Volume 7, No. 1, Spring 2003
An Examination of Targeted Welfare Programs in the United States: Why In-Kind Assistance is Not Superior to Cash Assistance
Amber Casolari
This work questions the underlying reasoning for targeted welfare programs in the United States. Programs can target in various ways. This work examines welfare programs that target the structure of the benefits. Policymakers tie benefits to specific goods by providing assistance in-kind rather than in cash. This work seeks to determine if the structure of the benefit influences the level of expenditures for different household types. Statistical analysis and regression analysis are employed. The findings suggest that the structure of the benefit doesn't significantly influence expenditures of either female headed or conventional households. Both household types spend slightly less on food when benefits are provided in cash rather than in-kind. However, both households also purchase slightly more housing and utilities. This indicates that households make minor adjustments to their average household budget. Policymakers target particular goods to constrain the recipients' expenditures. Much to the dismay of policymakers, they cannot perfectly constrain the individual because in-kind transfers are fungible. In this sample, food stamps can be substituted for a variety of other basic commodities, such as food, clothing, housing, transportation, health care, and utilities. This leads to the conclusion that tying benefits to a particular commodity is ineffective because this policy cannot completely constrain individual choice.
Amber Casolari is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Glendale College, Glendale, California. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside.
Conditional Income Support Programs: The Case of Mexico's Oportunidades
Rodrigo Garc'a-Verdo
This paper describes the main features of Oportunidades, an innovative poverty alleviation program recently implemented in Mexico and targeted to households living in extreme poverty. It also surveys the main evaluation of Oportunidades, which have benefited from the fact that the program constitutes one of the largest randomized social experiments of its kind.
Rodrigo Garc'a-Verdo is a Research Economist at Banco de Mexico (Central Bank of Mexico). He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago in 2002 and a B.A. in Economics from ITAM, in Mexico, in 1996. This paper is based on the first chapter of his doctoral dissertation.
Social Funds as a Strategy for Poverty Reduction, With Special Reference to Jamaica
Glenn A. Bowen
A social investment fund is the cornerstone of the National Poverty Eradication Program in Jamaica. Social fund projects aim to reduce "public" poverty primarily by rehabilitating and expanding social and economic infrastructure, improving social services, and strengthening community organizations. In this paper, I outline the social fund strategy of Jamaica and analyze three underlying concepts: community/citizen participation, social capital, and empowerment. I discuss the basic theoretical argument whereby involving local community residents in partnership-based social fund projects can create social capital and foster empowerment of the community, and particularly the community's poor. Finally, I recommend empirical research to provide systematic verification of the effectiveness of social funds as a long-term poverty reduction strategy.
Glenn Bowen is a Ph.D. candidate in Social Welfare at the Florida International University (FIU) School of Social Work and program facilitator at the FIU Center for Leadership Development and Civic Responsibility in Miami. A Jamaican citizen, he earned his MBA at St. Thomas University, Miami. His research interests include poverty, community leadership, and voluntary activity in human services.
The Effect of Arrests on the Earnings of Young Men: Evidence from the National Youth Survey
Mark Joseph
This paper tests the hypothesis that criminal background has a negative impact on earnings using data from the National Youth Survey (NYS). There are currently over two million individuals incarcerated in the U.S. 600,000 are released each year. Previous research suggests that men who have a criminal background earn less than men who have not, all else being equal. The NYS data enables me to incorporate a much broader range of control variables in my analysis than any previous study. In addition to OLS and fixed effect estimation, I apply a wage decomposition analysis, which has not previously been applied to studies of ex-offenders. I estimate that having been arrested causes a reduction in annual earnings of 18 to 26 percent for young men. My results suggest that education and work experiences are important mediating influences on the size of the earnings gap. Other factors such as cognitive ability, self-esteem, and peer influences appear less important than hypothesized. Applying a wage decomposition, I find that there is an unexplained portion of between 55 to 66 percent of the earnings gap, which leaves open the possibility of employer discrimination as an important cause of the gap.
