Page Title
By Laura Salinger
Welfare. Depending on who you are, this one word can conjure up a number of emotions,
stereotypes, and opinions. Too often, we hear about “those people” who are purposely eating
up tax dollars to live off the system. There are, of course, the older and more blatantly racist
stereotypes like that of the welfare queen, predominantly Black women who were accused of
lazily reaping the benefits of government money while the “rest of us” worked hard for our
money. Has sentiment changed? In an eroding economy where hard workers find themselves
without work everyday, maybe a little and maybe even a lot. But, according to author Jane L.
Collins, probably not enough.
Her latest book co-authored with Victoria Mayer, "Both Hands Tied: Welfare Reform and the
Race to the Bottom of the Low-Wage Labor Market,” explores the experiences of 33 women
from Racine and Milwaukee who fall into the category of working poor and who struggle
everyday to meet the needs of their families. "Both Hands Tied" explores how these women
and their families coped as sweeping welfare reform, resulting in the 1996 Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, made cash assistance both temporary
and contingent on work outside the home.
Joe Soss, Cowles Chair for the Study of Public Service at the University of Minnesota and
Welfare. Depending on who you are, this one word can conjure up a number of emotions,
stereotypes, and opinions. Too often, we hear about “those people” who are purposely eating
up tax dollars to live off the system. There are, of course, the older and more blatantly racist
stereotypes like that of the welfare queen, predominantly Black women who were accused of
lazily reaping the benefits of government money while the “rest of us” worked hard for our
money. Has sentiment changed? In an eroding economy where hard workers find themselves
without work everyday, maybe a little and maybe even a lot. But, according to author Jane L.
Collins, probably not enough.
Her latest book co-authored with Victoria Mayer, "Both Hands Tied: Welfare Reform and the
Race to the Bottom of the Low-Wage Labor Market,” explores the experiences of 33 women
from Racine and Milwaukee who fall into the category of working poor and who struggle
everyday to meet the needs of their families. "Both Hands Tied" explores how these women
and their families coped as sweeping welfare reform, resulting in the 1996 Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, made cash assistance both temporary
and contingent on work outside the home.
Joe Soss, Cowles Chair for the Study of Public Service at the University of Minnesota and
Welfare queens eating bonbons
Laura Salinger is
a freelance
writer based in
Madison, Wis.
a freelance
writer based in
Madison, Wis.
research affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty at UW-Madison, says, "'Both Hands Tied' is critical social science at its best.
I know of no book that is more successful in drawing the lived experiences of the poor into dialogue with the structural and political
forces that are shaping their lives."
Collins -- an Evjue Bascom professor of Community and Environmental Sociology and Gender and Women's Studies and a
research affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty at UW-Madison-first explained, in an interview with Asian Wisconzine, how
welfare or state aid has changed dramatically in Wisconsin in the last two decades.
“In 1986, 300,000 people were on welfare in the state of Wisconsin,” Collins explains. “In 1996, with welfare reform, only 50,000
people in Wisconsin were on welfare. Today, 6,900 women are receiving welfare.”
Today, assistance is temporary and most likely used by those in dire straits.
“They are not sitting home eating bonbons,” Collins says about the women she researched. “They are working at below minimum
wage jobs and they are working hard.”
In fact, it is the hard work and spirit of these women that prompted Collins to pursue this book after working on a different project.
“After I talked to these women, I knew I had to tell their story,” she says.
The book details historical changes that directly affect the lives of these women today. Collins backtracked to the 1950’s, when life
for a fulltime wage earner looked much different.
“When I was growing up in the 1950s, the division of labor for which children were cared for was different,” Collins says. “The
norm was a family wage. If a father went to work, he made enough not just to care for himself but for his family. He was insured also.
At the same time, employers were more generous. Not just in pay, but in the provision of health care and sick leave. Today, things
have been eroding on all fronts. The average wage has not increased since 1974.”
Today, because of changes to family structure and lower wages, it is much harder to get by.
