MyFoxDC

LB, some people don't know the Truth about welfare. I think it's time to take a trip back about a little over a decade or so:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1077/is_n10
_v50/ai_17361016/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1

The untold story: whites and welfare

Ebony, August, 1995 by Muriel L. Whetstone

It has become almost acceptable to characterize welfare recipients as irresponsible, negligent baby-breeders on a free ride, courtesy of the taxpaying public. Popular portrayals are of mothers dependent on the government for support, who breed babies for the sole purpose of collecting undeserved welfare checks. And what is implied--if not overtly expressed--by social scientists, politicians, the media, and many Americans is that the vast majority of these women are Black.

"It's clear that welfare has a Black face," says Dr. Mary Frances Berry, chairperson of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. "Whenever you see television or news shows about welfare, only occasionally will they show someone who is not African-American," she says. "The assumption is that when you speak of welfare, you're speaking of Black people."

The facts, however, reveal an entirely different picture that underscores the difference between the rhetoric that would have one believe that most welfare recipients are Black and the reality that the majority of them are White. "I think welfare and crime are two of what I call 'racially loaded' issues," says Dr. Ronald Walters, chairman of the political science department at Howard University. "The social function that they perform is that they give people a way to talk about race without actually articulating the concept. It's a way of talking about Black people without actually saying 'those Black people.'"

Racist attitudes notwithstanding, it is a matter of record that White mothers receive more than half of the checks distributed under the auspices of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program--55.2 percent, compared to 39.2 percent received by Blacks. Additionally, the U.S. Census Bureau reported in February that during an average month in 1990, 61 percent of major assistance program participants were White, compared to 34 percent who were African-American.

Although the American public most often associates welfare with aid to families, the government defines all entitlement programs funded through taxes as welfare. Consequently, Social Security fits that definition.

As of December 1993, 26 million Americans were receiving Social Security retirement insurance. However, only 7.7 percent of the beneficiaries were Black, while 90.4 percent were White. "We're talking about a system today that has made seniors in general, and Whites in particular, affluent," says Walters. "But most people don't look at [Social Security] as part of the welfare system."

And people don't consider the National School Lunch Program, which feeds millions of low-income school children as part of the welfare system. But it is and, again, Whites are the primary beneficiaries. Compared to the 17 percent of recipients who were Black, 75 percent of the children receiving reduced or free lunches are White. Whites also receive the majority of food stamps, Medicaid and Medicare assistance, housing subsidies and veterans' benefits provided by the government.

Also fitting the definition of welfare are the corporate subsidy programs that are funded with federal tax dollars. It's been estimated that Congress funds more than 125 programs that subsidize private businesses, the overwhelming majority of which are White-owned and operated, say experts, at a cost of more than $85 billion annually.

Across the board, in nearly every category, Whites, not Blacks, comprise the majority of Americans on the public dole. But why, despite the overwhelming evidence that suggests otherwise, does the negative stereotype stubbornly cling to Blacks? "[Because of] the legacy of racism," says Dr. Berry, "the definition of us as the 'other,' the negative. So that when you think of something negative in society, you think of Black people. When you think of something positive, you think of White people."

Personal histories indicate that the reasons why people, Black or White, apply for public assistance, and have difficulty surviving without it, are basically the same. A case in point is Deborah Watson of Chicago, a White divorced mother of two sons and a daughter who has been on and off welfare for the last nine years.

Watson worked at the local steel mill for 10 years before she was laid off. Her husband, who did not finish high school, had a job, but it paid less than minimum wage. With their youngest child Carrielyn on the way, the couple applied for public assistance to insure their medical expenses would be covered.

"Love flies out the window when poverty walks in your front door," says Watson, and it wasn't long before her husband was gone, too, leaving her alone to care for their children. In the interim, she has survived mainly on the cash assistance and food stamps she receives through the mail each month. "Health care is probably one of the biggest reasons why people cling to welfare," she says, "because they are so afraid of not having health care for their children."

Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun also thinks the lack of medical assistance is a major concern for most welfare recipients. "The current welfare debate is being framed by misperceptions and prejudices," she says in a recent statement. "The real problems that cause bloated welfare rolls--growing poverty, the lack of jobs in poor communities, and the lack of health care and child care--are getting lost in the crossfire."

Many Black mothers are in circumstances identical to Watson's. They apply for welfare because they believe they have no other alternative available to them and their children. But people who embrace racist attitudes are too often blinded to the similarities in the lives of the two groups of women.