Mark Joseph is a Principal with Community Development Associates, Inc., a consulting firm based in New York and Chicago. The firm is currently in-residence at the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago. Joseph received a Ph.D. from the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. The author wishes to acknowledge the invaluable feedback and advice of Tom DeLeire, Carolyn Hill, Brian Jacob, Bob LaLonde, Helen Levy, Len Lopoo, and Susan Mayer, and the research support of the Population Research Center at the University of Chicago.
Examining the Role of Experts in Policy Debates: An Analysis of Expert Opinion on Welfare Reform in The New York Times
Vicki Lens
The abolishment of AFDC in 1996 represented a mixture of conservative ideology that sought to end welfare as an entitlement and impose lifetime limits, and other reforms, such as work requirements, that had widespread support form conservatives and even liberals. While the rising influence of conservative ideology has been noted by others, the role of experts in this discourse has not been fully explored. This article reports on the results of a study that examined the public words of experts through a content analysis of their statements appearing in news articles and op-eds in The New York Times prior to the abolishment of AFDC in 1996. This study sought to examine whether there was a distinctly liberal voice among experts during the debate over welfare that was not constricted by conservative ideology. This study found that while liberal experts were given a public forum for their views and findings, they refrained from suggesting egalitarian solutions to welfare reform and let conservatives define the debate.
Vicki Lens is an Assistant Professor at Columbia School of Social Work. She received her Ph.D. from Yeshiva University and is also an attorney. Her interests include law, social policy, and welfare reform.
The Role of Contingent Work in the War Against Policy
Cynthia Bansak and Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes
The 1980s and 1990s witnessed the success of work-based welfare reform in reducing welfare caseloads. While welfare reform was effective in lowering immediate welfare dependency, researchers have questioned its long-run success in alleviating poverty partially due to the precariousness surrounding the jobs held by welfare leavers. This paper addresses this concern by examining (1) the likelihood of taking a contingent job given one's welfare dependency and past poverty status; (2) the probability of being on welfare for different types of contingent workers relative to their non-contingent counterparts; and (3) the likelihood of living in poverty in the near future as a function of past employment in alternative types of contingent jobs.
Cynthia Bansak is an Assistant Professor of Economics at San Diego State University. Dr. Bansak received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California at San Diego and worked for two years as an economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Research System before joining SDSU in 2001. Dr. Bansak's research focuses on labor economics. Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes is an Assistant Professor of Economics at San Diego State University. Dr. Amuedo-Dorantes received her Licence et Maîtrise en Sciences Economiques, from Université de Poitiers, France, and her B.A. in Economics from Universidad de Sevilla, Spain. After completing her J.D. degree, she obtained her Ph.D. in Applied Economics from Western Michigan University. Dr. Amuedo-Dorantes worked for a year at the Center for Human Resource Research at Ohio State University before joining SDSU in 2001. Her research is on labor economics with an international emphasis.
Promising Alternative or Dangerous Experiment? Framing the Debate over Economic School Integration Policies
Chloe R. Hutchinson
The emergence of economic school integration policies constitutes an important trend in education policy, as the plan seek both a new conception of diversity and improved student achievement. The policies are new and operating in only a handful of communities across the United States. Thus, analyzing their effectiveness proves difficult. At this early state, educators and policymakers must address the major issues framing the public debate over economic integration to develop successful policy.
Chloe R. Hutchinson recently completed a Master of Public Policy degree at the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. Concentrating on domestic social policy, she has worked on education issues, including high school reform and teacher recruitment at a Washington, DC-based public affairs firm and in homelessness and housing policy in New York City. Originally from Lexington, Kentucky, Hutchinson received Bachelor of Arts with honors from the University of Notre Dame.
Exploring Education Innovation that Last: An Annotated First Person Narrative Turning Practice into Theory (Reprint)
James S. Catterall
James S. Catterall is a Professor of Education at the University of California at Los Angeles, Graduate School of Education and Information Studies (GSE&IS). He joined UCLA in 1981 and is a past Chair of the GSE&IS Faculty. Professor Catterall specializes in measurement and assessment of learning and program evaluations focused on learning in and through the arts.
Book Reviews
Urban Sprawl: Causes, Consequences and Policy Responses (2002), Gregory Squires (ed.), The Urban Institute Press
Kimberly Shearer Palmer
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