NCJ Number
121110
Date Published
1981
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This essay contends that existing government policies do little more than maintain millions of poor families at a subsistence level and that racism stands in the way of welfare reform that could substantially reduce or eliminate poverty.
Abstract
Racism ultimately harms poor families regardless of race and also adversely affects large sectors of the white working class. Racism is one factor in the maintenance and reproduction of poverty and thus of class inequality. Welfare consists of two distinct government programs, the Supplemental Security Income program for eligible persons who are aged, blind, or disabled and the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program. Some of the major criticisms of AFDC concern government indifference, restricted extension of aid, inadequate payment levels, defective administration, and stigmatization of recipients. Although it is difficult to empirically establish links between racism and welfare, it has often been suggested that the absence of nonwhites from key government policy positions allows direct or indirect racist practices to occur. Public hostility toward welfare and progressive welfare reform is pervasive, and underlying this hostility, in varying degrees, is racism. Further, racism undercuts the likelihood that the poor will be able to organize collectively across racial lines on their own behalf. The elimination of poverty and racism depends on the equitable redistribution of economic resources and opportunities by political means. More specifically, what is required is the reallocation of economic resources currently monopolized by the most affluent class of whites. By blocking progressive welfare reform, this class protects its interests even as poor whites are left to suffer.