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Why Not Abolish the Welfare State?
Notes
1 This study draws heavily on John C. Goodman and Michael Stroup, "Privatizing
the Welfare State," National Center for Policy Analysis, NCPA Policy
Report No. 123, June 1986. Back...
2 See, for example, Governor William Weld et al., "The Reform Agenda.
Welfare: The Massachusetts Model," The American Enterprise,
July-August 1994, pp. 12-19. Back...
3 Vee Burke, Cash and Noncash Benefits for Persons with Limited Income:
Eligibility Rules, Recipient and Expenditure Data, FY 1990-92, CRS
Report for Congress #93-832, EPW (Washington, DC: Library of Congress,
Congressional Research Service, 1993). Back...
4 The $305 billion spent in fiscal 1992 exceeded total defense spending
for the year ($292 billion) by $13 billion. Back...
5 Calculated from Congressional Budget Office figures in Robert Rector,
"Combating Family Disintegration, Crime and Dependence: Welfare Reform
and Beyond," Heritage Backgrounder No. 983, April 8, 1994, p. 6. Back...
6 This calculation is based on a poverty population of 39.3 million people
in 1993. Back...
7 Mean family income was $31,022 in 1992. See Committee on Ways and Means,
U.S. House of Representatives, Overview of Entitlement Programs
(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1994), Table H-16, p.
1182. [Hereinafter referred to as the 1994 Green Book.] Back...
8 1994 Green Book, Table H-11, p. 1172. Back...
9 See also Robert Rector, "Facts About America's Poor," Heritage
FYI, December 23, 1993, p. 4. Back...
10 Economic Report of the President (Washington, DC: U.S. Government
Printing Office, 1989). Back...
11 John C. Goodman, "Welfare and Poverty," National Center for
Policy Analysis, NCPA Policy Report No. 107, October 1983, pp. 8-9. Back...
12 1994 Green Book, Table 10-20, p. 388. Back...
13 Calculations by Robert Rector, Heritage Foundation. See Issues '94:
The Candidate's Briefing Book (Washington, DC: Heritage Foundation,
1994), pp. 122-23. Back...
14 Robert Rector, Kate Walsh O'Beirne and Michael McLaughlin, "How
'Poor' Are America's Poor?" Heritage Backgrounder No. 791, September
21, 1990; and Robert Rector, "How the Poor Really Live: Lessons for
Welfare Reform," Heritage Backgrounder No. 875, January 31, 1992,
pp. 12-13. Back...
15 Bernard D. Karpinos, Height and Weight of Military Youths (Medical
Statistics Division, Office of the Surgeon General, U.S. Department of
the Army, 1960), pp. 336-51. Back...
16 Oscar Lewis, The Children of Sanchez (New York: Random House,
1961). Back...
17 Daniel P. Moynihan, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action
(Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Labor, 1965). Back...
18 Martin Anderson, Welfare (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institute Press,
1978), ch. 2Back...
19 George Gilder, Visible Man: A True Story of Post-Racist America
(New York: Basic Books, 1978). Back...
20 George Gilder, Wealth and Poverty (New York: Basic Books, 1981).
Back...
21 Charles Murray, Losing Ground (New York: Basic Books, 1984).
See also Charles Murray, "White Welfare, White Families, White Trash,"
in National Review, March 28, 1986, pp. 30-34. Back...
22 Ken Auletta, The Urban Underclass (New York: Random House, 1982).
Auletta categorized his subjects as the passive poor, usually long-term
welfare recipients; hostile street criminals who terrorized everyone; hustlers
who earned their livelihood in the underground economy; and the traumatized
mentally disabled, addicts and homeless street people. Back...
23 William J. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1987). Back...
24 Michael B. Katz, The "Underclass" Debate (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993). Back...
25 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, Series P-60,
No. 80, Income in 1970 of Families and Persons in the United States
(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), p. Back...
26 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, Series P-60,
No. 170, Money Income of Households, Families and Persons in the United
States, 1991 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992),
p. 7. Back...
27 Douglas J. Besharov, "Escaping the Dole," American Enterprise
Institute, On the Issues, No. 3, 1994. Back...
28 Ibid. Back...
29 Telephone interview with Dean Schott, Office of Communications, Office
of Illinois Governor Jim Edgar. Back...
30 Stuart M. Butler and Robert Rector, "Health Care Debate Talking
Points #10: The Mitchell Bill's Punitive Penalty on Work," Heritage
F.Y.I., August 22, 1994, Table 1, p. 3. Back...
31 See Gary Robbins and Aldona Robbins, "Forecasting the Effects of
the Mitchell Health Bill," National Center for Policy Analysis, NCPA
Policy Report No. 186, September 1994. Back...
