By Adayr R.

Martinez
Student ID: 23078184 martineza@email.arizona.edu Class: IND 103-011 Section: Lo-Pa

March 28, 2011

The Good and Bad Effects of Anti-poverty programs The U.S. government has developed different anti poverty programs to decrease the poverty rate in the country, but even when they help low income families, they also have some negative externalities. According to From Poverty to Prosperity, " Thirty-seven million Americans live below the official poverty line. Millions more struggle each month to pay for basic necessities, or run out of savings when they lose their jobs or face health emergencies" ("Center for American Progress" 7). Programs like food stamps, unemployment benefits, and Medicaid provide help to low income families and prevent to get them in a worse economic situation. Their goal is to increase health in the country and so increase their productivity, but this is not necessarily the only effect it has in society. These kind of help that Government reduces delinquency by reducing poverty, unifies existing families and improves children performance in school, but on the other hand, they discourage people to work and promotes single parent families. The cost of these programs is billions of dollars which is also increasing due to the recession our country is facing. As long as more people become unemployed , more people will become dependent of these types of help and so the cost will increase even more. The main purpose of anti poverty programs is, as its name says, reduce poverty in the U.S. and so reduce delinquency. According to Lawrence M. Mead, "poor people [is] prey not

only to low income, but to ignorance, disease, delinquency, crime, irresponsibility, immorality, indifference. Honesty becomes a luxury and ambition a myth, for people living in [poor conditions ]" (Mead 58). It is because of poverty that delinquency raises, so anti poverty programs are the main weapon with which we are fighting it. Delinquency is just a desperate act of poor people to overcome their situation. Many people who lost their job because of the recession in 2007 were incapable to get other job quickly, so programs like unemployment help those people from losing everything they have and still have some money to cover their basic necessities. This program get its funds from taxes paid by employers, so in times of recession, unemployment rises therefore more people is collecting unemployment but also less taxes are collected from employers. This situation results in a surplus of funds for the unemployment program but also helps prevent an increase in delinquency which reduces other expenses in security, so it is necessary to have this kind of help. Even when every Anti poverty program has different criterion to determine who is able to receive this help, the main purpose of all of them is to reduce the poverty rate. Anti poverty programs not only help families of low income to increase their life style, they also help families to become more united. Families who receive any kind of help are able to spend more time with their family and so spend more time with their children. According to the article Effects of welfare and antipoverty programs on participants children, " increased income might improve the quality of learning experiences provided in the home, reduce parents stress and depression, and improve the quality of parenting behavior"(Duncan, Gennetial, and Morris 8). Even though there is no enough evidence, many experts argue that because parent spend less time thinking on their financial problems, they have more time to dedicate to their

children and its spouse. These results in a better education for the children and a more unified family which also prevents families to break apart because of their financial problems. Also, it is important to remark that these programs help children to succeed in school and life. According to a study , an increase on income by any type of anti poverty program also increases the achievement of children in school in a 6% (Duncan, Gennetial, and Morris 6). This could be attributed to a better diet parents can afford or more attention they can give to their children. In most cases, people who receive any help tend to care more about the education of their children. They can save some money to provide a higher quality education. In addition, anti poverty programs help parents to avoid working extra hours to pay their bills or provide food. This helps parents to focus not only in school education but also in moral education. Values and beliefs are imposed in children by parents who have the time to do it. With a better household education children are less susceptible to criminal activities and drugs. On the other hand, Anti poverty programs have been accused of being disincentives for people to work. Large numbers of people who could be working are refusing to take the risk of coming off benefits. This is because as their income increases, help by any program is reduced. Medicaid, welfare, food stamps and other anti poverty programs are based on the income of the family. According to the document From poverty to prosperity, " Most asset limits in meanstested programs are counterproductive. Asset limits may deny short-term assistance to a worker because he or she owns a careven though having a car may be essential to finding and keeping a job" (51). The main problem with this is that as they become employed and their income raises, their help is reduced. Imagine a family who earns $800 a month and suppose they receive $300 in help by any kind of program plus they live in a income based rent apartment where they pay $300 monthly. Now suppose that one of the family members decided to take a second job and

