discussion board questions
3-1Defining Poverty
LO 1
Who is poor in the United States? If you are a student struggling to get by while attending college on student loans and part-time employment, are you poor? If you have a 40-hour-a-week job that pays minimum wage, are you poor? If you live in the least expensive house in an expensive neighborhood, are you poorer than your neighbors? If you visit a shelter for people who are homeless, are you rich in comparison to the people there?
Defining poverty is complicated. Personal and social values play a major part in deciding who is poor. What may feel like impoverishment to one person may be adequate for someone else. Setting a definite dollar amount for poverty may seem logical and straightforward, but it too involves values and opinions that vary among people. Generally, there are two ways to view poverty: an absolute approach and a relative approach.
Absolute poverty uses a dollar value that is firmly set; anyone who earns less than that amount is officially categorized as poor. For example, suppose that the poverty line is set at the absolute level of $35,000. Walter and his wife, Barbara, together earn $35,450. Kathy and her husband, Gregoire, earn $34,600. By the absolute poverty standard, Walter and Barbara are not in poverty, while Kathy and Gregoire are. Does the additional $850 make Walter and Barbara significantly better off than Kathy and Gregoire? With a definite cutoff, there is a clear definition of who is and who is not poor, regardless of needs or personal circumstances.
Relative poverty uses comparisons to determine who is poor and who is not. For example, the median value of a home in 2013 was $160,000 (US Bureau of the Census, 2015). Using a relative standard, any family that owns a house worth less than $160,000 is below the midpoint and therefore could be considered relatively poor. A relative scale begins with agreement about the level of economic resources the average person should have and then uses that standard to determine who has enough and who does not (see Box 3.1).
Box 3.1
What Do You Think?
Are there possessions that you consider necessities but that other people may view as nonessential? Why might they think that? What would you say to help them understand how important these items are to you?
An absolute line, once it is set, is easier to use than a changeable relative comparison. It is difficult to get people to agree about what things are necessities and what things are extras. A person who has little income while he or she is attending college may be poor temporarily, but education and the attainment of a college degree may provide a wealth of future opportunities. A television may seem like a luxury, but for a poor elderly person who has no family or transportation, the entertainment and information on television can be essential to well-being.
The Official Definition of Poverty
The definition of poverty used by federal and state governments is an absolute measure. It is important because it is often used to determine eligibility for social service programs. The measure is referred to as the poverty threshold or the poverty line.
Many assumptions went into developing the poverty threshold. The Social Security Administration (SSA), which at the time was responsible for overseeing social service programs designed to address the problem of poverty, set the line in 1963. The SSA tried to determine the minimum amount of income a family would need in order to maintain itself. Although there was an attempt to be objective and scientific, the SSA director responsible for the definition stated that “the standard itself is admittedly arbitrary, but not unreasonable. It is based essentially on the amount of income remaining after allowance for an adequate diet at minimum cost” (Orshansky, 1965, p. 4).
Today, the poverty threshold is set by the US Census Bureau and is used for statistical purposes. For administrative purposes, particularly to determine eligibility for income support programs, the Department of Health and Human Services sets poverty guidelines based on the Census Bureau thresholds (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2017). The guidelines do not reflect differences in the cost of living from state to state in the contiguous United States.
In 1963, the threshold for a family of four was set at $3,100. It has been adjusted for inflation over the years. In 2017, the poverty guideline was $24,600 for a family of four (see Table 3.1). Because every year it is only adjusted for inflation, this amount has the same purchasing power as $3,100 did in 1963 (Institute for Research on Poverty, 1998).
Table 3.1
The 2017 Poverty Guidelines
|
Size of Family |
48 Contiguous States & DC |
Alaska |
Hawaii |
|
1 |
$12,060 |
$15,060 |
$13,860 |
|
2 |
$16,240 |
$20,290 |
$18,670 |
|
3 |
$20,420 |
$25,520 |
$23,480 |
|
4 |
$24,600 |
$30,750 |
$28,290 |
|
For each additional person, add |
$4,180 |
$5,230 |
$4,810 |
Source: US Department of Health and Human Services. (2017, January 31). Annual update of the HHS poverty guidelines. Federal Register, 82(19), 8831–8832.
1bWho Is Poor in America?
According to the Bureau of the Census, using the poverty threshold, 42 million people, or almost 14 percent of the population, were in poverty in 2015 (Proctor, Semega, & Kollar, 2016). Table 3.2 shows some key statistics about the people officially counted as poor in this country. According to the data, more than one out of every seven people is officially counted as living in poverty. People living in poverty are more likely to be children and to reside in families with only one adult, who is a woman. These demographics are cited as evidence for two social trends: the juvenilization of poverty and the feminization of poverty.
Table 3.2
2015 Poverty Statistics
|
|
Number (millions) |
Percentage |
|
Persons below poverty threshold |
43.1 |
13.5 |
|
Children under 18 below poverty threshold |
14.5 |
19.7 |
|
Married-couple families below poverty threshold |
3.2 |
5.4 |
|
Single female-headed households below poverty threshold |
4.4 |
28.2 |
|
Single male-headed households below poverty threshold |
0.9 |
14.9 |
Source: Proctor, Semega, & Kollar (2016).