"Underneath these public-policy issues like welfare is a racial dialogue," says Dr. Walters. "When one talks about the Black family, what's happening with teenage pregnancy and all the attendant problems of the system, it is a way of rearticulating the subordination and negative feelings about Black people."

Another negative opinion that persists is that Black women have multiple children in order to receive more government money. But Dr. Berry disagrees. "Social scientists tell us that the reason women end up getting pregnant are very complicated," she says, "and that they're as complicated for African-Americans as they are for White people, both on and off welfare. But still that notion persists that people are just trying to get a check."

Ginger Grier-Gardner, a 19-year-old Chicago teenager, had her first baby, Clarissa, in 1991 when she was 14 years old. Two years later, she was pregnant again, this time with her son, Donald. She was flipping hamburgers at a fast food restaurant for awhile, but the minimum wage job didn't bring in enough to support her family and pay for child care. Eventually, she applied for public assistance.

Grier-Gardner is White but her experiences echo those of many Black teenage mothers, and older Black women as well, who find themselves unprepared to secure a job that pays enough to adequately support their families.

Personal stories demonstrate that the reasons why people, whether they are Black or White, receive welfare are as diverse as the people themselves. Statistical facts prove that there are more Whites on welfare than there are Blacks, despite the rhetoric that would have the public believe otherwise. And an honest discussion of the welfare system makes it clear that it cannot be placed neatly in simple Black and White categories. "Poverty is not a genetic issue," says Sen. Moseley-Braun, "it is an economic issue."

The Untold Story About Whites and Welfare(*) Program Recipients Black White Social Security Retirement insurance 26 Million 7.7% 90.4% Disability insurance 3.7 Million 18.3% 79.3% Survivor's benefits 1.8 Million 24% 72% Widow's benefits 4.9 Million 9% 90.1% Supplemental Security Income 5.8 Million 26% 48.2% Aid to Families with Dependent Children(**) 3.8 Million 39.2% 55.2% Medicare 37 Million 8.1% 88% Medicaid 33.4 Million 25.1% 46.1% Food Stamps 27.5 Million 34.9% 42.3% Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Food Program 5.8 Million 27.8% 44.3% National Student Lunch Program 44.5 Million 17% 75% Veterans' Benefits 26 Million 8.0% 86.4% Housing Subsidies 4.7 Million 40% 46%

View more issues:

Muriel L. Whetstone "The untold story: whites and welfare". Ebony. . FindArticles.com. 08 Jan. 2009. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1077/is_n10_v50
/ai_17361016

Here is a Time Magazine article from 1991:

Welfare: A White Secret http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,97447
3,00.html

Another article from 1992:

Who gets welfare? Despite prevailing stereotype, whites, not blacks, collect greatest share of public aid dollars

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1077/is_n2_v
48/ai_12970819

excerpt from link above (the article is 4 pages):

Hill and other welfare supporters argue that numbers, and not erroneous stereotypes, tell the real story about public assistance clients: Some 61 percent of welfare recipients are White, while 33 percent are Black, according to 1990 Census Bureau statistics, the latest figures available.

The federal government defines welfare as all entitlement programs funded through taxes. These programs, listed as "direct benefit payments for individuals" by the Office of Management and Budget, make up $730 billion or 43 percent of the $1.47 trillion the government will spend this fiscal year.

Social Security is the nation's largest welfare program, although many Whites prefer to call it a retirement plan. The government writes retirement and disability benefit checks to 35.4 million recipients of whom 88.7 percent are White and 9.6 percent are Black. The reason behind this shocking disparity is perhaps the most lamentable of all: The life expectancy rate for Blacks is six years shorter than that of Whites, meaning Black workers spend years paying into a retirement system only to have White retirees reap the benefits for a longer time.

Welfare critics rarely search the Social Security rolls for "welfare cheats," but train their sights on people getting Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), Medicaid and food stamps, the relief programs with the most Black clients. Yet government figures show that Whites not Blacks make up the bulk of clients on these public aid programs; a fact that dispels the notion that Blacks are scheming for a free lunch courtesy of the American taxpayer.

Among the poorest of the poor--single mothers, living below the poverty line with minor children to support 39.7 percent of AFDC clients are Black single mothers and 38.1 percent are White women with children. Food stamp recipients are 37.2 percent Black and 46.2 percent White. Medicaid benefits are paid to 27.5 percent Black recipients compared to 48.5 percent White clients.