Scholar: Welfare act not a success yet

When Congress passed the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, politicians on both sides of the ideological divide praised its changes to the decades-old federal system. They said it gave them the chance to help people get off welfare rolls and back to work.\nNow, four years later, statistics show welfare rolls are down, more jobs are available and the most economically-depressed areas of the country are starting to rebound. But some think it's too early to call anything a success quite yet.\nRenowned scholar William Julius Wilson, made that point last night in his lecture "Welfare, Children and Families: The Impact of Welfare Reform in the New Economy." \nWilson is one of only 17 Harvard professors now holding a university professorship. He is also the director of the Joblessness and Urban Poverty Research Program at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He was an adviser for ex-presidential candidate Bill Bradley and sits on the President's Commission on White House Fellowships. \nThe talk, held last night in the Indiana Memorial Union's Whittenberger Auditorium, was part of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs' Charles F. Bonser Distinguished Lecture in Public Policy. \nWilson's main points centered around what he identifies as the ever-growing gap between the classes in the United States. American economic policy favors the working and middle classes, he said, completely ignoring those most in need: the poor. For example, he said, plans to help potential homebuyers are not viable for poor Americans who get relegated to urban ghettos.\n"Housing for poor is limited to public projects far from employment opportunities and informal job opportunity networks," he said. \nSuch problems relate back to a lack of what Wilson calls "social rights" in America. In other Western democratic nations, Wilson said rights to health care and housing get more prominence and are part of the social fabric. \n"Compared with Canada and Western Europe, social rights (in America) are less developed and intertwined with human and political rights," he said. "Overall economic equality is up in all other Western developed nations. There, scholarly explanations (for poverty) focus on changes in the broader society rather than individual differences and behavior."\nThe American backlash against welfare recipients began during the late 1970s when the U.S. economy was slumping. Wilson said political pundits used the slump to point the finger at welfare recipients as the cause of the poor economy, which led to a "drastic" decline in state support for Aid for Dependent Families and Children. \nNow, in the wake of the 1996 welfare reform, Wilson freely admitted the feared collapse of America's poor classes was not realized. But the new laws could still cause calamities in the future.\n"Many of these positive outcomes could not have occurred without our current economic boom," he said. "The timing (of the welfare reform) could not have been better. But we don't know what will happen when the economy slows down."\nAstrid E. Merget, dean of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, said Wilson's studies of the U.S. welfare system have been groundbreaking.\n"He has worked on the paradoxes of our society and forced us, as a society, to face them," she said.\nAfter the lecture, graduate student Antwuan Wallace asked Wilson about his role as a researcher and advocate for the plight of the poor.\n"I'm an advocate based on informed research," Wilson said. "I'm happy about my combined role"