The Women's Freedom Network Newsletter September/October, 2000, Vol. 7, Number 5. Responsible Fatherhood-- or Irresponsible Policymaking? By Lisa E. Oliphant Cato Institute

W elfare reform these days seems largely absent from the campaign radar screen.

Both candidates list it as an agenda item, but welfare reform rarely gets more than a sentence or two in speeches to the electorate. The 1996 law that supposedly ended "welfare as we know it" has been hailed by policymakers as a bipartisan success, and plans by both sides to forge ahead on this front involve only incremental add-ons to the existing legislation.

"Responsible fatherhood" is the variation on current welfare policy favored by the Al Gore camp. Forcing deadbeat dads to pay child support and get a job, or go to jail will, Gore believes, help to enhance welfare reform's goals of self sufficiency and stronger families.

But, making responsible fatherhood "the critical next phase of welfare reform," as Gore puts it, is not an effective way of ending dependence and helping families. In fact, emphasizing collection of child support to the exclusion of other more important preventive measures is simply irresponsible policymaking. Dependence and family breakdown are not so much the result of fathers failing to meet their financial responsibilities, as they are the consequence of men and women parenting children that they cannot afford and that they do not plan to raise together.

To date, welfare reform has produced few gains in self-sufficiency among long-term dependent families and has done little to curb the choices that cause families to enter the rolls in the first place. If policymakers want to get serious about tackling dependence and family breakdown, they need to shift attention to preventing out-of-wedlock childbearing and encouraging "responsible parenthood." Al Gore wants to put more effort into cleaning up milk that has already been spilled. Real reform requires fundamental restructuring that will prevent these spills from occurring to begin with.

Four Years Later

The 1996 Welfare Reform Act convened the old entitlements-based Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program into the new work-oriented Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. The objectives behind the new program now include not only poverty alleviation, but also increasing self-sufficiency through work and strengthening families. Welfare benefits now come with state-specific work requirements and time limits that, according to federal rules, cannot exceed a total of five years.

Four years into welfare reform, the proportion of this country dependent on cash assistance has decreased from more than 5 % to 2.3 %-- a 46 % decline in the welfare rolls. Around three-quarters of adults who have left welfare have managed to secure employment and most, with the help of numerous supplemental non-cash benefits, have had the quality of their lives improved.

However, on more important measures of success welfare reform has been lagging, Despite the dramatic caseload declines, long-term welfare receipt and joblessness remain formidable problems. Most who have exited the rolls in the last four years have been the easiest-to-employ, transitional cases, leaving behind those with less education, fewer basic skills and less previous job experience.

Furthermore, among those who do succeed in moving from welfare to work, less than 25 % manage to stay in their jobs for an entire year; 30 % end up back on welfare, and around two-thirds continue to depend on government aid to help them meet their basic health care, food, childcare, housing and transportation needs.

Welfare reform is failing to create self-sufficiency

Most important, the new law has done little to dissuade women from making the choices that lead to long-term dependence. One-third of women on the welfare rolls got there because of an out-of-wedlock birth, and most of these women go on to become long-term recipients of welfare. As of 1999, three-quarters of teenage births occurred to unmarried women-- roughly the same disturbing figure as when the new law was passed. Moreover, out-of-wedlock births among all age groups as a percentage of live births, have been inching upward since 1996

Al Gore's Responsible Fatherhood

Policymakers looking ahead on this four-year anniversary of welfare reform remain stuck in the search for a cure to already-existing dependence. Some, like Vice President Al Gore, are calling for attention to shift from the women who are heading welfare families to the often-absent fathers of these families. By getting men to acknowledge their paternity and pay the child support they owe, Gore hopes to increase marriage and fathers' involvement with their children, and provide one more tool to boost the self-sufficiency of single-parent families.

In order to enforce paternity acknowledgement and child-support payments, the vice president has suggested a series of punitive measures against fathers who fail to live up to their financial obligations. His next step in welfare reform would be to ensure that fathers who do not pay the child support they owe, or go to work in order to make their payments, would have their wages garnished, bank account seized, driver's license taken away, credit card applications rejected, and, if necessary, go to jail.

Previously absent men, in this new era of responsible fatherhood, would also be encouraged to spend more time with their children, offer their emotional support and take an interest in their children's lives, Getting men into work and forcing them to pay child support, Gore hopes, would spark a new breed of responsible, nurturing fathers, and self-reliant families.

An Irresponsible Policy

Al Gore's insistence that "promoting responsible fatherhood is the critical next phase of welfare reform and one of the most important things we can do to reduce child poverty" is misguided for two reasons: (1) its potential for boosting self-sufficiency and family well-being is limited; and (2) its curative approach is wrong-headed at a time when prevention needs to be emphasized.

First, increased payment of child-support is unlikely to be pivotal in making low-income families self-reliant. Most fathers of children living in low-income, welfare-dependent families are not in a position to be paying a substantial-- if any-- amount of child support. Many of these fathers do not have jobs and have as many obstacles to work as the mothers for whom welfare reform is currently targeted. Those fathers who do earn wages are usually barely able to offer enough to make a large difference in the quality of life and self-sufficiency of their families. Of course if is important that absent fathers meet their financial responsibilities to their families, but it is doubtful that doing so will help to significantly advance the objectives of welfare reform.

Second, and more important, it is possible that focusing too much on child support may undermine the role of men as fathers, and not just pocketbooks, and detract from the goal of encouraging parents to marry before they have children. Women who are not interested in marrying the fathers of their children, for whatever reason, may feel even less compelled to do so if they can be ensured payment of child support. "Why should I have to share my home with this man," a number of women may think, "when I can receive the financial benefits and continue to live separately?" Fathers should be expected to meet their financial obligations to their children, but too much talk by policymakers about absent fathers' responsibilities may send the message to women that having children out-of-wedlock is okay--so long as they can get the man to pay for it. Unfortunately this has the effect of both distorting what it means to be a "responsible father" and taking the onus off of women to be "responsible mothers." Both are about more than financial commitment to one's children. To be a responsible parent means to think, plan and, if necessary, compromise before starting a family in the first place.

A More Responsible Approach

While continuing to enforce payment of child support, and encouraging fathers to work and stay involved with their children, welfare reformers need to turn their attention toward prevention of out-of-wedlock childbearing and enlistment on the welfare rolls. The most effective way to advance these goals is to encourage young men and women to: (1) stay in school; (2) get a job, any job, and stick with it; and (3) get married before having children.

In addition to encouraging both men and women to make better choices before starting families, policymakers ought to make it far more difficult than it is at present for families to sign onto the welfare rolls. Despite welfare reform's work requirements and time limits, families continue to both enter and return to the rolls. Having witnessed the limits of what welfare-to-work can do for those already dependent on the public safety net, it is time to focus on keeping families from ever falling into dependence.

One method of prevention is to have states strengthen their emphasis on "diversion" strategies. Welfare offices should more aggressively screen applicants to ensure that those with alternative income sources, work potential, and short-term needs do not enter the rolls. Already, states are encouraging applicants to look to relatives for help, referring people to private charities, writing one-time emergency assistance checks and offering low-interest loans, and requiring weeks of job search before the first welfare payment is issued. States should continue to cautiously guard the gateway to welfare.

The next phase of welfare reform needs to be premised on this preventive theme of responsible parenthood, rather than Al Gore's curative brand of responsible fatherhood. Increasing child support payments and paternity establishment, while desirable goals, are not the keys to ending dependence. Welfare reformers need to turn attention to targeting dependence at its roots. If Gore succeeds in promoting his version of responsible fatherhood as "the second generation of welfare reform," this nation may get just another generation of welfare recipients.