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Abstract
Sweeping changes in 1996 to the U.S. national welfare system prioritized “work-first” policies while restricting educational opportunities for mothers on welfare. Based on qualitative longitudinal interviews and focus groups with 64 women participating in California's welfare reform program, CalWORKs, this research focuses on the narratives of single mothers on welfare pursuing higher education after the “end of welfare as we know it” by constructing “survival narratives.” Their “survival narratives” reveal the costs of pursuing higher education while on welfare, how they construct strategies that help them persevere through school, and critically assess the failures of welfare reform.
Notes
1. For more on the self-sufficiency standard see www.selfsufficiencystandard.org/.
2. There is a vast literature on the survival narratives of Holocaust survivors, and any discussion of survival narratives attributes framing to those narratives; some examples are CitationYoung (1990), CitationLanger (1991), and CitationWaxman (2006). However, surviving poverty is different because it is an economic survival, instead of a literal fight for life. This article engages and positions itself alongside the current literature on economic survival narratives; CitationEdin and Lein's (1997) Making Ends Meet is a primary example.
3. The prevailing idea behind this is that women on welfare who are enrolled in higher education are highly motivated, will “make it” without welfare and, thus, do not need the assistance. One of the themes of the TANF reauthorization is to further restrict access to higher education and job training. In the TANF Interim Final Rule issued in June 2006, the Department of Health and Human Services explicitly stated that “TANF is not a scholarship program” (see http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/law-reg/tfinrule.html for the full text of the Interim Final Rule). The idea is that women on welfare who are enrolled in higher education are very motivated, but should not be ‘rewarded’ with a college scholarship just because they have children. Instead, if they want to pursue higher education they should be removed from assistance and put on financial aid, mainly loans, to go to school.
4. Most of the women who participated in the interviews or focus groups considered themselves “single mothers” regardless of whether they were dating, involved, or living with their children's father. Usually the women were on single-parent welfare grants, but in three cases, they were on two-parent welfare grants but still identified as “single” because they were not married to their partner (who in all three cases was the children's father). From discussions of their relationships with their partners, their identity as a “single mother” comes from economic and legal reasons. Legally in all three cases, they were not married to their partners, and for the most part, by choice; in other words, the man wanted to get married, but the woman did not. Furthermore, it seemed that the women preferred to be on single-parent grants, even though it is slightly less money for the family, because it requires less paperwork and bureaucracy and frees up the other parent to work and not be subject to the welfare system's rules and regulations.
5. Percentages calculated from reports on California Department of Social Services website (www.dss.cahwnet.gov).
6. When interviews were conducted at coffee shops or in restaurants, I purchased the food as a modest “thank you” for their participation. When the interviews were in other locations, I carried a small “snack bag” with me to the interview that had a few bottles of water, cans of soda, bags of chips, candy bars, granola bars, and pieces of fresh fruit to offer to participants. In most cases, they had at least a drink and usually a snack. In one case the mother asked if she could have all of it for her children's lunch the next day, and I did give her everything I had.
7. During first and second interviews, I lived in U.C. Berkeley's family housing, U.C. Village. LIFETIME was founded in the Village in 1996, and many staff and board lived there. Four participants lived in the Village while I did.
8. In both cases, these were first interviews with mothers who were not native English speakers; they said they felt self-conscious of their English, and they did not want it recorded. I took extensive notes during both interviews. However, in one case, she went on to complete second and third interviews, and allowed me to record those.
9. On one occasion, the mother wanted to discipline her toddler and did not want it recorded. The other occasion, a participant wanted to explain her partner's cash work and did not mind if I took notes, but did not want it recorded.
10. In addition to the interviews and focus groups, over four years I have observed, participated in, and in some cases have helped plan and carry out events with LIFETIME. These events included workshops, parent leadership trainings, political empowerment trainings, legislative briefings and visits in Washington, D.C., and in Sacramento, policy meetings, protest actions and political theatre, and grassroots convenings and conferences.
11. In conversations with LIFETIME's directors, they tell me that they have been told by consultants to the California Senate's Budget Committee, the California Assembly's Health and Human Services committee, and aides to legislators on several occasions not to talk about education and training programs for mothers on welfare because it is an “unsympathetic issue.” Republican lawmakers on those committees believe that welfare is not a scholarship program (which is a commonly used phrase) and that mothers on welfare who are pursuing higher education are “highly motivated” and “would go to school anyway” if welfare was not supporting them. So, instead, the consultants and aides tell LIFETIME's directors, the mothers who participate in legislative visits should downplay their role as students to gain credibility as “average” mothers on welfare. However, the directors of LIFETIME argue that these women are “average” women on welfare, and that most welfare parents, given the chance, would be successful in the community colleges. This research supports LIFETIME's directors' position, because many of the women in this study were identified as having “multiple barriers” to employment and told that they were “not exactly college material” by caseworkers who tried to get them to quit school.