Jessica Mena

Professor Berghof

Writing 39C

4 November 2015      

Advocacy Project

            Many African American women on welfare have been affected psychologically by the stereotype of “welfare queens” which has been continuously reinforced through media. However, the effect has not only been limited to them but has extended to other people that have been exposed to the stereotype.  The “welfare queen” stereotype has affected people’s perception about welfare spending and African American women on welfare. The concern about whether or not African American women on welfare are “welfare queens” abusing the program has grown and as a result, previous welfare policies have been adjusted or new laws have been created to lower the number of welfare recipients, to move them out of poverty and overall keep them from returning to the welfare cycle.

            During President Bill Clinton’s term he addressed the issue of welfare when he signed and when “congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity reconciliation Act of 1996” (Weaver 1). A legislation that contained “new work requirements” and also lessened the time that previous legislations gave welfare recipients to obtain welfare benefits (weaver 1). Also it provided a new program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a “block grant program” that replaced Aid to Families with Dependent children Program (AFDC), a legislation which had existed for about sixty years. Overall, the new legislation aimed to focus on many issues regarding welfare, by “providing assistance to needy families so that children could be cared for in their own homes, ending the dependence of needy parents on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage, preventing and reducing the incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies and encouraging the formation and maintenance of two parent-families” (Lopreset, Schmidt, Witte 158). Issues that raised concerns among people and that were associated with the “welfare queen” stereotype because African American welfare recipients are portrayed to be “inner city black woman who has numerous children out of wedlock, and buys drugs and Cadillacs with welfare money” (Love 1). With the goals that PRWORA aimed to achieve, it is clear that the negative stereotype of “welfare queens” influenced many politicians when addressing the impact welfare has had on the economy because it shows that they wanted to prevent recipients from abusing welfare by preventing them from having more and more children.

COMMENT: Starting from the third paragraph of this draft is where this draft differs from my first draft and my second draft. The third paragraph focuses on Bill Clinton's PRWORA. Initially I was planning to focus my paper on this legislation. That is why most of the research I did for this paper focused more on PRWORA's effect and whether it was or not affective. However, I decided not to include this one draft as my second draft of my Advocacy because I decided to conduct more research and actually include a an act that was more recent this PRWORA which was WIN For Family Act. However, with the research that I conducted about PRWORA it gave me more background knowledge about that legislation that tried to end the welfare queen stereotype by leading welfare mothers to independency, similar to the solution that I was planning to advocate.

          In addition, PRWORA and President Bill Clinton’s main focus was to “end welfare as we know it” (0:02) and to give people the opportunity to receive “paychecks” instead of “welfare checks” (0:30-0:32). Therefore; the possible solution to end high dependency on welfare and preventing increase spending towards the program was thought to be through “transforming [the] broken system that traps too many people in the cycle of dependence to one that emphasizes work and independence” as President Bill Clinton firmly affirms in his speech (0:20-0:25). However, President Clinton does not take into consideration factors that are existent within the welfare recipients which prevent them from moving out of the welfare cycle for good and successfully making it into the working system such as the psychological damages African American have because of the stereotype and other factors like lack of education, increase spending in child care, and lack of well-paying jobs. Yet, the PRWORA’s way of solving the issue was to require welfare recipients to work a require number of hours in order to receive welfare benefits, known as workfare,[1] and as a result “states had to reduce the number of families receiving cash assistance and increase the proportion of cash assistance recipients that work (Loprest, Schmidt & Witte 198). According to the article "Working without a job: The social messages of the new workfare" PRWORA was the “antithesis of the Family Support Act of 1988 (FSA) because it limited the “ability of the states to place recipients in educational and training assignments” which made it more difficult for African American women welfare recipients to be able to obtain a better paying job (Diller 23).

