Welfare
Return to Common Sense
August 31, 2016
Section:
Culture – Welfare
“When he gave something the first time, there was
gratitude; and when he gave something a second time to that same community,
there was anticipation; the third time, there was expectation; the fourth time,
there was entitlement; and the fifth time, there was dependency.”
Bob Lupton.
“Once poverty is relative, it becomes impossible to eliminate
– along with the government programs and the massive amounts of
bureaucracy needed to do so.” Robert Rector
Philosophy
(Background, Issues, Objectives):
Welfare programs cost more than $900
billion a year.
- In 2013, the hidden welfare state is the fastest growing
component of government spending exceeding $900 billion per year,
and this does not include Social Security or Medicare payments.
- Over
100 million persons, one in three Americans, receive aid from at least one means-tested welfare
program each month.
- Welfare programs
are implemented in over 13 government agencies in 78 separate federal means-tested
programs.
|
Fed
Programs |
Fed
Agencies |
FY2012
Spending |
Cash Aid |
5 |
3 |
$220
B |
Education & Job Training |
24 |
7 |
$94
B |
Energy |
2 |
2 |
$4
B |
Food Aid |
17 |
3 |
$105
B |
Health Care |
8 |
1 |
$291
B |
Housing |
20 |
3 |
$50
B |
Veterans |
2 |
1 |
$22
B |
- The U.S. has
already spent $16 trillion since LBJ launched his “War on
Poverty” in 1964.
o
“Continued dependence
upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally
destructive to the national fiber,” President Franklin D.
Roosevelt said in 1935. “To dole out relief in this way is to administer
a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.”
o
In
1964, 19% of Americans were poor.
o
In
2012, 16% of Americans are poor, but the definition of poor has changed.
- Poverty
is best measured relative to the actual living standards of our own
society.
o
By the standards of the 19th century, practically
no American is poor.
o
In comparison with Bangladeshis, there are
precious few poor in the United States.
- Department of
Agriculture offers Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP -aka
food stamps) to low income families ($80B annually).
- Department of
Health and Human Services oversees various welfare related programs
o
Temporary Assistance for
Needy Families (TANF) Program (cut AFDC caseload in half)
§
In 1996, President Clinton signed the federal
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, often referred
to as the welfare-reform act, and welfare caseloads plummeted by 70%, down to
3.8 million taking 8.8 million people off the rolls.
§
The 2005 Budget Reconciliation Act embraced the
“work-first” philosophy designed simply to get them working, even
in entry-level positions, under the supervision of a caseworker.
§
Healthy Marriage Initiative.
§
Fatherhood Initiative
§
Head Start
o
In 2010, 70.5% of federal spending goes
to dependence programs.
§
In 2010, housing assistance grew to $59.4 billion.
§
In 2010, Medicare grew to $452 billion and Medicaid
grew to $273 billion.
§
In 2010, welfare and low-income health care
assistance grew to $1,137 billion.
·
In 2005, $620 billion was spent on more
than eighty welfare programs funded by federal, state, and local
governments.
o
In 2005, Social Security benefits for those in the
poorest fifth of the population totaled $100 billion.
o
In 2005, Medicare provided another $115 billion.
o
In 2005, educating the children of low-income
families cost $105 billion more.
o
In 2005 $40 billion was spent on uncompensated
medical care and $78 billion in private charity.
- Cato Institute
estimated ‘value’ of welfare programs would require jobs that
paid $30,000 per year.
- OMB and GAO
document widespread fraud in welfare payments that is costing $45 billion
a year.
Welfare
system is expensive, over $1 trillion in 2005, and growing.
