EDITORIAL Welfare to work prelude to squalor
During his April 10 radio address,
President Clinton congratulated himself fulsomely on his part in ending welfare
as we knew it.
Clinton hailed those Americans previously on welfare who on April
15 would be paying taxes for the first time in a long while, a happy sign that
they are employed. Meanwhile, in many states, former welfare recipients who
never made it onto the W-2 line or who fell off -- as 30 percent did -- in the
first six months, simply found themselves hungrier than ever on April 15.
While the president called for more money from Congress to help
with additional transportation, child care and housing, he said nothing about
the need to find out whats happening to those who are falling through the
safety net.
There are groups that have taken on the work of tracking them.
NCRs cover story reports on their efforts. With more American
children going to bed hungry as a result of welfare reform, it appears that no
matter how Herculean the efforts of the voluntary social service efforts
sector, they probably cannot match the new needs created by welfare reform. Our
reporting only hints at the Dickensian squalor to come.
Pax Christi USA was a cooperating member of the two-year project
to monitor welfare reform conducted by Network, the Catholic social justice
lobby (see page TK). When Pax Christi recently called welfare reform a
denial of human rights, it recalled the forecast made by David Beckmann,
Bread for the World president, when the 1996 welfare reform bill was
enacted:
More than ending welfare as we know it, this bill will
create hunger as weve never seen before. Most of the countrys
charities and religious bodies opposed this bill. The politicians have done
what they think the voters want. But in several years, when the devastating
effects of this bill become fully apparent, decent people will be
horrified.
Two years have passed since the 1996 bill went into effect. The
first intimations of the scandals possible ahead -- especially increased child
hunger -- are being collated. Clinton would have done well to address those
realities in his radio talk.
National Catholic Reporter, April 30,
1999
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