Shirin Vossoughi Vossoughi is a
fourth-year history and international development studies student
who encourages you to speak your mind at shirinv@ucla.edu.
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From the people that brought you family values, “Just Say
No,” and my favorite oxymoron, Compassionate Conservatism,
comes the latest panacea for poverty ““ marriage. If
you’re a single mom struggling to get off welfare, forget
education or job training. Just get hitched.
As Congress gets set to debate the reauthorization of
Clinton’s 1996 welfare package, Bush wants to make his mark.
To get more people off welfare, the president is pushing for more
stringent work requirements and $300 million in federal and state
money to develop programs that promote marriage.
Bush’s national marriage proposal is a slap in the face to
the single moms that constitute 95 percent of welfare recipients
(L.A. Times, March 4). While the president champions hard work and
solid families, his approach is both sexist and deeply
misguided.
In an effort to play matchmaker for the poor, premarital
counseling and programs that discourage sex out of wedlock would
get a fat check. Meanwhile, kids on welfare get nothing but less
time with their moms. The push for more marriages stems from three
false assumptions.
Myth No. 1: Single parenthood causes poverty.
In fact, it is often the other way around. Poverty is a complex
circumstance brought on by many factors. To blame single parenthood
for poverty is essentially to blame poor single mothers. Many
countries with more single mothers have much smaller rates of child
poverty (Ascribe Newswire, Feb. 27). While funding for education
and job training could help women escape poverty on their own, Bush
chooses to blame women and deny long-term support in favor of
simply marrying them off.
Myth No. 2: Two parents are always better than one.
While two-parent households can share paychecks and
responsibilities, marriage should not be the main crux of
anti-poverty policy. Homes with a mom and a dad are not shielded
from economic risks, as more than one-third of the United
States’ impoverished children live with both parents (Ascribe
Newswire).
 JARRETT QUON/Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Secondly, one must consider the quality of married life. A
majority of women receiving public assistance have been victims of
domestic abuse (USA Today, Feb. 27).
As Kim Gandy of the National Organization for Women argues, many
women are on welfare precisely because their husbands or boyfriends
were irresponsible. “Is this who they should marry?”
she asks.
While Bush says yes, arguing that children raised by married
couples fare better, he ignores the reality of many dead-beat or
abusive dads. Women and children must have support in violent
situations instead of taking the blame and being urged to tough it
out through new, marriage-centered programs.
Myth No. 3: Getting a job is enough to escape poverty.
While 1996’s reforms succeeded in decreasing the number of
people on welfare, many did not make it out of poverty. As the
Seattle Times reports, a large chunk of those who do have jobs are
stuck in low-wage work, with 43 percent saying that they often cut
back on meals (Seattle Times, March 2).
Believing that an end to poverty is as simple as more work, the
Bush strategy calls for an increase in work hours from 30 to 40.
Yet, without significant federal commitment to childcare subsidies,
where will these moms leave their mostly preschool- aged kids? Bush
plans to cut rather than support federal childcare spending.
With such false premises and a tight budget that would seem to
preclude social experimenting, why would Bush make the
proposal?
Politics. “They had to do it to play their socially
conservative base,” says R. Kent Weaver of the Brookings
Institute. So while Bush attacks single, working mothers, he gets
to demonstrate his political ties to the family values crew, many
of whom probably never had to worry about a pesky thing like
poverty.
But instead of investing in conservative votes, Bush could
invest in education, childcare and job training. Access to higher
education would help women help themselves instead of forcing them
to snatch a husband for support. The $300 million would also be
better spent subsidizing childcare. Better childcare would ease
household tensions and foster healthy marriages in a less
intrusive, more practical way. Finally, job training should be
increasingly supported and must include retention programs rather
than force mothers to up their hours without any assistance.
The ability to stay home and raise one’s children is one
of the many privileges often limited to the wealthy. Let’s
not add the ability to marry out of love to the list.