The term juvenilization of poverty describes the tendency for children to be disproportionately represented in the ranks of those who are poor (Segal, 1991; Wilson, 1985). Even when poverty rates have been high, the poverty rates for children have been higher. Table 3.3 compares the average percentage of children under 18 in poverty with the average percentage of all people. A smaller percentage of people were in poverty during the 1970s, and the proportion increased during the 1980s and 1990s. Over these four decades, the rate of poverty for children has consistently been higher than the rate of poverty for the overall population. One major social concern is that one child in five spends time living in poverty. As explored in this chapter, poverty is related to numerous social conditions that are detrimental to people’s health and development. This is particularly true for the children who are disproportionately represented among those who are poor.
Table 3.3
Average Percentages of Persons in Poverty
|
Decade |
Children |
All Persons |
|
1960s |
20.84% |
17.47% |
|
1970s |
15.69% |
11.81% |
|
1980s |
20.46% |
13.84% |
|
1990s |
20.62% |
13.75% |
|
2000s |
17.6% |
12.5% |
|
2010s |
21.1% |
14.7% |
Sources: Dalaker & Naifeh (1998); Proctor, Semega, & Kollar (2016).
EP 2
The feminization of poverty refers to the fact that poverty is more likely to happen to women than to men (Pearce, 1978). On average, women earn less than men; in 2015, the median income of women who worked full-time throughout the year was 80 percent of the income of men (Proctor et al., 2016). Therefore, there is a greater likelihood that women who are raising children alone will be poor. Because raising children requires additional resources, a household with children is likely to be poorer than a household without any children. Because young children typically have young parents whose incomes are lower than those of people whose careers are established, young families are also at greater risk of living in poverty.
he Causes of Poverty
LO 2
Addressing the problem of poverty would be easier if there were consensus about the causes of poverty. There appears to be no single cause, but rather, numerous perspectives. Some theories focus on the individual, and others look at structural reasons for poverty. Many of the theories are controversial and contradictory.
For example, one long-standing belief called the culture of poverty contends that people learn to be poor from growing up in impoverished areas. Although the environment is certainly powerful, this theory does not explain how some people who grow up poor become economically self-sufficient. Another theory cites the functionality of poverty, indicating that poverty plays an important role in the economic structure and that there is little incentive to rid the nation of it. According to this theory, maintaining a pool of people who are poor means that workers are always available for less desirable and lower-paying but necessary jobs. This theory maintains that poverty keeps wages from increasing too much too fast. Most views are also laden with values about worthiness and deservedness.
alues and Blaming the Victim
Discussions of poverty in the United States have focused on the individual who is poor and on social values (see Chapter 2). People who are poor are viewed as being responsible for their poverty. For example, since colonial times the determination of whether a woman who is poor is deserving of help has depended on whether she has embraced the family ethic by marrying and how willing she is to work if able (Abramovitz, 1996). Poverty, particularly for unmarried women with children, carries a major social stigma: the poor person is not participating in society in the right way. The responsibility for poverty is placed on the individual, and society does not have to change economic conditions.
In the early 1970s, William Ryan first used the term blaming the victim to describe the assignment of responsibility to the person who is poor.
The generic process of blaming the victim is applied to almost every American problem. The miserable health care of the poor is explained away on the grounds that the victim has poor motivation and lacks health information. The problems of slum housing are traced to the characteristics of tenants who are labeled as “Southern rural immigrants” not yet “acculturated” to life in the big city. The “multiproblem” poor, it is claimed, suffer the psychological effects of impoverishment, the “culture of poverty,” and the deviant value system of the lower classes; consequently, though unwittingly, they cause their own troubles. From such a viewpoint, the obvious fact that poverty is primarily an absence of money is easily overlooked or set aside. (Ryan, 1976, pp. 5–6)
Ryan argues that this is how Americans accept a society that rewards some people with good jobs, safe homes, and two-parent families while others do not receive benefits. If poverty is the fault of each poor person, then others do not need to examine the way income is earned or consider whether all people have the opportunity to acquire wealth. All efforts at fighting poverty are aimed at the individual rather than at changing the economic structure. The system’s role never gets addressed, and systemic inequality continues generation after generation.
In addition, social stigma and blame enter deeply into the personal being of people who are poor. Poor people internalize this blame from a very young age, and this factor can be a challenge for social workers who try to help people move out of poverty (Ryan, 1976). The challenge is how to address internalized blame (see Boxes 3.2 and 3.3).
From the Field
The Faces of Poverty
Georgia Ackerman, MSW
Navigating a social service delivery system can be disheartening for any individual or family in need of outside assistance. For families living in poverty, it can sometimes be nearly impossible. I initially learned this in a social work class, but I experienced it firsthand as a social work case manager at an elementary school.
