I was thumbing through my copy of The Poverty of Welfare by Michael D. Tanner today. I purchased the book a decade ago when it was still timely. I am not aware of anything akin to a new edition. Welfare may have undergone substantial reforms since then. I know here in Asheville, the venerable Gene Bell runs a tight ship in public housing. A friend told me today she saw the police evicting a tenant, and residents in that particular public housing development will not be allowed to run electric air conditioning units this summer. We also know the number of families receiving food stamps has doubled.
Anyhoo, getting back to 2003, I hope Mr. Tanner does not mind if I lift some facts from the first few pages of his eye-opening book:
- More than 20% of all children born in the late 1960s have spent at least one year on welfare; more than 70 percent of African-American children born during those years have done so. And the situation is growing worse. More than 30% of children born in 1980 spent a year on welfare; more than 80% of African-American children did so.
- About 61% of the nearly 2.3 million adults who live in families receiving TANF benefits receive benefits in their own right. More than 90% of those recipients are women.
- 92% of families on welfare have no father present.
- Roughly 63% [of children on welfare] live with at least one parent, generally their mother, but 22% live with a grandparent.
- Divorce is the most common reason a person goes on welfare, followed by an out-of-wedlock birth. Contrary to the rhetoric, relatively few individuals go on welfare because they have lost a job or suffered a decline in wages.
This book is not of the same genre as those psycho web sites trying to recruit people for government services. Tanner is an esteemed senior fellow at the Cato Institute.