- In 2011, the federal
government funds and operates 126 different welfare and anti-poverty
programs spending more than $668 billion per year:
Name (Sorted by Cost) |
Cost
$ Millions |
Number
of Participants |
Medicaid |
228,000.0 |
48,900,000 |
Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) |
75,000.0 |
44,200,000 |
Earned
Income Tax Credit (Refundable
Portion) |
55,000.0 |
27,000,000 (households) |
Supplemental
Security Income |
43,700.0 |
8,100,000 |
Federal
Pell Grants |
41,000.0 |
9,614,000 |
Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families |
21,000.0 |
4,492,000 (monthly avg) |
Section
8 Housing Choice Vouchers |
18,100.0 |
2,000,000 (households) |
Very
Low to Moderate Income Housing Loans- Sec. 502 |
16,700.0 |
131,370 (units) |
Title
1 Grants to Local Education Agencies |
14,100.0 |
N/A (formula grants) |
Children’s
Health Insurance Program |
13,459.0 |
7,705,723 |
National
School Lunch Program |
10,900.0 |
31,000,000 |
Adjustable
Rate Mortgages |
10,600.0 |
43,687 (units) |
Maternal,
Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program |
7,500.0 |
N/A (formula grants) |
Special
Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) |
7,170.0 |
9,180,000 |
Head
Start |
7,100.0 |
904,000 |
Child
Care and Development Block Grant |
5,000.0 |
N/A (formula grant) |
Low
Income Home Energy Assistance |
4,700.0 |
N/A (formula grants) |
Foster
Care Title IV |
3,976.0 |
N/A (formula grants) |
Public
and Indian Housing |
3,900.0 |
1,100,000 (units) |
State
Administrative Matching Grants for SNAP |
3,403.0 |
N/A (formula grants) |
Child
Care and Development Mandatory and Matching Funds |
2,917.0 |
N/A (formula grants) |
School
Breakfast Program |
2,900.0 |
11,600,000 |
Adoption
Assistance |
2,480.0 |
N/A (formula grants) |
Public
Housing Capital Fund |
2,307.0 |
N/A (project grants) |
The impact of food stamps, Section 8 housing subsidies,
Medicaid, and other support programs has been to create a permanent welfare
class which, in terms of skills and attitudes, is poorly equipped to return to
work.
- In 2011, the number of Americans
receiving food stamps has risen to over 26 million, and has grown by 72%
in the previous 4 years.
o
In
2011 one in seven Americans are receiving food stamps.
o
States
have made households automatically eligible (categorical
eligibility) for food stamps if they receive other federal benefits like
TANF or counseling services.
o
Duplication
of benefits between other federal programs in rampant (ie.
Food stamps and free school lunches)
- The children of welfare
moms are nurtured in a mentality that perpetuates dependency from
generation to generation.
- The destructiveness of welfare goes beyond
political dependency.
- The
welfare system contributes greatly to the breakdown of the family.
- The more welfare that
families receive from government, the less necessary fathers are for their
support.
o
Lacking
the role model of a responsible father, children grow up to believe that
dependency is a natural condition of life.
o
A
great deal of evidence points to a close relationship between crime and
welfare.
- Obama was schooled in the Chicago patronage
system which equates dependency with votes.
- Support for {permanent)
government safety nets is declining.
In the late 1960s the federal government tested the relationship
between welfare and working in "the most ambitious social science
experiment in history."
- The largest, longest and
best-evaluated of these experiments was SIME/DIME (Seattle Income Maintenance
Experiment/Denver Income Maintenance Experiment) in Seattle and Denver,
and the results were not pretty.
- The goal was to prove
that popular wisdom was all wrong ? (welfare
would not cause people to reduce their work effort, to get married less often,
divorce more quickly or engage in other dysfunctional behavior)
- To the dismay of the
researchers, the results confirmed the conventional wisdom:
o
The number of hours worked dropped 9% for husbands and 20% for
wives, relative to the control group. For young male adults it dropped 43%
more.
o
The length of unemployment increased 27% among husbands and 42%
for wives, relative to the control group. For single female heads of households
it increased 60% more.
- Divorce increased 36% more
among whites and 42% more among blacks. (In a New Jersey experiment, the
divorce rate was 84% higher among Hispanics.)
The IRS administers "one
of the federal government's largest benefit programs for working families and
individuals."
- By claiming certain "credits,"
primarily the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Additional Child Tax
Credit, eligible tax filers receive a check from the IRS even if they have
paid no federal income tax during the year.
o
EITC
is the "largest cash assistance
program targeted at low-income families."
o
In
2008, of the approximately 142 million Forms 1040 filed, 25 million included
EITC claims totaling $51.6 billion - the IRS paid out $45 billion in EITC
benefits for the 2008 tax year.
o
In
2009, over 26 million people received nearly $59 billion in EITC benefits.
o
In
2008, another $20.5 billion was paid for Additional Child Tax Credits.