The school is located in an extremely impoverished community that has little hope of economic revitalization. There are no industries or big employers in the area, and jobs are few. Most residents commute to jobs in the service industry, such as cleaning or landscaping. The community is on “the wrong side of the tracks,” and outsiders see high crime rates and gang activity. Yet the kindergartners through fifth-graders come to school, eat breakfast, play on the playground, and spend the day learning until the last bell rings, and they return home.
My responsibilities include keeping the clothing bank stocked with donated school uniforms, coats, undergarments, and even baby clothes for younger siblings. I help the school nurse follow up with home visits to students when there is an extended illness. Many of the families have no phone; we cannot call. Children lack adequate dental care, so I solicit dentists for help. There are no backpacks for students to carry papers and notebooks home; I work with a department store manager to apply for programs that donate these. I intervene when children are sent to the principal’s office for misbehaving. I spend time with the parents. I do a little of everything and never have a boring day.
Parents are frequently overwhelmed and afraid to apply for any type of assistance—food stamps, financial assistance, housing, and so on. The forms are cumbersome and confusing. The assistance offices are frequently stigmatizing. Many of the parents work; they are too proud to “take welfare.” They do their best to make ends meet.
Many parents have come to the United States illegally, seeking work. They fear deportation. The children rarely speak of this unless I have passed rigorous tests of trust. Usually, I find out after spending time in their homes. These families do not meet eligibility requirements for many of the state’s social service programs, and few apply when eligible. I spend time reassuring families about accepting help and “jumping through the hoops.”
At Thanksgiving, canned food and turkeys are collected to be distributed throughout the neighborhood. I take giant boxes of food to homes that have no running water, refrigerators, freezers, or even can openers. Children talk to me through locked doors and tell me that their parents are at work and that I can’t come in. I leave notes. I return at a better time. I listen to stories when the moms, dads, grandmas, or aunties have the time and energy to visit with me. Usually we find a neighbor who will store the ridiculously big turkeys. We laugh about this. Most of the parents know that I am no miracle worker and have no magic wand. Yet most seem to get the message that I care. We discuss how to improve social services and get rid of the “red tape.” We talk about what their children will be when they grow up.
Each time I am amazed at their tenacity, kindhearted humor, wisdom, and strength. I receive a monthly paycheck, but I am also paid in crooked milk mustache smiles of children, crayon portraits, awkward hugs from exhausted teachers, and kind notes from parents who know I did my best because I care about their children.
Box 3.3
What Do You Think?
Do you think more can be done to help people living in poverty? What should we do on the national level? The community level? The individual level?
A woman whose husband left her with two children to raise points out the fallacy of blaming the victim:
I would like to be able to go to school to earn enough to provide for myself and my children. Things have just been crazy. I don’t sit around eating bonbons, but I don’t know how I would be able to think long enough to get a homework paper done. Unless someone helps, I don’t know how I can manage this. I don’t own any clothes; I’ve got three or four shirts, another pair of jeans and sneakers, and that is it. There is not enough money to get myself more clothes. There is not even enough to go to the Salvation Army and get things! So how am I supposed to go to work and look like someone even wants to hire me? People think we are too stupid or we really enjoy this life that we find ourselves in. Maybe they should put themselves in our position and realize that if we could, we would be somewhere else, believe me! (Walker, 1996, p. 27)
mployment and Income Levels
Staying out of poverty requires adequate employment and income. Simply having a job does not guarantee immunity from poverty. The way income is distributed across the population affects poverty.
Jobs
Work is a key component of participation in society. Americans expect adults to work and to financially support themselves and their dependents. Employment is not only a means of support for many people; it also defines who they are. For example, a medical doctor may view his or her work as a commitment to heal people, treat their illnesses, and respond to their physical health needs. For people in poverty, the attempt to achieve adequate employment is therefore a struggle for both an adequate income and an identity in society.
For many people, employment is not available or adequate. In spring of 2017, 4.7 percent of adults were officially counted as unemployed , meaning that they were physically able to work but could not find employment (US Department of Labor, 2017). That translates to millions of people, many of whom care for families.
Even when more people are employed, economic well-being does not necessarily improve. For example, child poverty endured during the long economic boom of the 1990s. Between 1993 and 1996, the proportion of poor young children who lived with unemployed parents increased by 16 percent (National Center for Children in Poverty, 1998, p. 3). In 1996, after years of economic growth, almost half of all young children lived either at or near the poverty level. Worker productivity grew by 80 percent between 1973 and 2011, yet wages for the average worker increased by less than 10 percent (Mishel, Bivens, Gould, & Shierholz, 2012). Although worker productivity overall increased, incomes of those working at the low end of the workforce did not. These statistics demonstrate that overall economic growth does not lift all people out of poverty, particularly families with small children.
