he said, are content to see their children depend on state and
federal welfare programs.
“They’re not participating in raising the children they’re siring,” Herger, a
nine-term Republican from Yuba City, Calif., said by phone. “W e’ve seen American
taxpayers paying the bill because they’re not around.”
Demanding more from deadbeat dads has been a Washington, D.C., pastime
for the last decade. Now the Bush administration has introduced a new twist in the
on-going effort to bring deadbeat dads up to the mark— an effort that Herger warmly
embraces: encourage those shiftless men to marry the mothers of their children. The
men will stick around, pay the bills and raise their kids, Herger’s reasoning goes,
creating happy nuclear families where only broken homes once thrived.
Herger loves this idea. Last year he shepherded the bill to renew changes to
the welfare system through the House of Representatives. That bill included money
to persuade deadbeat dads to marry their children’s mothers, part of a larger push by
the Bush administration called the Healthy Marriage Initiative.
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The bill, H.R. 4, provides federal money for voluntary marriage counseling
and for advertisements promoting healthy marriage. Many of its supporters,
including Herger, see marriage promotion as a strategy to cut the welfare rolls even
further.
“If there are fewer single parents out there, there will be fewer who need
[welfare] to begin with,” Herger said.
The legislation has catalyzed an unusual alliance of libertarians and feminists
who smell a rat behind the therapeutically-correct language of “voluntary”
counseling and “healthy” marriage. From the right-wing Cato Institute to women’s
groups like Legal Momentum (formerly the National Organization for Women Legal
Defense and Education Fund), policy-watchers are condemning the marriage
initiative.
“It’s just not the federal government’s business,” said Michael Tanner,
director of health and welfare studies at the Cato Institute. “If they get involved in
marriage, there’s nothing the government can’t get involved in.”
The bill passed the House in February 2003, and has been locked up in the
Senate ever since. As it stands, the bill funds $200 million for marriage promotion.
The money is to be made awarded to state, secular and religious organizations to
provide relationship skills training and marriage-promotion materials.
Another $100 million will come from states matching federal dollars. The
total for the marriage initiative is $300 million per year, or $1.5 billion over five
years.
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Supporters of the initiative are reluctant to make any estimates about how
much money the government could save on reduced welfare program costs.
States are encouraged to use the money to develop their own strategies to
push marriage. Prototype programs in Oklahoma and Arizona offer pre-marital
counseling and public advertising. Utah includes marriage education in high school
civics classes. West Virginia flat-out bribes people to marry, adding $100 per month
to the welfare checks of those who do so.
“This is like 1965 Great Society liberalism,” Tanner said. “If you have a
problem, just throw money at it and see what sticks. They’re not really believers in
small government. They’re for government that serves conservative means.”
Tanner has company at the other end of the political spectrum. At Americans
United for Separation of Church and State, spokesman Jeremy Learning takes issue
with the open bidding process for marriage promotion funds. Learning described the
marriage push as part of a larger Bush administration strategy to funnel government
money to evangelical groups.
In Oklahoma, often held up by administration officials as the kind of
successful program other states might replicate, the money to promote marriage
education, relationship counseling and public advertising has almost entirely gone to
Christian groups, Learning said.
“This kind of funding just goes in line with what Bush feels is important - to
help advance religious missions,” Learning said. “I’m not saying religious missions
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are bad. They can be very, very good. It’s just that our Constitution is not set up to
advance them.”
Shortly after he took office, Bush appointed Wade Horn, formerly head of the
National Fatherhood Initiative, to oversee children and family issues at the
Department of Health and Human Services. Horn serves as the unofficial point man
for the Healthy Marriage Initiative, and was instrumental in getting money for
marriage into the welfare bill.
Horn avoids the controversial language of religion, welfare and poverty, and
dwells instead on the importance of relationship counseling and the practical tools
that make a marriage work.
During an interview on PBS’s Frontline program, Horn acknowledged the
unease many people feel about the marriage initiative, and he attempted to make it
more palatable.
“If you posed the question to low-income couples, to middle-class couples, to
anybody, to myself, ‘Do you think government should get involved in the decision
about whether someone should get married?’ the answer should be a resounding no,”
Horn said.