increase their income by $500 more per month. The family would increase their income to $1300 per month which would eliminate help of food stamps or welfare, and the rent of the apartment would increase to $325 monthly. So by doing simple math we can see that these family became worse off by working harder. They don't have any help of the government and they have to pay more in rent. Many people decide just not to put more effort on become self dependent because it is not worthy. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is the name of other program that gives cash incentives to low income families or single parents. This program was created with the purpose of having a better distribution of help among low income families. This program imposed time limits for recipients. According to the book Conditional Cash Transfer, an experiment realized in 2001 showed that time limits only increase employment of welfare recipients by 4 - 11 percentage points (F i s z b e i n , a n d S c h a d y 1 1 8 ) . This means that even when the problem has been treated, there have not been a powerful and successful solution to it. Many people who is actually unemployed prefers to stay unemployed as much as possible. In many states the only condition to receive unemployment insurance is to do any kind of work activity. Looking for a job counts as a work activity so many people just go monthly to different places asking employers to sign a paper saying they were looking for a job with no luck. This allow them to keep receiving unemployment benefits. Finally, anti poverty programs have increased the amount of single parents in the country. Now a days, many couples decide to stay single because this allow them to be eligible for any type of help. These days marriage looks like a disadvantage for people with low income. When they marry if both persons are working they rise their income to a level where they might not be eligible for any anti poverty program. For this reason, many couples

decide to cohabitate without any legal attachment. This results in a more and more single parent families. According to the CATO Institute, "More than 20 percent of single-mothers start on welfare because they have an out-of-wedlock birth, and 75 percent of government aid to children through means-tested programs like TANF goes to single-parent families. Moreover, once on welfare, single mothers find it difficult to get off, and they tend to stay on welfare for longer periods than other recipients" (Tanner, and DeHaven). Sometimes single mothers stay like that because the father doesn't recognize the child but most of the cases they stay like that being rational and thinking on their interests. If government supports one parent families why should they get married?. U.S. Government efforts to reduce poverty in the country with anti poverty programs have helped many people fight this situation, but also, it has raised some good and bad externalities. Anti poverty programs have been accused of being disincentives of work because they benefit people who is un employed or have a very low income. They have also increased the amount of single parents families because they are more likely to get the benefits. But anti poverty programs have not only raised negative externalities, some people might support them because they help reduce delinquency in a indirect way. Anti poverty programs help parents to spend more time with their family, and so, they can raise and educate better their children. Also, they have helped children to perform better in school. With no doubt, anti poverty programs are a controversial topic but I would argue that they help much more that what they harm. The best way to reduce the negative externalities is to revise and change the policies of who and for how long is able to receive any type of aid. Many changes need to be considered like supporting marriage by giving them better benefits or implementing any type of community work for people receiving unemployment benefits.

Works Cited

Duncan, Greg, Lisa Gennetial, and Pamela Morris. "Effects of Welfare and Antipoverty Programs on Participants." (2002): Web. 26 Mar 2011.<http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc252b.pdf> F i s z b e i n , A r i e l , a n d N o r b e r t S c h a d y. C o n d i t i o n a l C a s h T r a n s f e r s : Reducing present and future poverty. Washington, DC: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development Bank, 2009. eBook. " F r o m P o v e r t y t o P r o s p e r i t y: A N a t i o n a l S t r a t e g y t o C u t P o v e r t y i n H a l f . " Center for American Progress. The Center for American Progress T a s k F o r c e o n P o v e r t y, 2 5 A p r 2 0 0 7 . W e b . 1 3 M a r 2 0 1 1 . < h t t p : / / w w w . a m e r i c a n p r o g r e s s . o r g / i s s u e s / 2 0 0 7 / 0 4 / p d f / p o v e r t y_ r e p o r t.pdf>. Mead, Lawrence. Beyond Entitlement: The Social Obligations Of Citizenship. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1986. eBook. Tanner, Michael, and Tad DeHaven. "TANF and Federal Welfare." CATO Institute. N.p., Sep 2010. Web. 10 Mar 2011. <http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/hhs/welfare -spending>. /The World