Frances Fox Piven, “The Link Between Welfare Reform and the Labor Market”
by VanessaVaile
How did we get from there to here? 1999 article by Frances Fox Piven on labor and welfare reform, from the precarious labor archives
“The Link Between Welfare Reform and the Labor Market”
Francis Fox Piven, 1999 [PDF]
I’m very glad to be here. Ed Sparer was my friend and I want
to join in honoring him. And I’m also glad for a chance to talk
about welfare policy, and its implications for social justice in our
society.
The press touts welfare reform as a great success because the
rolls are down from their peak, by 44%.1 Why is that a cause for
celebration? Because the main argument in the campaign against
welfare is that a too-liberal welfare system has had perverse effects
on the personal morality of the women and children who receive
welfare. Those presumed effects include lax sexual and
childbearing behavior; the idea that women spawn babies to get
on welfare, and that when welfare is available, the men who father
those babies can easily walk away. Even more…
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