Feminist Economics 17(4), October 2011, 189–214 TIME BINDS: US ANTIPOVERTY POLICIES,
POVERTY, AND THE WELL-BEING OF SINGLE
MOTHERS
Randy Albelda ABSTRACT
Many US antipoverty programs and measures assume mothers have little,
intermittent, or no employment and therefore have sufficient time to care for
children, perform household tasks, and apply for and maintain eligibility for
these programs. Employment-promotion policies directed toward low-income
mothers since the late 1980s have successfully increased their time in the labor
force. However, low wages and insufficient employer-based benefits often leave
employed single mothers with inadequate material resources to support families
and less time to care for their children. The lack of consideration given to the
value of poor women’s time in both the administration and benefit levels of
antipoverty government support, as well as the measures used to calculate
poverty, place more binds on poor and low-income mothers’ time. Ignoring
these binds causes researchers and policymakers to overestimate single
mothers’ well-being and reduces the effectiveness of the policies. K EY W O R D S
Single mothers, poverty, time use, welfare reform, employment-promotion
policies JEL Codes: I3, J18, J22 INTRODUCTION
Aggressive employment-promotion policies for low-income mothers in the
United States over the last two decades, coupled with an expanding
economy in the mid 1990s through very early 2000s, have resulted in
increased employment of single mothers, especially those with young
children. Have these changes resulted in improved economic well-being for
the women most affected? When well-being is defined as levels of
consumption or as the combination of income and the value of
government assistance, the empirical evidence is mixed. However, if the
loss of mothers’ unpaid time is taken into consideration, the accounting
might very well change. This study addresses why time use for single
Feminist Economics ISSN 1354-5701 print/ISSN 1466-4372 online Ó 2011 IAFFE
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13545701.2011.602355 ARTICLE mothers is important in evaluating the impact of employment-promotion
policies (also referred to as labor-activation policies) not only in the US but
also in other countries where they are being implemented or considered,
such as Canada and the United Kingdom. If means-tested antipoverty
programs assume little or no earned income (and its corollary – sufficient
unpaid time for children and other necessary unpaid work), they are likely
structured to take a good deal of time to apply for and utilize. Since they
are programs intended to primarily accommodate very low-income
individuals and families, they are also likely to phase out too early to
accommodate the new costs associated with paid work and lost unpaid time.
Restructuring these programs to promote employment, without also
revising application and reapplication procedures or income eligibility
requirements and without re-evaluating other means of support, could
result in more financial and time pressures on families with few resources,
as well as make the policies ineffective.
Here, I explore how US antipoverty programs (especially those
developed before the 1970s), as well as the official measurement of
poverty, embody the assumption that most poor mothers and those
receiving government assistance have ample time to take care of children,
perform other unpaid household tasks, and maintain participation in
government programs that provide support. Since the late 1980s, US
antipoverty programs have been actively reshaped to promote employment,
but the administration and eligibility levels of these programs and poverty
measurements have not changed sufficiently to reflect the dramatic change
in mothers’ time use. These antiquated assumptions about time use in
antipoverty programs, coupled with how these programs interact with lowwage employment, lead to an underestimation in extent of time and
resource binds for employed mothers; ineffective antipoverty-program
coverage; and incomplete measures of low-income, single-mother families’
poverty status, and material well-being.
Economic and policy context
In most industrial countries, including the US, women’s earnings and paid
work opportunities have been shaped by the economic and social
conventions surrounding mothers’ time devoted to unpaid work. Until
the late 1970s, the majority of mothers in the US were not employed (US
Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics 2009: Table 7). When
mothers are employed, their childcare and household responsibilities
mean they work fewer paid hours and earn lower wages than men and
other women (Wendy Sigle-Rushton and Jane Waldfogel [2007] with data
from Anglo-American, Continental European, and Nordic countries).
Similarly, social protection programs (for example, labor market
regulations, social insurance, and social assistance programs), including
190 THE WELL-BEING OF SINGLE MOTHERS those specifically designed to alleviate poverty, have also been shaped by
women’s caregiving roles and men’s breadwinner status.1 In the US, the
Social Security Act of 1935 established the major comprehensive sets of
federal social protection and antipoverty provisions that exist in similar
forms today. The three main provisions established in 1935 included old
age and disability insurance, unemployment insurance, and cash assistance
for women heading families with dependent children. The programs
established through the Social Security Act embodied the prevailing
assumptions about family structure as well as the racial and gender order of
the time. In 1935, most working-age families consisted of a married couple
that included a male breadwinner and female caregiver (US Bureau of the
Census 1933: Tables 37 and 38). Breadwinners’ earnings, employmentbased benefits, and these newly created social protections held the promise
of stable lifetime economic security for most families at that time. For
families with only a caregiver, means-tested programs held the promise of
providing basic needs until (re)marriage or the children grew up.