- In 2011, the IRS has an extensive marketing
campaign to find more EITC claimers, asserting that one in five eligible
recipients is missing out on government largesse.
Poverty is the anchor that binds people
into welfare dependence.
- Political
scientist Edward Banfield identified four degrees of
poverty:
o Destitution, which is lack
of income sufficient to assure physical survival and to prevent suffering from
hunger, exposure, or remediable or preventable illness;
o Want, which is lack
of enough income to support essential welfare;
o Hardship, which is lack
of enough to prevent acute persistent discomfort or inconvenience;
o Relative
deprivation, which is a lack of enough income, status, or whatever else may be valued to prevent one from feeling poor in
comparison to others.
o One important
category of poverty Banfield does not mention is psychological or
spiritual poverty.
- There are two main methods to measure poverty: income-based and
consumption-based.
o The Official Poverty Rate is an income-based measure calculated by the Census Bureau.
o The Supplemental Poverty Measure tries to incorporate non-cash and post-tax transfers to low
income individuals.
o Consumption Poverty captures public transfers, housing
and vehicle ownership.
- Mollie Orshansky, an economist and
statistician with the Social Security Administration, devised the poverty
line in the 1960s.
o Orshansky used the average family budget and the cost of
food.
o Because
the average family spent one-third of its budget on food in 1955, the poverty
threshold was set at three times the minimum cost to purchase an adequate food
diet.
o The
formula took a basic minimum (the food budget) and related it to the overall
prevailing standard of living.
o She
described it as an acceptable minimum social standard according to the custom
of the day.
o It
was not meant to be an absolute measure of poverty.
o The
federal government adjusted the poverty line every year thereafter, accounting
solely for the cost of inflation.
- Only a small portion of the 37 million persons classified as
“poor” are truly destitute.
o
Official poverty measures
count just family's cash income.
§ The
2009 poverty rate was income below $11,161 for an individual,
or below $21,756 for a family of four.
o
Official poverty ignores
additional sources of support such as:
§ Housing
subsidies;
§ Food
stamps;
§ Medicaid;
Ø
The number of Americans on food stamps is rising
dramatically, now approaching 40 million people in 2009.
§ Fuel
assistance; and
§ Earned-Income
Tax Credit.
o
The typical American categorized as
“poor” in 2007 has many amenities formally thought of as luxuries.
§
43% of all poor households own their own home.
§
80% of poor households have air-conditioning.
§
Only 6% of poor households are overcrowded, two
thirds have more than two rooms per person.
§
Typical poor American has more living space than
the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other
cities throughout Europe.
§
Nearly three quarters own a car; 31% own two or
more cars.
§
97% have a color television; over half have two or
more TVs.
§
62% have cable or satellite TV reception.
§
78% have a VCR or DVD player.
§
89% own microwave ovens; more than have a stereo.
§
More than a third have an
automatic dishwasher.
o
In 2012, the condition of the poor was
updated.
§
67% have cable or satellite television.
§
40% have a wide screen plasma or LCD TV.
§
More than half have video game systems such as Xbox
or PlayStation.
§
25% have digital video recorder system such as DVR
or TIVO.
§
50% have personal computers.
§
43% have internet access.
§
92% own microwave ovens.
o
Official poverty
ignores Medicaid, housing allowances, food stamps and other federal and local
government subsidies to the poor.
§
$40,000 has been labeled as the breakaway point
for many government welfare programs (a little less than $20 per hour).
o
Rather than materially poor, many of
America’s “poor”
suffer from the effects of “behavioral
poverty.”
§
A breakdown in the values, and conduct conducive to
healthy families and self sufficiency.
§
Mean testing benefits are reduced as the
non-welfare income rises.
§
Welfare eligibility rules (AFDC) incent fathers to
leave the home, undermining basic values.
o
The bottom quintile has a 35% increase in income
compared with the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quintiles.
§
Earnings up, welfare down caused by welfare reform,
not government payments.
§
Earned income tax credit accounted for the second
biggest increase in income.
o
AEI maintains that including all market income
reduces 2004 poverty rate from 12.7% down to 5.4%, demonstrating an incredible
reduction in real poverty in this country.
o
Statistically considering all
compensation, private and government, the actual poverty rate should be in the
range of 1 to 3 percent.