“The minimum wage today is so far away from being able to cover the needs of a family,” she says. “At the same time, our family
structure has changed. There are more single parents. State assistance has decreased. Fulltime wage earners raise their family on
an income that can’t even cover the needs of a single person.”
So what does Collins say about the notion of the welfare queen living of the system? She lets the women’s stories speak for
themselves. Collins relayed a story of a woman with a severely autistic son. She was receiving cash assistance, so she could care
for her son, but was told she had to go back to work when her son turned 12. She did as she was told, leaving her son home with an
older sibling, and he scalded himself to death in the bathtub. Another woman had to quit her job in order to bury her mother because
she did not have access to time off and a woman working 38 hours a week at a pizza chain had to quit when she became severely ill
because she didn’t have sick leave.
And what about the idea that those receiving cash assistance are lazy?
“Three women were able to get their GED,” Collins says about the women they worked with. “They were working fulltime, going to
school, and taking care of their children. One of them would work all night cleaning restaurants and bring their child to sleep in the
booth; she worked another job in the morning, and then would go to school.”
Simply put, Collin asserts that majority of these women work very hard, and because of societal and political shifts in the
workforce and in welfare reform their hands are, indeed, tied.
I know of no book that is more successful in drawing the lived experiences of the poor into dialogue with the structural and political
forces that are shaping their lives."
Collins -- an Evjue Bascom professor of Community and Environmental Sociology and Gender and Women's Studies and a
research affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty at UW-Madison-first explained, in an interview with Asian Wisconzine, how
welfare or state aid has changed dramatically in Wisconsin in the last two decades.
“In 1986, 300,000 people were on welfare in the state of Wisconsin,” Collins explains. “In 1996, with welfare reform, only 50,000
people in Wisconsin were on welfare. Today, 6,900 women are receiving welfare.”
Today, assistance is temporary and most likely used by those in dire straits.
“They are not sitting home eating bonbons,” Collins says about the women she researched. “They are working at below minimum
wage jobs and they are working hard.”
In fact, it is the hard work and spirit of these women that prompted Collins to pursue this book after working on a different project.
“After I talked to these women, I knew I had to tell their story,” she says.
The book details historical changes that directly affect the lives of these women today. Collins backtracked to the 1950’s, when life
for a fulltime wage earner looked much different.
“When I was growing up in the 1950s, the division of labor for which children were cared for was different,” Collins says. “The
norm was a family wage. If a father went to work, he made enough not just to care for himself but for his family. He was insured also.
At the same time, employers were more generous. Not just in pay, but in the provision of health care and sick leave. Today, things
have been eroding on all fronts. The average wage has not increased since 1974.”
Today, because of changes to family structure and lower wages, it is much harder to get by.
“The minimum wage today is so far away from being able to cover the needs of a family,” she says. “At the same time, our family
structure has changed. There are more single parents. State assistance has decreased. Fulltime wage earners raise their family on
an income that can’t even cover the needs of a single person.”
So what does Collins say about the notion of the welfare queen living of the system? She lets the women’s stories speak for
themselves. Collins relayed a story of a woman with a severely autistic son. She was receiving cash assistance, so she could care
for her son, but was told she had to go back to work when her son turned 12. She did as she was told, leaving her son home with an
older sibling, and he scalded himself to death in the bathtub. Another woman had to quit her job in order to bury her mother because
she did not have access to time off and a woman working 38 hours a week at a pizza chain had to quit when she became severely ill
because she didn’t have sick leave.
And what about the idea that those receiving cash assistance are lazy?
“Three women were able to get their GED,” Collins says about the women they worked with. “They were working fulltime, going to
school, and taking care of their children. One of them would work all night cleaning restaurants and bring their child to sleep in the
booth; she worked another job in the morning, and then would go to school.”
Simply put, Collin asserts that majority of these women work very hard, and because of societal and political shifts in the
workforce and in welfare reform their hands are, indeed, tied.
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