32 Lawrence M. Mead, The New Politics of Poverty: The Nonworking Poor
in America (New York: Basic Books, 1992), pp. 115-17. Back...
33 Anne Hill and June O'Neill, Underclass Behaviors in the United States:
Measurement and Analysis of Determinants (New York: City University
of New York, Baruch College, 1990). Back...
34 Sheldon Danziger, Robert Haveman and Robert D. Plotnick, "How Income
Transfer Programs Affect Work, Savings and Income Distribution: A Critical
Review," Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XIX (September
1981), p. 996. Back...
35 Robert Haveman, "How Much Have the Reagan Administration's Tax
and Spending Policies Increased Work Effort?" in Charles R. Hulten
and Isabell V. Sawhill, eds., The Legacy of Reaganomics: Prospects for
Long-Term Growth (Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press, 1984). See
also the analysis of this estimate in David Henderson, "Analyzing
the Reagan Record," National Center for Policy Analysis, NCPA Policy
Report No. 114, October 1984, pp. 9-12. Back...
36 SRI International, Final Report of the Seattle-Denver Income Maintenance
Experiment, Vol. I, Design and Results (Washington, DC: U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services, 1991); Gregory B. Christiansen and Walter
E. Williams, "Welfare Family Cohesiveness and Out-of-Wedlock Births,"
in Joseph R. Peden and Fred K. Glahe, eds., The American Family and
the State (San Francisco: Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy,
1986), p. 398. Back...
37 Summarized in Murray, Losing Ground, pp. 151-152. See also Overview
of the Seattle-Denver Income Maintenance Experiment, Final Report,
(Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1983). Back...
38 Mary Jo Bane and David T. Ellwood, "The Dynamics of Dependence:
The Routes to Self-Sufficiency," paper for the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, National Center for Health Statistics (Births),
1984. Back...
39 Robert Moffitt, "Work and the U.S. Welfare System," Special
Report 46, 1988, Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin,
Madison. Back...
40 See William J. Bennett, The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators
(Washington, DC: Empower America, Heritage Foundation and Free Congress
Foundation, 1993.) Back...
41 For a review of the literature, see Charles Murray, "Welfare and
the Family: The U.S. Experience," Journal of Labor Economics,
1993, Vol. II, No. 1, pt. 2, pp. S240-42. See also Gary Becker, A Treatise
on the Family (Boston: Harvard University Press, 1981), chs. 2 and
8; and Arleen Liebowitz, Marvin Eisen and Winston K. Chow, "An Economic
Model of Teenage Pregnancy Decision-Making," Demography, Vol.
123, No. 1, 1986, pp. 67-77. Back...
42 C.R. Winegarden, "AFDC and Illegitimacy Ratios: A Vector Autoregressive
Model," Applied Economics, March 1988, pp. 1589-1601. Back...
43 Shelly Lundberg and Robert D. Plotnick, "Adolescent Premarital
Childbearing: Do Opportunity Costs Matter?" June 1990, paper presented
at the May 1990 Population Association of America Conference in Toronto,
Canada. Back...
44 Hill and O'Neill, Underclass Behavior in the United States. Back...
45 Robert Hutchens, "Welfare, Remarriage and Marital Search,"
American Economic Review, June 1989, pp. 369-379. Back...
46 Mikhail S. Bernstam, "Malthus and the Evolution of the Welfare
State: An Essay on the Second Invisible Hand, Parts I & II," Working
Paper E-88-41, 42, Hoover Institution, 1988. Back...
47 Murray, "Welfare and the Family" p. S259. Back...
48 Bennett, The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators. Back...
49 Murray, "Welfare and the Family," p. S245. Back...
50 See Stephen J. Bahr, "The Effects of Welfare on Marital Stability
and Remarriage," Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 41
(August 1979), pp. 553-60; and Robert Moffitt, "Incentive Effects
of the U.S. Welfare System: A Review," Journal of Economic Literature,
March 1992, Vol. XXX, pp. 1-61. Back...
51 Murray, Losing Ground, pp. 151-52. Back...
52 An Evaluation of the 1981 AFDC Changes: Initial Analysis, General
Accounting Office, April 2, 1984. Back...
53 Karl Zinsmeister, "Growing Up Scared," The Atlantic,
June 1990, p. 53. Back...
54 Bennett, The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators, p. 6. Back...
55 Zinsmeister, "Growing Up Scared," p. 52. Back...
56 Ibid. Back...
57 Bennett, The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators, p. 5. Back...
58 David T. Ellwood, Targeting 'Would Be' Long-Term Recipients of AFDC
(Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1986), p.
5. Back...
59 David T. Ellwood, Poor Support: Poverty in the American Family
(New York: Basic Books, 1988). Back...
60 Ibid. Back...
61 Irwin Garfinkel and Sara S. McLanahan, Single Mothers and Their Children:
A New American Dilemma (Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press, 1988),
p. 31. Back...
