Who gets welfare? Despite prevailing stereotype, whites, not blacks, collect greatest share of public aid dollars

Ebony, Dec, 1992

Ironically, the social welfare policies of three decades ago are under attack today by political conservatives who have placed the blame for the recent Los Angeles riots on the "failed social programs of the 1960s," That characterization has drawn fire from welfare advocates and sociologists as well as ordinary citizens,

"I think that the problems of South Central Los Angeles and other urban communities are far more complex than the simple kinds of characterizations we are getting from elected officials," says Evelyn K. Moore, executive director of the National Black Child Development Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based public policy center. "We cannot criticize family values unless we are willing to support families."

Dr. Marcus Alexis, a Northwestern University economist and former acting chairman of the federal Interstate Commerce Commission agrees. "'Welfare' is the new code word thats being substituted for Willie Horton," Dr. Alexis points out. "It means that inner-city Blacks are viewed as chronically poor, heavily subsidized, irresponsible, highcost individuals. That's where the administration is coming from."

As a lingering recession and high unemployment drive more Whites onto relief rolls, welfare reformers are going to have to pin the blame on the economy and not "immoral" poor people in the nation's inner cities. They only need to look at the White families streaming into welfare offices in rural New Hampshire for proof that poverty has more to do with economics than race. The oncethriving state has seen an 88 percent jump in welfare cases since 1989, yet the states Black population is a meager 0.6 percent.

The economic slump has created a social welfare crisis: Some 13.5 million Americans are on welfare, 2.2 million more than two years ago. That means that one in seven American children is on relief with about 2,000 more joining their ranks every day.

Congress could not have anticipated a surge in welfare clients when it drafted The Family Support Act of 1988, hoping to end welfare dependency by providing educational programs and jobs for ablebodied people. These clients would eventually move into the work force and stave off the labor crunch. With flourishing local economies, states could afford to pick up part of the tab for participants' education, child care and Medicaid benefits with the balance paid by federal matching funds.

It didn't work that way. The economy ground to a near-halt in the late 1980s and many blue- and white-collar workers found themselves seeking public aid. Welfare clients took the biggest hit when state welfare officials upended their pencils and erased names from public aid mils.

Michigan welfare officials, for example, dumped 90,000 people from its general assistance program last year to save the state $250 million. Unfortunately, a majority of those clients, as is the case nationwide, are poor Black men living in urban areas with staggeringly high unemployment rates. Many of these men suffer from physical or mental disabilities. Without welfare benefits, they face a grim future.