Without welfare: forgotten people

Who are you? Are you one of the million every year who experience a parental divorce? Are you one of the 18 million annual crime victims? Maybe you belong to one of the 98.3 percent of households that own TV's, or the 64 percent that own homes. Or are you one of the 39.7 million Americans without health insurance, or the nearly four million workers who lose their jobs yearly?

Whether you fit into any of these categories, somewhere you are a number--probably in many different classifications. One of the ways America keeps track of its condition as a society is by delineating its population into categories: any rise or decline in the numbers signifies changes in economic or social standings.

While this system may seem impersonal in its attempts to define the security, prosperity, and welfare of its people, it is useful in its very simplicity. While Americans may feel unease over job security or increasing national poverty, such uneasiness often remains ambiguous until it is concretized by visible proof. Unemployment figures go up, and politicians are prodded to aid the economy; teen drug use increases, and public concern, combined with campaign season pressure, encourages social reforms. Proof of problematic trends allows our system to function as a stimulus for both political and civic action. When public outcry or political acknowledgement is lacking, the problems remain mere numbers, detached from the people they represent.

We must question what happens to those who do not fit into this national system of numbers; those who remain untracked. If their problems are not categorized, calculated and published, who feels concern? Who calls for action? In the information age, such people will be left without a voice. It is just such a population of unknowns that the Welfare Reform Bill is creating.

The goal of the bill is to decrease the welfare rolls; moving people "from welfare to work." Its encouragement of this premise goes so far as to provide financial incentives to individual states that lower the number of people receiving welfare and levy financial penalties against those who fail to meet work requirements. Naturally, the states wish to comply. But the credit that states receive is based not on increased employment but on decreased numbers of welfare recipients. Thus, the only requirement is to deny aid, not necessarily to provide additional employment opportunities.

So what happens to this population? Each of its members used to be one of the 13 million Americans on welfare. Now, receiving no benefits, these individuals cannot be tracked, and both sides are free to speculate on the new bill's possible effects. Republicans say adults will find jobs and ultimately be better off. Democrats say many of these families will sink deeper into poverty [Robert Pear, New York Times, 9/23]. Who is right? Unable to accurately measure the sources of small changes in employment or poverty statistics, we will not be able to discern the directions this displaced population takes. If they do not enter the work force, adding to the 123 million employed, their numbers--perhaps numbers of increasing poverty, increasing malnutrition, and increasing homelessness--will be lost to us.

Politicians who passed the Welfare Bill had the numbers: over 15 percent of the population living below the poverty level, including one in four children. As the numbers diminish, the search for America's lost ranks will too. Believing that the "from welfare to work" agenda is succeeding, we will not look beyond the numbers or seek out the underlying pain. Although shelters may be more crowded, and the cardboard homes may silently multiply, we will have no categorical proof of any increase in suffering. And we will all pat ourselves on the back knowing that the state of poverty in our nation is looking so much better these days, on paper anyway.