Employment-based protections and aid to single-mother families,
however, were not to reach all paid workers or single mothers. Black and
female employees and employed black single mothers found themselves
specifically targeted for exclusion from these newly created social
protections through various provisions that precluded certain
occupations (such as domestic and farm work) or employers (state and
local governments) from social insurance coverage and by providing states
enormous leeway in setting benefit levels and employment requirements
for cash assistance to poor mothers (Linda Gordon 1994; Suzanne Mettler
1998; Michael Brown 1999; Deborah Ward 2005). In 1935, when these
programs were established, white mothers’ employment was neither
expected nor seen as desirable. But like unemployed and retired workers
at the time, many single mothers could not support their families nor rely
on others to provide continued support; so, building on already existing
state-level programs, Congress approved the Aid to Dependent Children
program as Title IV of the Social Security Act of 1935 (Gordon 1994). The
program was renamed Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) in
1962.
The Social Security Act set into motion the current trifurcated system of
key social protections in the US. One set is provided through employers.
These include: employer-sponsored health insurance and retirement plans;
paid days off (for vacation time, sick days, and parental leave); minimum
wages and safety and health conditions; and workers’ compensation for
injuries sustained while engaging in paid work. Tax policies and employee
contributions defray the costs of these benefits for employers. Federal and
state legislation require employers to provide some of these provisions, but
health insurance, retirement plans, and paid time off are voluntarily
provided. In the US, these voluntary benefits are mostly reserved for
191 ARTICLE primary breadwinners – full-time and moderate- to high-pay workers
(Heather Boushey and Chris Tilly 2009). Another set of social protections
are provided through employer- and employee-contributed social
insurance and offer a ‘‘safety net’’ for those who were once employed
but are without paid work: notably the unemployed, elderly (usually those
65 and older), and severely disabled. Eligibility and benefit levels are based
on employment history and as such do not include all paid workers. If
eligible, the provisions include time-limited unemployment insurance
payments for those involuntarily unemployed as well as monthly cash
payments for retired workers and their surviving spouses, surviving spouses
and children of deceased employees, and those with debilitating
disabilities. Since 1965 and the passage of the Medicare program, those
with sufficient employment history who are over age 65 or disabled can also
receive healthcare coverage.
The final set of social protections consists of means-tested (that is,
income-based) government-provided assistance for individuals and families
with very low income. This group typically includes people with no, spotty,
or informal employment who are not eligible for social insurance
protections (including those who are not a surviving spouse). The main
programs include the cash assistance block grant Temporary Assistance for
Needy Families (TANF; which in 1996 replaced AFDC); housing assistance
(primarily public housing and Section 8 rental vouchers);2 the near-cash
food assistance program of Food Stamps;3 the health insurance programs
Medicaid and State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP);
childcare assistance (typically in the form of a subsidy or voucher); and
the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a refundable tax credit to people
with low earnings. Table 1 summarizes salient aspects of these six major
antipoverty programs in the US.4 The quintessential beneficiaries of these
types of support are single-mother families, and several of these antipoverty
programs have been shaped with them and other nonearners firmly in
mind.5 ‘‘Welfare’’ is the commonly used term in the US to refer to various
means-based programs. Although it mostly implies cash assistance, the term
also refers to Food Stamps, various housing assistance programs, and
Medicaid. Non-elder, self-employed, part-time, and/or low-wage full-time
workers can easily fall through the cracks and be left uncovered by social
protection/antipoverty programs.
Several important changes have converged to dramatically transform the
underlying presumptions of the edifice of social protections. These include
the increase in mothers’ labor force participation, the decline in marriedcouple families and the growth in single-mother families, the successful
struggle to include non-white, paid workers and single mothers in these
protections, and the decline in breadwinning jobs.
Unlike the breadwinner–caregiver model that prevailed in 1935,
currently most US mothers are either employed or looking for
192 EITC US Internal Revenue
Service sets guidelines. Childcare assistance
US Department of Health and
Human Services sets
guidelines. Program 193 This federal program sets
eligibility rules that apply to
everyone, regardless of residence.
Income eligibility varies by family
size and ranges from US$41,646
(married couples, with two or
more children) to US$12,880
(single childless adults) in 2008.
States can and have enacted their
own EITC in their state personal
income tax provisions. In 2009,
twenty states and the District of
Columbia provide a refundable
EITC.
The original intent was to reward
poor parents with earnings and
reduce the impact of payroll
taxes on low earners. While
expanded somewhat to earners
without children, it has
maintained the same intent. (continued) CCDF funds are provided by the
federal government but
administered by states. States
have considerable leeway in
setting provider payment levels,
parent co-payment levels,
income eligibility requirements,
and program regulation. States
can set any income eligibility
thresholds as long as they do not
exceed 85 percent of state
median family income. These programs have had dual
purposes. One is to assist poor
and low-income adults with
children so they may participate
in employment or educational
and training activities; the other
is to expand educational
opportunities for poor children. This assistance primarily
includes the Child Care
Development Funds (CCDF)
established in 1996, TANF funds
used for childcare, and funds
provided by states to help
families with childcare expenses.
