[1] Typically viewed as a social problem, it has been the subject of major welfare reform efforts since the mid-20th century, primarily focused on trying to make recipients self-sufficient through paid work.
Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan argued that in the wake of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, urban Black Americans would still suffer disadvantage and remain entrenched in poverty due to the decay of the family structure.
[7] Moynihan wrote, “The steady expansion of welfare programs can be taken as a measure of the steady disintegration of the Negro family structure over the past generation in the United States.” The relatively high proportion of Black families headed by single-parent mothers, along with the high proportion of children born out of wedlock, was seen as a pernicious social problem – one leading to long-term poverty and consequently reliance on welfare benefits for income, as there would be no male breadwinner working while the mother took care of her children.
A small but significant group of recipients remained on welfare for much longer, forming the bulk of poverty at any one point in time and requiring the most in government resources.
Conservative views of welfare dependency, coming from the perspective of classical economics, argued that individual behaviors and the policies that reward them lead to the entrenchment of poverty.
Lawrence M. Mead's 1986 book Beyond Entitlement: The Social Obligations of Citizenship argued that American welfare was too permissive, giving out benefit payments without demanding anything from poor people in return, particularly not requiring the recipient to work.
Mead viewed this as directly linked to the higher incidence of social problems among poor Americans, more as a cause than an effect of poverty: Charles Murray argued that American social policy ignored people's inherent tendency to avoid hard work and be amoral, and that from the War on Poverty onward the government had given welfare recipients disincentives to work, marry, or have children in wedlock.
In 1983, Bane & Ellwood found that one-third of single-parent mothers exited poverty through work, indicating that it was possible for employment to form a route out of reliance on welfare even for this particular group.
[13] Unlike its predecessor AFDC, TANF had as its explicit goal the formation and maintenance of two-parent families and the prevention of out-of-wedlock births, reflecting the discourses that had come to surround long-term welfare receipt.
The conservative regime, influenced by corporatist and traditional values, offers status-differentiated benefits, preserving existing social hierarchies and often tying individuals' welfare entitlements to their employment history and status.
[22] While many young and/or single-parent mothers do seek work, their relatively low skill levels along with the burdens of finding appropriate childcare hurt their chances of remaining employed.
[27] Other factors which entrench welfare dependency, particularly for women, include lack of affordable childcare, low education and skill levels, and unavailability of suitable jobs.
This is in large part due to fundamental inequalities in the quality of public education, which are themselves traceable to class disparities because school funding is heavily reliant on local property taxes.
Under the spatial mismatch hypothesis, reductions in urban welfare dependence, particularly among Blacks, would rely on giving potential workers access to suitable jobs in affluent suburbs.
Without appropriate jobs, it can be argued using rational choice theory that welfare recipients would make the decision to do what is economically advantageous to them, which often means not taking low-paid work that would require expensive childcare and lengthy commutes.
One perspective argues that structural problems, particularly persistent racism, have concentrated disadvantage among urban Black residents and thus caused their need to rely on long-term welfare payments.
Economic growth in the 1980s and 1990s did not alleviate poverty, largely because wages remained stagnant while the availability of low-skilled but decent-paying jobs disappeared from American urban centers.
This perspective argues that poverty is perpetuated by a value system different from that of mainstream society, influenced by the material deprivation of one's surroundings and the experiences of family and friends.
While official welfare rolls were halved between 1996 and 2000, many working poor families were still reliant on government aid in the form of unemployment insurance, Medicaid, and assistance with food and childcare.
[38] Critics argue that this is the government's excuse to execute large-scale cuts in services, and that it perpetuates the stereotype that people on Incapacity Benefit or Disability Living Allowance are unwilling to work, faking their condition, or otherwise being "scroungers".
The advent of the gig economy, characterized by flexible, temporary, or freelance jobs, often facilitated by technology platforms, poses significant challenges and opportunities for India's labor market and social security systems.
The portal aims to create a comprehensive national database of unorganized workers, including those engaged in gig and platform-based work, to extend employment and social security benefits to this rapidly expanding workforce segment.
[40] India's gig economy, driven by technology platforms such as Swiggy, Uber, and Urban Company, is expected to encompass an estimated 90 million workers.
This shift not only redefines the traditional concept of unorganized labor but also projects a significant economic impact, with ASSOCHAM estimating the gig economy's growth to reach USD 455 billion by 2024.
[40] However, this expansion also risks leaving many gig workers without adequate labor welfare and social security protections due to the nature of their employment, which often lacks the traditional employer-employee relationship and associated benefits.
[40] The current labor welfare delivery system in India, largely based on a singular employer paradigm, faces challenges in accommodating the gig economy's multi-contract, flexible nature of work.
This disconnect necessitates a reimagining of welfare delivery mechanisms to ensure that gig workers, who often move between multiple platforms and jobs, do not fall through the cracks of social security systems.
[40] In addressing these challenges, India stands at the forefront of digital labor welfare innovation, with the potential to set a precedent for other countries grappling with similar issues stemming from the gig economy's rise.
The effective integration of technology, policy innovation, and collaborative stakeholder engagement will be key to harnessing the gig economy's benefits while mitigating its risks to worker welfare and social security.
This persistence of poverty, despite GDP growth, highlights the ongoing struggle of individuals to access basic necessities, including adequate healthcare and living essentials.