- Income as measured by
the federal government is not a reliable indicator of well-being, but
consumption is.
o
In constant dollars, consumption by people in the lowest quintile
rose by more than 40% over the past four decades.
o
Spending is vital because it is the principal determinant of
standard of living.
o
Measuring income on an after-tax basis and including transfers
reduces real and perceived inequality.
o
The Census Bureau data is reported by household, and composition of households have changed over the past 30
years.
- Food insecurity is a
term created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for its annual report
on the status of hunger in America.
o
Food
insecurity is not synonymous with starvation, chronic hunger, and substandard
nutrition.
o
Low
food security is “reduced quality,
variety, or desirability of diet with little or no indication of reduced food
intake”; and
o
Very
low food security is “multiple indications
of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake.”
§ Food security does not
indicate reduced food intake, only disrupted eating patterns.
·
Recent studies have
shown that people do not remain stagnant
in their income level.
o
The Treasury Department’s
latest study found that during the 10-year period starting in 1996, roughly
half of the taxpayers who started in the bottom 20% had moved up to a higher
income group by 2005.
o
Less than half of people in the top 1 percent in 1996 were still
there in 2005.
o
Nearly half of the families in the lowest fifth of income earners
in 2001 had moved up within six years.
o
More than a third of those in the highest fifth of income-earners
in 2001 had moved down.
o
Another recent survey
of over 500 successful entrepreneurs found that 93% came from middle-class or
lower-class backgrounds.
§ Most were the first in their families to launch a
business.
Several states are experimenting with
ways to return people to independence.
- In Delaware, the Moving to Work
program has been in place since 1996.
o
Moving to Work limits the length of time residents are eligible to receive housing subsidies.
o
Moving to Work requires all adults to work, and to
work an increasing number of hours per week during their five year tenure.
o
Participants have to meet quarterly with a case
manager to plan their path to financial independence.
o
More than 850 families have completed the program
to enter assistance-free living.
o
30% of program participants become homeowners when
they left.
- In Kansas, a different form of
welfare was tied to work: food stamps.
o
One work requirements were established, thousands
of food stamp recipients moved into the workforce, promoting income gains and a
decrease in poverty.
o
40% of the individuals who left the food stamp
ranks found employment within three months, and about 60% found employment
within a year.
o
Average income increased by 127%.
o
Half of those who left the rolls and are working
have earnings above the poverty level.
o
With the implementation of the work requirement,
the caseload dropped by 75%.
The idea to replace the multiple
means-based programs with a single program has been suggested, but has been
found not to achieve the program objectives.
- The U.S federal government currently funds more than 100 separate
anti-poverty programs, overseen by nine different cabinet departments and
six independent agencies.
- The single program is simpler and based on a belief
that all individuals have the capacity to promote their own interests, and
in fact are better able to make decisions about their lives than anyone
else.
- Replacing
multiple programs with a single program transfers the decision making, allowing
the recipient to make tradeoffs between previous conflicting programs.
- A Guaranteed Income / Negative Income Tax has been suggested as an income redistribution approach.
o The appeal of a guaranteed income also
diminishes when judged against its ability to move people away from government
dependency.
o There is some evidence that a guaranteed
minimum scheme would undermine incentives to seek employment.
o Four landmark experiments in the 1960s and
'70s examined the Negative Income Tax's impact on labor supply.
o The recipients of NIT grants tended to work
fewer hours compared to control groups that did not receive the grants.
o
After 30 welfare
experiments in the 1990s, only welfare policies that included work
requirements pushed people off welfare and back to self-sufficiency.
Europe has begun to roll back some of
their welfare programs.
- Britain is consolidating its six major
welfare programs into a single grant, with a greater emphasis on moving
recipients from welfare back to work
o
Work
is the surest route out of poverty; it structures lives; unlocks potential;
builds confidence; forges friendships; cements communities; provides mental
well-being.
- Netherlands has asked its people to create
their own social and financial safety nets, with less help from the
government.
- Sweden enacted significant reforms to its
safety net, including the partial privatization of its social security
system.