One reason that economic well-being does not always increase when more people are employed is that many people are underemployed or working poor —their jobs do not pay enough to meet basic living expenses. The federal government sets a minimum wage, the lowest amount an employer can legally pay an employee. Although a handful of jobs are exempt, the vast majority are covered by the minimum wage legislation. In 2017, the national minimum wage was $7.25 per hour. If someone worked 40 hours a week for 52 weeks a year at minimum wage, her or his total annual income would be $15,080 before taxes or Social Security withholding, which is $20 above the poverty threshold for a single person. When taking inflation into account, the minimum wage was actually 20 percent lower in 2009 than it was in 1968 (Economic Policy Institute, 2010), the year it was last increased. Its buying power has further declined over the years. Increasing the minimum wage is controversial because employers want to pay the smallest amount possible in order to maximize profits. Efforts to raise the minimum wage, although unsuccessful at the federal level, have been successful on state and local levels. Across the nation, there have been local initiatives and policy changes that have raised the minimum wage. For example, many states have indexed their minimum wage to account for inflation, so the rate is higher than the $7.25 per hour federal rate. States and localities can raise the rate to whatever they want; the federal law only sets the minimum.
Income Distribution
Income is not evenly distributed across households, and over the past several decades the differences between those at the top and those at the bottom have increased. As Table 3.4 shows, people in the top fifth of the income scale account for half of all household income, whereas those in the bottom fifth earn less than 4 percent. The disparity between those at the top and those at the bottom has been hovering at the highest difference since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Table 3.4 outlines the distribution of household income over the past 45 years.
Table 3.4
Percent Distribution of Household Aggregate Income
|
|
2015 |
2010 |
2000 |
1990 |
1980 |
1970 |
|
Highest 20% |
49.8 |
50.3 |
49.6 |
46.6 |
43.7 |
43.3 |
|
Fourth 20% |
22.9 |
23.4 |
23.0 |
24.0 |
24.9 |
24.5 |
|
Third 20% |
14.8 |
14.6 |
14.8 |
15.9 |
16.9 |
17.4 |
|
Second 20% |
9.0 |
8.5 |
8.9 |
9.6 |
10.3 |
10.8 |
|
Lowest 20% |
3.4 |
3.3 |
3.6 |
3.9 |
4.3 |
4.1 |
Source: US Bureau of the Census (2001); Proctor, Semega, & Kollar (2016).
The difference between the top and the bottom is even more evident when income is examined more closely. Table 3.5 lists the average dollar income by groups, with the amounts held constant to account for inflation. In 1980, the top fifth of households earned more than 10 times more income on average than did the bottom fifth. By 2012, that had grown to almost 16 times more. Over the past 30 years, the real dollars earned by people in the highest fifth increased by 47 percent, compared with a less than 1 percent increase for those in the bottom fifth.
Mean Household Income by Quintile
|
Mean Household Income (Income held in constant 2015 dollars) |
|||||
|
|
2015 |
2010 |
2000 |
1990 |
1980 |
|
Highest 20% |
202,366 |
184,146 |
195,803 |
153,315 |
127,382 |
|
Fourth 20% |
92.031 |
85,748 |
90,357 |
79,002 |
71,443 |
|
Third 20% |
56,832 |
53,450 |
58,125 |
52,399 |
48,493 |
|
Second 20% |
32,631 |
31,017 |
34,904 |
31,723 |
29,387 |
|
Lowest 20% |
12,457 |
11,952 |
13,979 |
12,608 |
11,808 |
Source: Proctor, Semega, & Kollar (2016).
The difference in income is even more extreme between those at the very top and those at the bottom. Over the past 30 years, the real dollars earned by the highest 1 percent of earners increased by almost 200 percent. In terms of wealth, or the total assets one may hold, the gap is even more significant. The top 1 percent of households hold more than 40 percent of all wealth. For all households, the top 10 percent hold 75 percent of all wealth, and the bottom 90 percent hold the rest, 25 percent of all wealth (Stone, Trisi, Sherman, & Horton, 2016). Since the 1980s, income growth has benefited top earners. This is contrary to policy changes in the 1980s that were based on the trickle-down theory. Proponents of this theory contended that tax cuts given to those at the top would make more money flow down to those at the bottom. However, government assistance for those at the bottom was decreased when tax cuts were provided for those at the top. The result has been a greater gap between the top and the ace
One of the most significant factors that affect income and wealth in the United States is race. The median income—the midpoint of all earners—was $62,950 for white households, $36,898 for African American households, and $39,005 for Latino families in 2015 (Proctor et al., 2016). Therefore, families of color earned less than two-thirds of what white families earned. All types of white households had much higher income than the same types of African American and Latino families. Employment rates of people of color have also been lower than those of the white population. For example, in 2017, when the unemployment rate was 4.1 percent for whites, it was 8.1 percent for African Americans and 5.6 percent for Latinos (US Department of Labor, 2017).
EP 2
Several factors are likely contributors to the link between poverty and race. As will be discussed in Chapter 4, prejudice and discrimination can limit a person’s opportunities. For example, slavery completely kept African Americans out of the mainstream economic structure for hundreds of years. Indigenous Peoples were also excluded from full participation. Table 3.6 illustrates the relationship between poverty and race. As stated earlier in text, the median household income for whites is higher than for African Americans and Latino households. Finding ways to change the negative relationship between income and race presents another challenge to professional social workers.