“On the other hand, if you asked the question differently and you say, ‘Gee,
do you think it'll be OK for government to provide financial supports for those
couples who are either already married or want to get married, so they can access
services, so they can be better problem solvers, have better negotiation skills, be
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better listeners, have the kinds of skills that we know are helpful for couples to form
and sustain healthy marriages?’ I think you'd get a different answer.”
Herger, too, while making the case for marriage as an anti-poverty strategy, is
eager to present marriage promotion as a support and not an intrusion. “Perhaps in
high school, for example, we can tell them what’s involved in parenting, the statistics
on single parents, the fundamentals in being together. This is not to force the wrong
people together. This is to help those that are the right people, so the mother is not
saddled with the entire responsibility to raise a child herself.”
“Who the hell is going to argue with voluntary therapeutic methods to
strengthen marriage?” said Sharon Hays, a sociologist at the University of Virginia
who calls the marriage initiative “deeply disturbing.” She added, “Nobody can say,
‘This is a bad thing.’ But because of the symbolic message, there’s a real problem.”
That message, said Hays, is that “the traditional family is best. All other
family formations are not only suspect, but dangerous, negative and bad for the
morality of our nation.”
Stephanie Coontz, head of the non-profit Council on Contemporary Families,
concurs. Like Hays, Coontz sees nothing wrong with offering low-income couples
the same kind of relationship-skills training that middle-class couples get from
therapists. It’s the connection to marriage that troubles her.
“The real important thing is to build healthy relationships,” she said. Many
single women “are not going to marry the father of their kids, and wouldn’t they like
counseling too? Why isn’t this available to couples who divorce and would like to
21
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co-parent more effectively? If two parents are, in fact, better than one, then they
ought to extend that to gay and lesbian parents. If it’s not about a traditional family,
then why are they not assisting people co-habiting? Some hard questions are in order
here.”
Hays, Coontz and other critics don’t dispute that there is a connection
between single-parenthood and poverty. Statistics generated by liberals and
conservatives alike show that low-income mothers are less likely to be married than
their middle-class counterparts. But, says Coontz, marriage proponents have the
causal relationship backwards. People are not poor because they have rejected
marriage - they reject marriage because they are poor.
Tanner of the Cato Institute said, “There are not a lot of marriageable men
around [in low-income communities]. Because of the war on drugs, because of
racism, whatever. They have criminal records, they’re unemployed. There’s not a lot
of doctors and lawyers waiting to marry the 16-year-old pregnant girl down the
street.”
Hays points to one of the few government programs that have been
successful in raising marriage rates and did so, she notes, without relationship-skill
building. The Minnesota Family Investment Program consolidated welfare programs,
removed financial disincentives for marriage and subsidized wages at a predictable,
comfortable level.
After three years, participants in the program were 50 percent more likely to
be married than those in the traditional welfare program, researchers at MDRC, a
22
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
non-partisan Washington, D.C. research group that studies poverty, found. Domestic
violence rates were also significantly lower.
“We know the way to get women and children out of poverty: education and
good jobs,” Coontz said. “They’re touting [marriage promotion] as a solution to
poverty, when we know as often as not, nonmarriage is a symptom of poverty, not a
cause.”
Herger does not dispute the importance of education or employment
opportunities. “Maybe there’s some [fathers] who are not employed that we can help
get employed,” he said. “Maybe there are young people we can help get a job.”
But for Herger, the goal is not employment for its own sake. The larger goal
is to create stable nuclear families. He sounds an optimistic note, hoping that high
school classes and advertisements might wake up young men to the negative
consequences of abandoning their children.
“Some of these people have never had role models. They’re single parents
bom to single parents,” he said. “W e’re trying to begin breaking that cycle.”
23
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Bibliography
Written sources
Braverman, Amy M. “Healthy, Wealthy, and Wed.” University o f Chicago
Magazine, October 2003, pp. 32-37.
Brown, Steve. “Marriage Would Replace Illegitimacy as Focus of New Welfare
Bill.” CNSNews.com, October 3, 2003,
http://www.cnsnews.com/Culture/Archive/200310/CUL20031002c.html.
Burns, Dan, Mark Drayse, Daniel Flaming and Brent Haydamack. “Prisoners of
Hope, Welfare to Work in Los Angeles.” Report prepared for the Board of
Supervisors of the County of Los Angeles, July 2003.