- Finland announced plans to increase the
retirement age, cut payments to students, and reform maternity leave.
- Denmark has declared it must embrace the
“modernization of the welfare state,” adding that the system
“needs to prioritize things in a new way and create the best
possible conditions for people to get a job.”
- Norway is looking to cut taxes, reduce
bureaucracy, and reforming the welfare system to better encourage entrepreneurship.
Several countries are eliminating their
nation’s social-welfare programs and replacing with a guaranteed national
income for all citizens.
- Recipients are
left alone to manage their own lives free from government.
- Experiments are
underway in Switzerland, Finland, Netherlands and Canada.
Principles:
Embrace the ‘Culture of Belonging” encouraging the combination of
“work, wedlock, and worship.”
- Design welfare
to provide for bare necessities.
- Design as
“uncomfortable
safety net.”
- Encourage
temporary nature as a stepping stone to rejoining the free market society.
- Discourage
permanent dependence as “under-class.”
Ten Welfare-Reform Lessons:
- Always promote
personal responsibility.
- Employment is
far better than training and education.
- Making work pay
I welfare reform too.
- Be honest about
the importance of married two-parent families.
- Caseworkers
don’t cost much; benefits do.
- Medicaid is
where the money is.
- Immigrants get
welfare too.
- Welfare
recipients (and workers too) will try to “get over.”
- When it comes to
the disabled, trust but verify.
- Always cheer for
the economy.
Defend and strengthen marriage and
the family in federal and state law and policies.
- Re-write the
Defense of Marriage Act, defining marriage as the union of one man and one
woman.
- Ease economic
and other burdens on families (remove disincentives).
- Encourage
healthy marriages through welfare reform and other social service
programs.
Obey the principles of “calculated” compassion:
- Do not help the
needy completely; merely help those who will help themselves.
- Give the poor
the satisfaction of “earned achievement” – instead
of rewarding them without achievement.
- Allow the poor
to climb the “appreciation ladder”
– from tents to cabins; from cabins to cottages; and from cottages
to comfortable houses.
- Where emergency
help Is provided, do not prolong it to the point
where it becomes habitual.
- Strictly enforce
the scale of “fixed responsibility”- first with
the individual; next is the family; then the church; next is the
community; finally the county, and in a disaster or emergency, the state. (Under no circumstances is the federal government to
become involved in public welfare)
Recommendations:
Short
term, Make explicit the goals to be 1) increase
self-sufficiency; 2) enhance productive participation in society; and 3)
improve personal well-being and upward mobility.
Transfer Food Stamp Program from the
Department of Agriculture to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Promote marriage as an institution
and a cure for poverty.
- Expand Healthy
Marriage Initiative to increase number of two parent married families:
o
Conduct
public education campaigns within low-income communities on the importance of
marriage;
o
Provide
marriage education classes to at-risk students in middle and high schools;
o
Provide
life skills training, relationship building, and marriage education programs to
interested young adults who are likely to become single parents.
- Eliminate
penalties for married couples under government means tested welfare
programs.
- Encourage a delay in the onset of sexual activity
among young people.
Strengthen work requirements under all
the means-tested programs to restore welfare as a temporary assistance program.
- Reform all the welfare programs to include work requirements to dis-incent long term government dependence.
- Restore the
original work requirements to the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families
(TANF) program.
o
Include a guaranteed offer of work for everyone who
reports to local welfare office before 9am.
o
Local welfare office would provide free daycare for
participants small children.
o
For those who work a minimum numbers of hours each
month would get a Medicaid voucher to purchase health insurance.
- Add work
requirements (30 hours per week) to other welfare programs, such as public
housing.
o
Mandate large scale, multi-site experimental
evaluations of implementations to tune programs prior to final adoption.
o
Treat a portion of welfare aid as a loan to be
repaid by able-bodied recipients.
Eliminate Department of Housing and Urban
Development Community Development Block Grants ($3.1B).
Long
term, Abolish federal
Department of Housing and Urban Development as not covered under enumerated
powers (63 billion annually).
- End federal rental assistance programs
($27.1 billion annually).
- End community development subsidies ($13
billion annually).
- End housing finance subsidies (12 billion annually).