Poverty by Race, 2015
|
|
White |
African American |
Latino |
|
All people below poverty |
9.1% |
24.1% |
21.4% |
|
Families below poverty |
6.7% |
22.2% |
20.4% |
|
Female-headed families below poverty |
22.8% |
35.7% |
37.1% |
Source: Proctor, Semega, & Kollar (2016).
bottom, furthering economic disparity.
The Costs of Poverty
LO 3
Poverty has a personal cost. Growing up in poverty can hinder children’s educational achievement and sense of self. Impoverished areas tend to have more crime than more affluent areas. For adults, poverty contributes to depression, anger, and low self-esteem. Ameliorating these costs continues to be a social welfare concern.
Homelessness and Housing
Homelessness is not a new problem. However, in part because of an economic downturn in the early 1980s, the number of people—especially the number of children and families—who are homeless increased dramatically. For example, in New York City, there was a 500 percent increase in the population of homeless families between the early 1980s and the early 1990s (Institute for Children and Poverty, 1998a). With the Great Recession of 2008–2009, economic stress was particularly hard on families. Estimates of how many people are homeless are difficult to assess. At one point, 3.5 million people were estimated to be homeless over the course of each year (National Coalition for the Homeless, 2009). Today, national numbers are assessed only once a year. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (2016) conducts a once-a-year “point-in-time” count, which involves simultaneous counts across the country on one night each year in January. The total count of people identified as homeless in January 2016 on the counting night was about 550,000, more than one-third of whom were children.
Homelessness is not only a problem in large urban centers. People without permanent residences are found in rural and suburban communities as well. The condition of being homeless is not easily overcome. For example, in a national study of homeless families, at least 40 percent returned to shelters two or more times (Institute for Children and Poverty, 1998b). Many people who leave the shelters cannot secure permanent residences.
One contributor to homelessness is the lack of affordable housing. In many cities over the past 30 years, cheaper single rooms and small apartments have disappeared, and new, costly developments have taken their place. For example, just west of Chicago’s downtown, entire blocks of buildings in which low-income people rented rooms have been torn down and replaced with expensive high-rises. Those who favor this kind of urban renewal contend that it enhances the city, but housing advocates point out that it has resulted in fewer affordable residential units where poor people can live, and has contributed to increases in homelessness.
The increase in homelessness during the 1980s gave rise to public awareness about the problem and prompted passage of the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, which was designed to provide resources and services to address the problem of homelessness. However, programs have not kept pace with the increase in homelessness. Requests for emergency food assistance have increased annually, with over 40 percent of cities reporting an increase from 2015 to 2016, with the majority of those requests coming from families (US Conference of Mayors, 2016).
EP 6b
Homelessness is an extreme consequence of poverty, and people who are homeless require additional services and sensitivity. Employment and adequate income are critical needs of all people in poverty, but people who are homeless face additional barriers. For example, a homeless individual cannot provide an address and a phone number at which a prospective employer can reach him or her. He or she does not have clothes to wear to an interview and to work, or a place to store such clothing if it is available.
Providing social services for young people who are homeless is a special challenge. Typically, young people leave troubled homes or are thrown out because families cannot handle their behavior. Although youth homelessness is a problem of poverty, it is even more a problem of unmet social support and mental health needs.
Case Example
Noel has a learning disability and attention deficit disorder and was beaten and placed in foster care when he was a child. His parents threw him out when he was 18, and he lived on the streets for several months. He was able to join a residential program that helped him find a good job and a safe place to live. His experience has left him deeply wounded, and he tries to understand what he did to deserve being left on his own without any resources (Wilson, 1998).
Case Example
Joyce, who is 16, constantly stayed out of school, often lost control of her temper, and did not get along with her mother. Sexually abused as a child by her now-absent father, Joyce is angry and suspicious of adults. Tired of fighting with her mother, she left home to stay with some other young people in an abandoned apartment near a college campus. Joyce panhandled for money, but could not collect much. She does not want to sell herself for sex but feels that doing so might be better than returning to her mother’s home.
Outreach workers for agencies that provide homeless youth with food, clothing, shelter, and other services find that they are fearful and hesitant to trust. “The minute they wake up out here, someone wants something from them. They want them to do a drug run or they want them for sex. It’s hard for [the youth] to believe we don’t want anything from them” (Bland, 1998, p. A8). Social intervention, which is difficult with homeless adults, is even more difficult with youth.
Personal Costs
Most social workers come face to face with the problem of poverty on the personal level. Whether poverty is the cause of personal problems or personal deficiencies lead to poverty, there is a relationship between the two. Intervening to alleviate these problems is one of the challenges of social work practice.
Poverty is related to inadequate health, substandard housing, low educational achievement, drug use, and dangerous living situations. For young people, it leaves deep scars and often a great deal of self-blame. After interviewing low-income children, Weinger (2000) concluded that the uncertainty, worry, and stress of living with minimal resources “suggest that anxiety and depression are likely outcomes of poverty” (p. 115). The deficits from growing up in poverty follow children throughout their lives (Krase, 2014).