62 Nicholas Davidson, "Life Without Fathers," Heritage Foundation,
Policy Review, Winter 1990, pp. 41-42; Zinsmeister, "Growing
Up Scared." Back...
63 Zinsmeister, "Growing Up Scared"; Rector, "How to Strengthen
America's Crumbling Families," Heritage Backgrounder No. 894, April
28, 1992. Back...
64 Davidson, "Life Without Fathers," p. 43; Rector, "How
To Strengthen America's Crumbling Families"; and William P. Barr,
"Crime, Poverty and the Family," Heritage Lecture No. 401, July
29, 1992. Back...
65 Davidson, "Life Without Fathers," p. 42. Back...
66 Ibid, p. 41; Bennett, The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators,
p. 12. Back...
67 Ibid. Back...
68 Rector, "How to Strengthen America's Crumbling Families,"
p. 18; Garfinkel and McLanahan, Single Mothers and Their Children,
p. 31. Back...
69 Douglas Smith and G. Roger Jarjoura, "Social Structure and Criminal
Victimization," Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency,
Vol. 25, February 1988, pp. 27-52. Back...
70 Robert J. Sampson, "Urban Black Violence: The Effect of Male Joblessness
and Family Disruption," American Journal of Sociology, Vol.
93 (1987), pp. 348-82. Back...
71 Bennett, The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators. Back...
72 Arthur B. Elsters, "Judicial Involvement and Conduct Problems of
Fathers of Infants Born to Adolescent Mothers," Pediatrics,
Vol. 79, No. 2 (1987), pp. 230-34. Back...
73 Davidson, "Life Without Fathers," p. 42; Zinsmeister, "Growing
Up Scared," p. 52; and Barr, "Crime, Poverty and the Family,"
p. 6. Back...
74 Allen J. Beck and Susan A. Kline, "Survey of Youth in Custody,
1987," U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Spending
Report, September 1988. See also Zinsmeister, "Growing Up Scared,"
citing Bureau of Justice Statistics figures, and Rector, "How to Strengthen
America's Crumbling Families." Back...
75 Davidson, "Life Without Fathers." Back...
76 Ibid.; Zinsmeister, "Growing Up Scared," citing Bureau of
Justice Statistics figures. Back...
77 Smith and Jarjoura, "Social Structure and Criminal Victimization."
Back...
78 Michael Harrington, The New American Poverty (New York: Basic
Books, 1984); Sar A. Levitan and Clifford M. Johnson, Beyond the Safety
Net: Reviving the Promise of Opportunity in America (Cambridge, MA:
Ballinger Press, 1984); John E. Schwartz, America's Hidden Success:
A Reassessment of Twenty Years of Public Policy (New York: Norton,
1983). Back...
79 Charles Murray, Losing Ground; George Gilder, Wealth and Poverty;
Warren T. Brookes, The Economy in Mind (New York: Universe Books,
1982), ch. 7. Back...
80 Quoted in Maurice Bruce, The Coming of the Welfare State (London:
B.T. Batsford, 1961), p. 41. Back...
81 Quoted in Bentley B. Gilbert, The Evolution of National Insurance
in Great Britain: The Origins of the Welfare State (London: Michael
Joseph, 1966) pp. 51-52. Back...
82 Charles Murray, "Welfare Promoting Poverty or Progress?" Wall
Street Journal, May 15, 1985. Back...
83 Mary Jo Bane and David T. Ellwood, Welfare Realities: From Rhetoric
to Reform (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), p. 30-36.
Back...
84 Ibid., p. 31. Back...
85 Ibid., p. 39. Back...
86 Ibid., p. 49. Back...
87 Ibid., p. 29. Back...
88 This section is based on An Evaluation of the 1981 AFDC Changes:
Initial Analysis. Back...
89 Giving USA.: 1992 Annual Report, AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy,
Inc., 1993, p. 10. Back...
90 Taken from a 1983 Gallup Poll. Back...
91 Giving USA, p. 51. Back...
92 Ibid. Back...
93 Counts total spending on means-tested programs. Back...
94 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Helping the Homeless:
A Resource Guide, 1984, p. 115. Back...
95 Interviews with Dallas Salvation Army social services program administrators
and directors. Back...
96 Bureau of the Census, Characteristics of Households and Persons Receiving
Selected Noncash Benefits, 1983 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of
Commerce, 1985), Series P-60, No. 148, pp. 1-5 and p. 103. Back...
97 S. Anna Kondratas, "A Strategy for Helping America's Homeless"
(Washington, DC: Heritage Foundation, 1985), p. 10. Back...