          Consequently, “ending welfare as we know” it like it was promised by PRWORA was not very effective because even though it did try to focus on bettering the welfare system by preventing the increase of spending on the program and moving welfare recipients towards independence, it did not provide a clear psychological solution to the effect that the “welfare queen” stereotype which has been portrayed in the media has had on African American women. PRWORA did not offer a solution to how to decrease the welfare queen stereotype which has lowered African American women’s self-esteem and self-efficacy, key qualities that are very important to one who is trying to move out of welfare to work because it “serves as a prime motivator.” Since African American women lack those qualities it is even harder for them to successfully move out of welfare. That is why researchers Linda R. Tropp and F. Pettigrew “suspect that for members of minority status groups, an ongoing recognition of their group’s devaluation inhibits the potential for positive contact outcomes” which has happened to many African American women due to the welfare queen stereotype because it has made them feel like they are not able to come out of welfare even though they want to. (Tropp, Pettigrew 6).

          In the article “Impact of Social Capital on Employment and Marriage among Low Income Single Mothers,” a study was conducted in which low income mothers who received welfare assistance or any other government aid were interviewed about their employment stability and marriage at three separate times in their children’s life time which were “beginning after the birth of the child,” to when they were one year old and lastly when they were 3 years old (Johnson and Honnold 17). Findings indicated that the two main goals that “the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996” aimed women to achieve that were moving them to work and marriage did not have success in doing so. Table 2 indicates that most women (84.5%) remained unmarried during all three interviews; while only 7.6% of the women interviewed were able to remain married in both year 1 and year 3. As for employment stability, the table indicates that most women (39.1%) did not have a stable employment during all three years; hence they were not able to fulfill the goals that PWORA aimed for. However, the percentage of women that do acquire employment stability the last two years is higher (22.9%) than marital status percentage. Yet, the percentage of women that do have a stable job during both the birth and year one interviews and do not have a stable employment during the last year is highly similar to the percentage of the women who do have stable employment the last two years. Which indicates that PWORA was not able to completely move most women from welfare to the working system successfully and to marriage.

          Sociologist Johnson and Honnold discovered how important it is for a welfare recipient to have a diverse social capital, an aspect that PROWA fails to address and a factor that should be taken into consideration when approach a potential solution. Their findings showed that “social capital is a predictor of work and marriage” (Johnson and Honnold 25). Women that were able to obtain a stable employment the last two years they were interviewed had a high level of a diverse social capital that allowed them to have more reliable connections and were exposed to different resources that helped them “in acquire employment and expand economic capital” (Johnson and Honnold 14). Therefore, they were able to successfully move out of welfare to employment. However; most welfare recipients were not able to do so because they had a less diverse social capital that limited them to “emergency support, which logically would be drawn from close contacts (Johnson and Honnold 26). In addition, the “emergency support” that they receive is the most available social capital to them that also limits the choices they have “particularly African American” when it comes to marriage because they “there are few economically stable men in their social network” (Johnson and Honnold 227); therefore having a more diverse network will expose them to more a diverse network of people and makes it more likely for them to marry. Having a more diverse social capital benefits welfare recipients achieve PWORA’s goal of obtain a stable employment because they are able to form a “bonding social capital” which provides them “emotional support, rides to work, babysitting, and monetary loans” (Johnson and Honnold 12). Support in those areas help them in time of succeed to maintain their employment and also helps them find a balance between work and their family.

However, another factor that prohibits women from coming out of welfare and move towards independence are the low income jobs that are available to them.

COMMENT: Aside from the two first paragraphs in the beginning of this essay, the last two paragraphs of this draft has a similar solution to my advocacy draft 2 and the rest of the my other drafts. The last two paragraphs started to focus on creating new jobs for African American mothers. Jobs that are higher paid. However, the difference between this solution and the solutions that I was advocating in my final draft is that for my final draft I focused on the aspect of education and trying to better the individual by creating new programs that can help them continue their education in order for them to obtain better jobs instead of just trying to create new jobs. Also, this draft actually helped me for my final draft. I was able to use the information that I had about PRWORA when I was trying to explain how WIN for Family Act can be remade. Which was that certain aspects of PRWORA like trying to move welfare recipients out of welfare and towards independency by providing programs that can help them expand their education and help them obtain a job. However, because I already had information of PWROWA and which aspects of it did not work I was able to include that in my final advocacy as well. For example, instead of focusing on vocational work and job training like PRWORA also focused on a new legislation should be made that focuses on education just like PRWORA did but unlike PRWORA that new legislation needs to have education as their prime focus.