Living in poverty requires coping skills and adaptation to a negative life experience. Some individuals cope by engaging in violence, crime, and drug use and by rejecting the systems that they cannot gain access to, such as the economic system (Ambert, 1998). Schools in poor neighborhoods have inferior resources and overcrowded classrooms, and criminal activity makes the neighborhoods dangerous. The consequences of living in poverty are shorter life spans, inferior education, poor health, hunger, and lack of opportunity. Social participation and building social relationships is negatively impacted by growing up in poverty (Ridge, 2011). Research on long-term effects of poverty suggests that raising the incomes of poor families improves the cognitive development of children and seems to improve their participation in the labor market as adults (Duncan & Brooks-Gunn, 1997). In addition to raising family incomes, early childhood education raises the likelihood of long-term educational and employment success for poor children (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2014). These outcomes are compelling reasons for improving the lives of people who live in poverty.
The Roles of Social Workers
LO 4
EP 2, 3a
Social workers pursue social change, particularly with and on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals and groups of people. Social workers’ social change efforts are focused primarily on issues of poverty, unemployment, discrimination, and other forms of social injustice.
Part of social workers’ professional commitment is to work to eliminate economic inequality and poverty. Few professional social workers are found in public assistance offices, but most social work settings serve low-income individuals and families. To tackle the problem of poverty, social workers need sufficient knowledge of existing social welfare programs and of how to link people to those services. They have to understand the psychosocial conditions related to poverty and develop individual interventions to alleviate them. Finally, social workers need to advocate for social and economic change to create a more economically just society. Box 3.4 poses the dilemma of addressing personal needs versus structural change.
Becoming a Change Agent
According to the US Department of Agriculture, in 2015, 12.7 percent of US households experienced food insecurity at some time during the year. This means that about 15.8 million US households did not have access to enough food to lead active and healthy lives (US Department of Agriculture, 2016). As a nation, we often address hunger by providing food for people in need. People line up at food banks and soup kitchens, some once in a while and others nearly all the time, to get help to overcome hunger. The need for food assistance is constant, and it gets worse during difficult economic times. Food banks find themselves running out of food before they run out of demand for it. Mark Winne (2007) spent many years in the food bank industry in Connecticut. His experiences made him begin to question whether giving out food is a good method to deal with hunger. He grew concerned that it creates a codependency where clients come to depend on food handouts, rather than developing other ways to get food, and where workers want to continue to give food. Giving food makes people feel that they are doing good, and they have little incentive to question or change the ever-growing food-giving industry. Winne asks the question, “What would happen if the collective energy that went into soliciting and distributing food were put into ending hunger and poverty instead?” (p. 25). Hunger is a worldwide problem. Estimates are that 800 million people suffer from chronic malnutrition, and those numbers are likely to rise (The Hunger Project, 2017). At the time of this writing, dramatic increases in the cost of food are threatening the lives of millions of people around the world. Therefore, how we address hunger is a worldwide question. The US government and many other governments and private groups provide food to hungry people worldwide. But some in the international relief field question the continued provision of food rather than helping communities become more self-sufficient. Some groups are trying broader approaches to eradicating hunger. You will be asked to find out about one of them in the next section.
Analyzing the Situation
· Do some research to find out more about the causes of hunger in the United States. Is there a shortage of food, or are there other causes?
· Looking at the causes of poverty, how do you think these relate to the causes you found for hunger?
· Try to find out how much money is spent every year to provide emergency food for people nationally and in your state. How many volunteer hours go into providing emergency food?
What Can Social Workers Do?
Given your analysis, what might social workers do to address the causes of hunger? Are there better ways that the money and volunteer hours could be utilized to reduce or end hunger in the United States? What interventions could you suggest at the individual level? The community level? The policy level (e.g., changes in local, state, or federal legislation)?
What Can You Do?
What one step might you take now, alone or working with others, to reduce hunger? What are the barriers that might keep you from taking this step? What could you do to reduce those barriers?
Social Welfare Programs
LO 5
As discussed in Chapter 2, assistance to people who live in poverty has ebbed and flowed since colonial times, depending on changing social and economic conditions. The strongest national efforts to assist the poor have come in social welfare programs targeted to serve them. Individual intervention has been focused on treating the related psychosocial conditions. On the local level, grassroots advocacy efforts have been effective. All these approaches involve social workers.
The two major types of public assistance are in-kind benefits and cash assistance programs (see Chapter 2). Programs that provide in-kind benefits give people commodities or coupons that they can exchange for commodities. Examples of in-kind services are treatment at public health care clinics, housing subsidies, and food stamps. Cash assistance programs provide monthly payments that recipients use as needed. The two major national cash assistance programs are Supplemental Security Income and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
Supplemental Security Income
The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program provides cash assistance for people who are poor and are 65 or older, or blind or disabled. The program was originally created as part of the Social Security Act in 1935 and was actually three separate programs—one each for older people, people who were blind, and people who were disabled—administered as federal–state partnerships. Cash assistance for the three groups was consolidated into the current SSI program in 1972. The legislation also created uniform federal eligibility requirements and benefit levels. The SSI program is funded by general tax revenues.
