Harvard Professors Express Skepticism About Shrinking Welfare Rolls

For the 5,000 Massachusetts families who stand to lose welfare benefits in January, the new year will be bitter.

Although the economy has boomed and more than 36,000 families in the state have left the rolls since welfare reform began in 1996, some Harvard professors said this week it is still too early to claim success.

From former Clinton policy gurus to leading sociologists, Harvard faculty members voiced concern that the shrinking welfare rolls can be attributed to unprecedented economic strength and jobs which don't provide adequate safety nets.

Geyser University Professor William Julius Wilson, who teaches Afro-American Studies 197: "Race, Class and Poverty in Urban America," said the initial optimism might be wishful thinking.

"We're living in an [economic] boom time and unprecedented low unemployment," he said. "What's going to happen when this economic period ends?"

Wilson also said the welfare reform bill signed by President Clinton in 1996 had a much different focus from the vision he presented in 1992. The original platform included comprehensive health and child care--along with public sector jobs--as a last resort.

"When Clinton first entered office, he had a very comprehensive vision of welfare reform," Wilson said. "The bill that he signed doesn't include guaranteed public sector jobs. It's kind of a draconian bill."

Although Wilson raised concerns over the reforms, the 1996 welfare reform bill passed with bipartisan support in Washington.

Institute of Politics Director Alan K. Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming, recalled that even liberal-minded senators like Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) and Carol Moseley-Braun (D-III.) supported cutting back welfare.

"You don't want to forget...that the present system was a failure. We had to do something and we did," Simpson said.

Simpson blamed the media for highlighting the reform's failures--but not its successes.

"Anytime you try to correct an abuse in the system, they find the most heart-wrenching story, and that makes it very hard for politicians to function," he said. "I don't know any GOP [members] or Democrats who want to torture people."

Professor of Public Policy Mary Jo Bane, who resigned from her post as assistant secretary on welfare in the Clinton administration after the 1996 reform bill passed, said that while reformers in 1996 were well-intentioned, they may have created more problems than they solved.

"Everybody hated in the system [in 1996]. Some of the anger was legitimate," she said. "People felt that the welfare system didn't provide enough requirements for people to move into the work-place."

But she warned that the dramatic 40 percent decrease of welfare rolls across the nation, as well as Massachusetts' drop, could be attributed to the creation of new low-wage paying jobs--which are far from stable.

"The lower-wage labor market is hiring anyone who breathes," she said.

While Massachusetts has taken a hard-line stance on welfare reform, Bane hopes that the historical-liberal state will help the 5,000 families who will be kicked off the rolls next year. She says that politicians who have played themselves as "tough" on welfare reform now should try to help the families who struggle the most.

Wiener Professor of Public Policy Professor David T. Ellwood '75, who helped guide Clinton's welfare program as an assistant secretary in the early years of the administration, said that while some benefits--such as health care for young children--have been increased, families near the poverty line will still suffer if the economy takes a downturn.

"When the economy stumbles, the working poor are the first to fall," he said.

In addition to the dearth of adequate safety nets, some professors said the reform perpetuates class bias. Richard P. Taub, a visiting scholar in the W.E.B. DuBois Institute who teaches Afro-American Studies 194z: "Economic Development in the Inner City," said the hard-lined stance indicates widening class schisms.

"We're being distracted from serious issues of income inequality," he said. "What does a low unemployment rate mean if people are making $6.50 a hour?"

Taub also was concerned with what he called a "conservative impulse," where conservatives stress the need for a strong family, yet insist that single welfare mothers work.

"When the economy takes a downturn, setting these people back on the streets is no solution to anything," he said.