98 See Robert Woodson, "The Importance of Neighborhood Organizations
in Meeting Human Needs," in Jack A. Meyer, ed., Meeting Human Needs:
Toward a New Public Philosophy (Washington, DC: American Enterprise
Institute, 1984), p. 136. Back...
99 Ibid. Back...
100 Lawrence M. Mead, Beyond Entitlement (New York: The Free Press,
1986). Back...
101 Ibid., pp. 122, 125. For a summary of workfare programs in the 1980s,
see S. Anna Kondratas, The Political Economy of Work-For-Welfare
(Washington, DC: American Legislative Exchange Council, 1986). Kondratas
gives these programs a mixed review and concludes that many of the favorable
claims made about certain workfare programs, including that of Massachusetts,
cannot be verified. Back...
102 See Goodman and Stroup, "Privatizing the Welfare State."
Back...
103 Vee Burke, Cash and Noncash Benefits for Persons With Limited Income:
Eligibility Rules, Recipient and Expenditure Data, FY 1982-84, CRS
Report for Congress #85-194 EPW (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, Congressional
Research Service, 1985), p. 52; and Murray, "Welfare and the Family,"
p. S232. Back...
104 Dallas Salvation Army interviews. Reported in Goodman and Stroup, "Privatizing
the Welfare State." Back...
105 Interviews with Texas Department of Human Services administrators and
Dallas Salvation Army personnel. Reported in Goodman and Stroup, "Privatizing
the Welfare State." Back...
106 Martin Rein and Lee Rainwater, "Patterns of Welfare Use,"
Social Service Review, No. 52, pp. 511-34, cited in Greg Duncan,
Years of Poverty, Years of Plenty (Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for
Social Research, 1984), p. 78. Back...
107 Dallas Salvation Army interviews. Reported in Goodman and Stroup, "Privatizing
the Welfare State." Back...
108 Ibid. Back...
109 See examples in Goodman and Stroup," Privatizing the Welfare State."
Back...
110 Robert Woodson, "Child Welfare Policy," in Meeting Human
Needs, pp. 455-65. Back...
111 Sean Sullivan, "Youth Employment," in Meeting Human Needs,
pp. 215-57. Back...
112 V. Ruth McKinnon, Patricia W. Samors and Sean Sullivan, "Business
Initiatives in the Private Sector," in Meeting Human Needs,
pp. 53-91. Back...
113 "The Grass Is Greener in Public Housing: From Tenant to Resident
to Homeowner," a report submitted to the U.S. Department of Housing
and Urban Development by the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise,
October 1984. Back...
114 McKinnon, Samors and Sullivan, "Business Initiatives in the Private
Sector," in Meeting Human Needs, pp. 53-91. Back...
115 Andrea M. Haines, V. Ruth McKinnon and Patricia W. Samors, "Social
Service Programs in the Public and Private Sectors," in Meeting
Human Needs, pp. 421-54. Back...
116 Ibid. Back...
117 A proposal similar to the one made in this study was made independently
by Donald Sammis and Joseph Piccione. See Joseph Piccione, The Human
Services Option: New Funding for the Charitable Sector (Washington,
DC: The Free Congress Research and Education Foundation, 1982). Alan Reynolds,
now of the Hudson Institute, made a similar proposal independently in a
National Review article in 1978, "Competition in Welfare."
Back...
118 Giving USA., p. 10. Back...
About the Authors John C. Goodman is president of the National Center for Policy Analysis.
Dr. Goodman earned his Ph.D. in economics at Columbia University and has
engaged in teaching and research at six colleges and universities, including
Columbia University, Stanford University, Dartmouth College, Sarah Lawrence
College and Southern Methodist University. Dr. Goodman has written widely
on health care, Social Security, privatization, the welfare state and other
public policy issues. He is the author of seven books and numerous scholarly
articles. Dr. Goodman's published works include National Health Care
in Great Britain, Regulation of Medical Care: Is the Price Too High?,
Economics of Public Policy, Social Security in the United Kingdom
and, with Gerald L. Musgrave, Patient Power: Solving America's Health
Care Crisis. Gerald W. Reed is a management consultant and a doctoral candidate at
the University of Texas at Dallas, with a major in political economy. He
is writing his dissertation on welfare. He has a bachelor's degree in mechanical
engineering and has worked as a systems engineer and manufacturing engineer.
Peter J. Ferrara is a senior fellow of the National Center for Policy
Analysis. He is a former senior fellow of the Cato Institute and the Heritage
Foundation and was the John M. Olin Distinguished Fellow in Political Economy
at Heritage. He has served as a special assistant in the U.S. Department
of Housing and Urban Renewal, a policy advisor to the U.S. Attorney General
and a senior staff member in the White House Office of Policy Development.
He received his bachelor's and law degrees from Harvard. He is the author
of numerous studies and scholarly articles.