SSI uses the Department of Health and Human Services poverty guidelines (discussed at the beginning of this chapter) to determine whether a person over age 65 is in poverty and is eligible for cash assistance. Benefit amounts are adjusted on the basis of other income the person receives. The definition of disability used by the program mirrors that used for the Social Security Disability Insurance program and covers people of any age with disabilities who are below poverty guidelines but are not eligible to receive benefits under the social insurance part of the Social Security program (usually due to insufficient work history to qualify for benefits under the Social Security program). The maximum benefit for a person without any other income was $733 per month in 2015. Annually, more than 8 million people received federal payments through the SSI program, with an average monthly payment of $517 (Social Security Administration, 2016).
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program evolved out of 1996 policy changes to the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program. AFDC, which started as part of the 1935 Social Security Act, provided guaranteed cash assistance to any family that was poor for as long as the family qualified. Under TANF, on the other hand, poor families with children still qualify, but the entire family is eligible to receive benefits for no more than 24 consecutive months and a lifetime total of five years. All adult participants must spend 20 hours per week in a job or job-related activity. Under AFDC, a mother with a child under age 3—in some states, under age 6—could stay home to care for the child. That choice is no longer available.
Although AFDC was federally mandated, it was state run, so there was program variability across states. The movement of programs from the federal level to the state level is referred to as devolution of services . TANF incorporated more state flexibility than was allowed under AFDC. As a result of this devolution, there is even greater variability among TANF programs across different states, creating a variety of TANF regulations, eligibility criteria, and benefits.
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA, P.L. 104–193), which created TANF in 1996, also made a major administrative change in funding. Prior to TANF, the federal government matched the amount that states spent (using a formula that took state populations and extent of need into account). Because there were no time limits on AFDC, all eligible people were served, and there was no cap on federal matching funds. TANF is funded through an annual federal block grant, a set amount of money. If a state runs out of funds, no more benefits will be paid until the next year’s funding becomes available. States may choose to use their own funds to continue the program, but they receive no additional federal support during the year.
Over the years, TANF families have changed, with half of the TANF households receiving benefits only for children and nothing for any adults. About 50 percent of the TANF families with adults consist of one female adult and one child, and about one-third have two children. Most children, over 70 percent, are under the age of 9. One-third of recipients are white, another one third are African American, and 28 percent are of Hispanic origin (which means they can be identified as black or white) (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2013). On average, families received $378 a month, which provides an annual income of $4,536 (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2016). However, there is tremendous variation across states. Most TANF families receive food stamps, and almost all are eligible for medical assistance under Medicaid. Over one-third of TANF adult recipients participated in 20 or more hours a week of work activities (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2016). In spite of work efforts, these families remained poor and eligible for TANF.
The impact of TANF after 20 years has been mixed. As cited earlier, the caseload numbers have declined. Advocates of the 1996 welfare reform regard this as a positive outcome and proof that the changes instituted were successful. However, more detailed research reveals some disturbing data. There has been a large drop in the portion of families eligible for TANF who are being served. Prior to the creation of TANF, 84 percent of the families poor enough to qualify participated in the federal cash assistance program. Within the first decade, that portion had dropped to 48 percent. This meant that “the caseload decline during the first decade of welfare reform reflects a decline in the extent to which TANF programs serve families that are poor enough to qualify, rather than to a reduction in the number of families who are poor enough to qualify for aid” (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2006, p. 2). The next 10 years saw a continued decline. The portion of families eligible for TANF due to low income who were actually served dropped to 32 percent by 2012. Unfortunately, the biggest decline in support was for children in poverty. TANF reached fewer and fewer poor children, covering about 60 percent of children in poverty in 1996 compared to only 20 percent in 2013 (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2016).
What may be happening is that stricter program criteria are leading to reduced caseloads, and state budget deficits are taking a toll on finance for social welfare programs, while poverty increased or stayed the same. This is particularly critical for the children who constitute the majority of TANF recipients. Even before the recession, there were concerns about the stringent cutbacks imposed by TANF. Fewer poor families are finding assistance through the TANF program, and yet they are qualified because they are still poor. Overall, the number of children served by TANF represents about 20 percent of all children in poverty. That means that the vast majority of poor children in the United States are not served by the primary program designed to support them and their families. The early warnings about the consequences of shrinking public assistance for poor families still holds true:
Overall, there is reason to be concerned about families living in poverty. Despite the large caseload reduction, the national poverty rate has fallen rather little. Many who have left welfare for work remain poor and continue to depend on Food Stamps, Medicaid, and other government assistance; some have left welfare and remain poor, but do not receive the Food Stamp or Medicaid benefits to which they remain entitled. The extent of economic hardship remains high, because, given their human capital and personal characteristics, many former, as well as current, welfare recipients have limited earning prospects in a labor market that increasingly demands higher skills. Thus, despite promising early results with respect to declining caseloads and increasing work effort, much uncertainty exists about the long-run prospects for escaping poverty of both [welfare] stayers and leavers. (Danziger, 2000)
Results of studies following people who left TANF for employment are not encouraging. In Wisconsin, “the majority of households who have left welfare have earnings well below the poverty line several years afterward, even in a state that has an extremely strong economy and that has invested heavily in health and child care” (Hotz, Mullin, & Scholz, 2002, p. 54). Most recipients of TANF who left the program and were able to find jobs did see some improvement in their incomes, but it tended to be limited, with significant periods of joblessness (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2006). Now, with such short time limits of coverage, it is likely that families poor enough to qualify for assistance have very little change in their earning abilities when the time limit is reached and they are terminated from the program.