- End urban renewal and public housing
subsidies ($9 billion annually).
- End
American/Hawaiian programs ($893 million annually).
Abolish federal Department of Health and
Human Services as not covered under enumerated powers.
- Devolve welfare programs (family, child
care, social services, foster care, adoption services, Head Start,
community services, etc.) to individual states ($20B).
References:
“The
5000 Year Leap” by W. Cleon Skousen
published by National Center for Constitutional Studies, 2006.
“After
the Welfare State” by Tom G. Palmer published by Students for
Liberty, 2012.
“Who’s the Fairest of Them All?”
by Stephen Moore published by Encounter Books, 2012.
“The government’s welfare bureaucracy”
by Frank Gillespie dated March 21, 2002 published by Main Street News at http://www.mainstreetnews.com/Arch/02/0320/MadOpinion.html .
“The
rich are getting richer, and so are poor” by Jack Kemp dated January
28, 2003 published by Town Hall at http://www.townhall.com/columnists/JackKemp/2003/01/28/the_rich_are_getting_richer,_and_so_are_poor .
“Rich-poor
divide shows poverty is relative” by Jonah Goldberg dated June 18,
2003 published by Town Hall at http://www.townhall.com/columnists/JonahGoldberg/2003/06/18/rich-poor_divide_shows_poverty_is_relative .
“Welfare
Reform II” by Stephen Moore dated March 10, 2005 published by
National Review Online at http://www.nationalreview.com/moore/moore200503100951.asp .
“Long
After the Alarm Went Off” by Ellis Cose
dated March 11, 2005 published by MSNBC at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7103230/site/newsweek/ .
“The
2005 Index of Dependency” by William W. Beach dated June 13, 2005
published by The Heritage Foundation at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/cda05-05.cfm .
“Ending
Welfare As We Know It” by Myron Magnet dated December 19, 2005
published by
Manhattan Institute for Policy Research at http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/_national_review-ending_welfare.htm .
“A Plan
to Replace the Welfare State” by Charles Murray dated March 26, 2006
published by The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page at http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008142 .
“How
Welfare Reform Worked” by Kay S. Hymowitz
dated Spring 2006 published by City Journal at http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_2_welfare_reform.html .
“The
Collapse of Marriage and the Rise of Welfare Dependence” by Jennifer
A. Marshall, Robert Lerman, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead,
Wade Horn, and Robert Rector dated May 22, 2006 published by The Heritage
Foundation at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/hl959.cfm .
“New
welfare rules designed to reduce rolls” by Richard Wolf dated June
28, 2006 published by USA Today at http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-06-28-new-welfare-rules_x.htm .
“Further
Welfare Reform and the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005” by Stephen M.
Lilienthal dated July 13, 2006 published by American Daily at http://americandaily.com/article/14512 .
“The
Impact of Welfare Reform” by Robert Rector dated July 19, 2006
published by The Heritage Foundation at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/tst071906a.cfm .
“The
Amazing Colossal Poorhouse” by Jesse Walker dated August 22, 2006
published by Reason Foundation at http://www.reason.com/links/links082206.shtml .
“More Welfare,
More Poverty” by Michael D. Tanner dated September 21, 2006 published
by The Cato Institute at http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6698 .
“The
Feminization of Poverty?
There You Go Again, Hillary!” by Carey Roberts dated October 4, 2006
published by Renew America at http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/roberts/061003 .
“The
2006 Index of Dependency” by William W. Beach dated November 30, 2006
published by The Heritage Foundation at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/cda06-11.cfm .
“States’
Addiction to Welfare Corrupts Federalist System” by Mike Franc dated
March 2, 2007 published by Human Events Online at http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=19645 .
“The
Rise of the Bottom Fifth” by Ron Haskins dated May 29, 2007 published
by Washington Post at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/28/AR2007052801056_pf.html .
“Welfare
and the ‘Road to Serfdom’” by Stephen Baskerville dated
June 15, 2007 published by Institute for Policy Innovation at http://www.ipi.org/ .
“Measuring
Poverty in America” by Douglas J. Besharov
dated August 1, 2007 published by American Enterprise Institute at http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.26594/pub_detail.asp .
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Politics” by Robert Rector dated August 27, 2007 published by National
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