If an individual relied on information available in the newspapers to provide an overview of the results of the radical federal welfare reform, they might conclude that all was going extremely smoothly and that the reform should have been accomplished years ago. By most reports, states are moving people off welfare and into work situations with very few setbacks. Both Republicans and Democrats are taking credit for this; the Republicans claim the philosophy that led to the reform, while the Democrats insist that it was only possible because of the booming economy.
Does this unbounded success represent an accurate picture of welfare reform nationally, and in New York state? The focus of this paper is on the condition of women and children after federal welfare reform, and whether this dismantling of protections has improved, or worsened, their lives.
According to Ruth Sidel (1996), politicians in the United States have scapegoated female headed families and made them the enemy of the state. She indicated that the end of the Cold War had left a political vacuum in terms of enemies, and that conservative politicians had filled that void with the welfare mother, the unmarried mother, and the single parent family headed by a female, among others. These were the new enemies of the state who were leading the decline of America.
This view of Sidel's seems at least partially borne out by the debate on welfare reform. For example, in testimony submitted to the House of Representatives, Gary Bauer (1996) focused on the issue of "illegitimacy", noting that it was truly the most important problem in the United States at the current time. He associated welfare reform with the preservation or restoration of the nation's moral capital, which he considered squandered and lost. The welfare system was a symbol of this, full of unwed mothers receiving benefits for their immoral behavior.
It is instructive to look at some of the langua...