EP 2, 8c
When TANF can be successful in helping poor people make the transition to work and economic independence, usually for reasons that are temporary economic disruptions, the program is an excellent resource for social workers. When TANF takes on a punitive role or fails when the economy weakens and more poor people are in need of cash assistance, social workers then need to identify the program’s weaknesses, speak out for change, and work to ameliorate the devastating impact of poverty on people.
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
Original government food support programs, dating back to the 1930s, provided commodities to people who were poor. They originated as an agricultural support effort in which the government purchased food that growers could not sell and gave the food to people in need. Today’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) (changed in 2008 from the Food Stamp Program) is still run by the Department of Agriculture.
Psychosocial Interventions
Living in poverty is stressful. There is constant worry about paying for rent, food, and transportation, and whether the money will last the month. Parents try to provide for children who need new shoes or want a toy or a chance to see a movie. They must balance the cost of child care with their need for paid employment. People who are poor often blame themselves for the condition and feel incompetent and incapable. Fear accompanies poverty—fear of living in a dangerous neighborhood and fear of what will happen next. People in poverty typically feel out of control, that none of the things they have tried have helped change their economic conditions. Poverty leads to negative mental health and contributes to depression and low self-worth (Link & Phelan, 1995; World Health Organization, 2007), and is particularly harmful for children, adversely impacting their physical and mental development (Krase, 2014).
Several intervention techniques can be applied when working with people who are in poverty. Focusing on people’s strengths and abilities can be a positive way to approach those who are in need (Saleebey, 2006). According to Segal and Stromwall (2000), a number of intervention methods at the individual, group, and community levels that are based on the strengths perspective are helpful when working with people in poverty.
EP 6b
Individual-level work should involve solution-focused interventions that emphasize what can be done rather than analyze problems. The goal is to help clients identify actions they have used in the past that have been helpful and to develop new ways to deal with problems. By focusing on prior successes, people feel better about themselves and begin to feel empowered to make changes.
Social workers can also help people improve their employability. For some people that means finding resources to support employment, such as child care, transportation, or affordable clothing. It may mean helping other people complete high school or college or get work training. Group-level interventions include encouraging people to participate in mutual aid, self-help groups, or community activities. Involvement in groups helps people feel connected and decreases their feelings of isolation as they struggle to make ends meet. Groups can help people stop blaming themselves and instead begin to see the larger context of poverty in US society. Another intervention is to focus on people’s natural helping networks—family, friends, or religious groups. Social workers can help people find support and become natural supporters themselves.
Although intervention with individuals and in groups can help alleviate negative personal and family conditions related to poverty, it does not change the structural factors that contribute to income inequality. Social workers must also address these larger-scale structural factors. For example, even during a time of significant economic growth and low unemployment, poverty increased among people who were employed. The Conference Board (2000), a coalition of major business executives, concluded that since the mid-1970s long-term economic growth has not improved the economic well-being of full-time workers. Contrary to expectations, the poverty of full-time workers was higher at the end of the twentieth century than it was during the recession that preceded the economic boom of the 1990s. From the end of World War II through the 1970s, incomes of all families grew at a similar rate. However, since the 1980s, income growth has been proportionately much greater for those at the highest levels, at rates four times that of lower earners (Stone et al., 2016). Therefore, individual intervention without structural change is not sufficient in dealing with poverty. Community-level interventions that stress advocacy and political change enhance personal interventions and can achieve social change.
Advocacy
LO 6
Political advocacy calls for knowledge of the public policy process, how legislators create policy, and where in that process intervention can take place. Social workers are trained to listen, identify needs, and help people to find ways to meet those needs. These same skills can be used to analyze policy and advocate for change to improve economic conditions. Sometimes, social workers find themselves struggling to deal with the individual concerns of poverty and the structural determinants, as presented in the case described in Box 3.5.
Box 3.5
Ethical Practice … Self-Sufficiency or Neglect?
EP 2.1.2c
While working for child protective services, you get a call from a neighbor of the Johnson family. She tells you that the three Johnson children, ages 15, 13, and 9, come home after school to an empty house and have no adult supervision until Mrs. Johnson gets home from work, at about 8:00 at night. When you meet the family, you learn that the oldest child makes dinner for the others and keeps an eye on them. Mrs. Johnson tells you that her husband left a year ago and that she was on public assistance until several months ago, when she found this job. She stresses that she wants to be a role model for her children and support the family by working. After months of looking, this job was the only one she could find that would support the children. The children seem to accept the situation and be healthy. Would you report this as a case of neglect?
EP 7c