Readings:  In Piven et al. , Straus chapter “Not So Rugged Individualists,” and Chavkin, et al, “What Do Sex and Reproduction Have to do with Welfare.”

Policy Paradigms

How do we conceive of public assistance?  Why do we have it?  What are its goals?  How do we think about poverty?  What are its causes and effects?  Who is responsible?  What should be done??
 

Habits of the Heart dilemma – Americans often have tension within themselves between our discourses of individualism and discourses of collective responsibility, “civic republicanism”

The politics of individualism vs. the politics of community
 
 

Strauss sets out to discover how Americans think about poverty and public assistance
And to experiment with rhetoric – how exposure to three different kinds of rhetoric – individualist, humanitarian, and populist – affect which kind of welfare reform policies people seek
 
 

Findings:
1) people have multiple, often inconsistent schemas for thinking about the causes of poverty
 e.g., they think of it in terms of both individual failures AND systemic/structural causes

 what kinds of individual failures cause poverty??

 what kinds of structural or social causes are there??

 why?

 How do you design public policy with this in mind??

2)  the issue is “doing something”
both individuals and the government

3) experimental findings
phone surveys in NC and RI
asked about eliminating welfare for out-of-wedlock births; instituting a two-year time limit for welfare; or replacing welfare with government-subsidized childcare, health insurance and jobs.

Primed with rhetoric
Individualist rhetoric (morality schemas) led to increased support for eliminating welfare to teenage mothers

Humanitarian rhetoric (charity schemas) led to an overall preference for time-limited assistance

Populist rhetoric (equity schemas) led to preference for replacing welfare with expanded social benefits for all.

How was welfare reform discussed at national level, in Congress?  What kinds of rhetoric were used?  What kind of schemas were activated?
 

Note:  most opposed those in rural areas and those over 60 (Cantril and Cantril 1999)
Why?  Do these group rely on different schemas?  Who relies on what schemas to decide their preferences?  In other words, how do interests shape people’s reasoning about poverty??
 

Chavkin et  al.

Discuss how incentives and punitive measures employed by federal government to affect state policy and by states to affect individual behavior

Unspoken assumption:  behavioralism
That humans, like all animals, respond consistently and decisively to incentives and costs (sticks and carrots) and change their behavior accordingly.

Behavioral goals of welfare reform??

What kind of family is sought and why??

How do we construct public policy to create this kind of family??
 

What kind of behaviors are penalized?  Which “rewarded?”

Which states have taken the most punitive stances??
 

What has the impact of welfare reform been on birth rate (fertility), abortion rates, out-of wedlock birth rates?

Are these the same in all states?  Across all age groups??  Across all races and ethnicities?  Across all industrialized countries??