Does welfare keep fathers away from families?

[ZombieHorde]

Someone said this to me, so I looked it up, and this article is the only thing I saw on the subject.

The article is about welfare in California.

Welfare reform changed the nature of the program from one that encouraged mothers to stay home with their children to one that focused on maternal responsibility for children's material well being. The old program, AFDC, was created in the 1930s as part of the New Deal with a few modifications over the years. Policy-makers at the time intended the program to spare widows with children from having to work outside the home. Because of the nature of housework and the societal views regarding mothers working, it was thought that government aid should be used to keep mothers home with their children. The program policies were based on the assumption that the father of the children was dead. The long-term consequence of this policy assumption was to drive fathers away from their families, encourage poor single-parent families and unwed adolescent child bearing.

http://www.caltax.org/member/digest/feb2001/feb01-6.htm

Have you heard this accusation about the welfare program in other states? Is the accusation hyperbole?

[leftstreet]

1. Unemployment and shit wages may be a greater factor

In terms of intact families anyway

Thx to Clinton, 'welfare' has pretty much been gutted

[Warpy]

2. Not really, the presence of a man in the house

was a complete deterrent to getting subsistence payments so the kids would eat. Back in the New Deal days, people thought there was no reason any able bodied male needed to be on welfare and that mindset has persisted.

Most men had already gone, leaving to find another woman whose body hadn't been damaged by childbirth. Some were thrown out. Some just moved down the block so they could still visit.

The accusation that AFDC destroyed a lot of families is a valid one because it did encourage a man to leave so his wife and kids could eat when he couldn't find employment that paid enough for him to support them. Only men with severe and visible disabilities were allowed to stay.

[Squinch]

3. Recently I was watching a documentary on the

Pruitt Igoe housing project in St. Louis. One of the women interviewed said that in the 60's, her father was not allowed to live with the family in the subsidized housing if he was not working. If he did live with the family, they would lose their benefits. The thinking seemed to be that they were able bodied men who should not be living off the aid that was being given to the women and children, and if there was a man in the house, he could support the family.

The result was that the fathers lived elsewhere so the wives and children could have housing. I think it was called "the man of the house rule."

I think the man of the house rule has been revoked in most places, if not everywhere now.

(Great documentary, by the way. I think it was called "The Myth of Pruitt Igoe&quot