Frontline PBS. Interview: Wade Horn. July 12, 2002. Available from
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/marriage/interviews/horn.ht
ml.
Legal Momentum. Looking fo r Love in All the Wrong Places, The Case Against
Government Marriage Promotion. April 9, 2004. Available from
http://www.legalmomentum.org/issues/wel/lookingforlove.pdf.
Legal Momentum. State Marriage Initiatives. April 16, 2004. Available from
http://www.nowldef.org/html/issues/wel/statemarriage.shtml.
Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness. “The Peoples’ Guide to
Welfare, Health & Other Services in Los Angeles County, 2003— 2004.” Los
Angeles, 2003.
Los Angeles County Chief Administrative Office, Service Integration Branch,
Research and Evaluation Services. “Reaching Welfare Time Limits in Los
Angeles County: A study of an early cohort.” Research Brief. January 2004.
Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services. “Statistical Report.”
November 2003.
Gennetian, Lisa, Virginia Knox and Cynthia Miller. “Reforming Welfare and
Rewarding Work: A Summary of the Final Report on the Minnesota Family
Investment Program.” MDRC. September 2000.
Pear, Robert. 2004. Senate Increases Child Care Funds in Welfare Bill. New York
Times, March 31.
Pear, Robert and David D. Kirkpatrick. 2004. Bush Plans $1.5 Billion Drive for
Promotion of Marriage. New York Times, January 14.
24
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Quintiliani, Karen. “Cambodian Refugee Families in the Shadow of Reform.” In
Immigrant and Native Minority Family Development, Neighborhood
Transformation and Welfare Reform, unpublished manuscript.
U.S. Congress. House of Representatives. Personal Responsibility, Work and Family
Promotion Act o f2003. 108th Cong., 1st sess., 2003.
Interviews
Ansell, Phil. Assistant director for program and policy, Los Angeles County
Department of Public Social Services. Telephone interview. February 27,
2004.
Berlin, Nancy. Coordinate, Welfare reform advocacy project, Los Angeles Coalition
to End Hunger and Homelessness. Los Angeles, November 7, 2003.
Cedillo, Bertha. Welfare recipient. El Monte, Calif., February 18, 2004.
Chhim, Him. Executive director, Cambodian Association of America. Long Beach,
Calif., March 10, 2004.
Colletti, Joe. Executive director, Institute for Urban Research and Development.
Pasadena, Calif., February 6, 2004.
Coontz, Stephanie. Former chair, Council on Contemporary Families. Telephone
interview. May 21, 2004.
Dok, James. Executive director, United Cambodian Community. Telephone
interview. March 4, 2004.
Hays, Sharon. Associate professor of sociology and studies in women and gender,
University of Virginia. Telephone interview. April 20, 2004.
Herger, Wally. U.S. Congressman, House of Representatives. Telephone interview.
May 18, 2004.
Johnson, Larry. Director of program service, Union Station Foundation. Telephone
interview. February 5, 2004.
Johnson, LaSandra. Former welfare recipient. Pasadena, Calif., February 20, 2004.
Learning, Jeremy. Public information officer, Americans United for Separation of
Church and State. Telephone interview. May 21, 2004.
Lew, Brian. Public information officer, Los Angeles County Department of Public
Social Services. Telephone interview. February 5, 2004.
25
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Men, Korn. Former welfare recipient. Long Beach, Calif., March 12, 2004.
My, Houy. Welfare recipient. Long Beach, Calif., March 10, 2004.
Om, Raksmie. Case manager, CalWorks Domestic Violence, Cambodian
Association of America. Long Beach, Calif., March 10, 2004.
Puente, Mario. Deputy regional administrator, Los Angeles County Department of
Public Social Services. Pasadena, Calif., February 12, 2004.
Reza, Amanda. Bilingual counselor, Women at Work. Pasadena, Calif., February 4,
2004.
Tanner, Michael. Director of health and welfare studies, Cato Institute. Telephone
interview. May 18, 2004.
Tyler, Andrea. Former welfare recipient. Pasadena, Calif., February 22 and February
25, 2004.
Whitenack, Joan. Executive director, Foothill Unity Center. Telephone interview.
February 11, 2004.
Yin, Eng Lorn. GAIN/RITE case manager, Refugee Employment Training Project,
Los Angeles Unified School District. Long Beach, Calif., March 10, 2004.
Yon, Nou. Former welfare recipient. Long Beach, Calif., March 12, 2004.
26
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Asset Metadata

Creator Geis, Sonya Maryann (author)

Core Title CalWorks in Los Angeles County: Two case studies of time limits and a discussion of marriage policy

School Graduate School

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Print Journalism

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag journalism,OAI-PMH Harvest,sociology, public and social welfare

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Cray, Edward (committee chair), [illegible] (committee member), Nelson, Bryce (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-318558

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Legacy Identifier 1422411.pdf

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Document Type Thesis

Rights Geis, Sonya Maryann

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

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