> From: James Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: [PEN-L:11503] welfare and work
> Max wrote: >By associating 'welfare' with 'nonwork,' the Right has opened
> itself to an
> assault on behalf of people who work in the form of demands for bigger and
> better refundable tax credits, FLSA protection, free health care, etc. When
> the welfare rights movement makes its final transformation into a movement
> on behalf of poor people who are working, as opposed to people who would
> like to work but don't for an assortment of reasons, some of them not
> credible, I think it will be a major tonic for progressive politic...<
>
> One way of transforming the "welfare rights movement" (is there such a
> thing these days?) "into a movement on behalf of poor people who are
> working" is to remember that taking care one's own children is _a form of
> work_, even though our capitalist and patriarchal society refuses to pay
> wages for that kind of work. Even though it's quite an important kind of
> work, children being our future and all.
Unfortunately, I would say the last thirty years demonstrate
that 'remembering that child care is work' is NOT politically
effective, though it has the secondary virtue of being true.
Welfare rights politics has always upheld that child care is
work, and socially important work to boot. People don't
buy it, including working-class people. They know it's work but too
many people do such work without pay, including many with low income,
for us to effectively make the argument to pay people who don't work
outside the home.
> The old AFDC system (abolished by the Gingrich/Clinton welfare deform) was
> a sort of minimum wages for housework system. Now many of the ex-AFDC
> earners will have to take care of others' children in order to earn the
> (minimum) wages that allow them to feed their own children. There's no
> direct help to their own children at all, beyond some transitional sops.
True in one sense, but if we are willing to get picky,
the rationale for AFDC by those who supported it was
that it was aid to children, not compensation for the
care of children. The difference is important in this
context. Of course, cash aid to children per se has not been
politically sustainable either.
Now I think we'll have a test of a different proposition:
that aid by means of fiscal redistribution is acceptable
if it goes to families whose able-bodied adults work
outside the home. Ideally we wouldn't have to go
this route, but that's where we are now.
There are a smattering of organizing campaigns
for 'living wages' around the country that have been quite
encouraging in this vein, though they are still in rudimentary
form. There is the battle over how to pay welfare recipients
for the work they will be forced to do, and under what legal
systems of protection, if any. This is going to heat up big
time, as states are forced to implement the new welfare
deform. I am hoping it is a major opportunity to recast
the cause of the poor into a working class framework and
set the stage for re-Federalizing the support programs low-
wage workers need to maintain economically-viable families,
along with guarantees of employment.
Cheers,
MBS
"People say I'm arrogant, but I know better."
-- John Sununu
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Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute
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http://epn.org/sawicky
Opinions above do not necessarily reflect the views
of anyone associated with the Economic Policy
Institute other than this writer.
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