Precursors include temporary
funding for childcare in the 1930s
and 1940s; Title XX of the Social
Services Amendments of 1974; the
1981 Social Service Block Grant
(SSBG); and funds for childcare
included with the passage of the
Family Support Act of 1988.
The EITC was established as part
of the federal personal income
tax code in 1975. General eligibility rules Originally intended
target population Originating
legislation (and precursors) Table 1 Description of the six US means-tested antipoverty programs THE WELL-BEING OF SINGLE MOTHERS Housing assistance US
Department of Housing and
Urban Development (HUD) sets
guidelines Food Stamps
Department of Agriculture
(USDA) sets guidelines. Program Table 1 (Continued) Public housing was originally
intended to alleviate urban slum
conditions for families with
earners. Since the 1970s, public
housing has come to serve very
low-income persons and families,
with rents linked directly to
income. Section 8 assistance
promotes market-based
incentives to low-income families
to find privately owned housing
using vouchers. The Food Stamps program was
originally established to improve
nutritional levels of low-income
households and to bolster the
agricultural industry. The federal
Food Stamps Program is targeted
to reach poor and near-poor
persons. Food Stamps began as a pilot
program in the early 1960s and
became a national Program with
the Food Stamp Act of 1964. In
2008, the program was renamed
Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program (SNAP). Public housing was created in
1937 with the Housing Act as
part of New Deal public works
programs. In 1974, President
Nixon established the Section 8
Rental Assistance Program. Originally intended
target population Originating
legislation (and precursors) 194 (continued) States administer the program
using mostly federal funds. The
federal government sets the
eligibility requirements, but
states can provide their own
funding to expand eligibility
and have some leeway in
changing eligibility
requirements. Income eligibility
is usually 130 percent of the
FPL.
Local Housing Authorities
administer the program using
mostly federal funds. Typically
households with 30 percent or
less of area median income are
eligible. General eligibility rules ARTICLE Originally intended
target population
Medicaid was originally designed
to provide healthcare for those
who were not expected to be
employed – specifically the aged,
blind, disabled, and mothers and
their children receiving AFDC. It
currently serves the same
population. SCHIP increased
Medicaid funding and incentives
for states to broaden health
insurance for children living in
low-income families with the
intention of filling the gap
between public health coverage
and employer-sponsored
insurance.
AFDC was originally established to
provide monthly cash assistance to
very low-income families with
children, all of whom were
presumed to have little or no
income from earnings. TANF
serves the same population with
strong incentives for employment
and marriage. The Medicaid program was
enacted in legislation in 1965. It
is the federal program that enables
states – through matching grants –
to provide funds to help
healthcare providers meet the
medical needs of low-income
persons. SCHIP was established in
1997 through the Balanced
Budget Act of 1997. Established through the Personal
Responsibility and Work
Opportunity Reconciliation Act
of 1996, which replaced its
precursor AFDC – a program
initially established in the Social
Security Act of 1935. Medicaid & SCHIP
US Department of Health and
Human Services sets
guidelines. TANF US Department of Health
and Human Services sets
guidelines. 195 Source: Albelda and Boushey (2007: 23) and updated by author. Program Originating
legislation (and precursors) Table 1 (Continued) States administer the block grant
and have considerable leeway in
designing cash assistance
programs. Income eligibility and
benefits vary widely across (and
even within) states. States are
required to provide a share of
funding based on amounts spent
on AFDC in the early 1990s. States administer Medicaid and
SCHIP and are required to
match federal funds. They have
considerable leeway in
determining eligibility, care
coverage, and payment rates for
services. SCHIP income
eligibility cannot fall below 185
percent of FPL and can be as
high as 300 percent of FPL. General eligibility rules
THE WELL-BEING OF SINGLE MOTHERS ARTICLE employment. In 2008, 71.2 percent of all women with children under age
18 were in the labor force, up from 47.5 percent in 1975 (US Department
of Labor 2009: Table 7). Further, absences from the labor market during
child-rearing ages tend to be short-lived, as is evidenced by high labor force
participation rates for women in childbearing and raising years. Still,
mothers also perform the majority of care work (Suzanne M. Bianchi, John
P. Robinson, and Melissa A. Milkie 2006). Household structure has also
changed. Half (50.5 percent) of all households in the US in 2009 were
married couples, compared with 74.3 percent in 1960s (US Bureau of the
Census 2010a: Table HH1). Especially noteworthy is the growth in
households maintained and headed solely by women. In the US in 2009,
30 percent of all households were woman-headed, compared with 18.2
percent of all households in 1960 (US Bureau of the Census 2010a: Table
HH1).6 Of all woman-headed households, about one-quarter (23.9
percent) are single-mother households (up only slightly from 21.9 in
1960; see US Bureau of the Census [2010a]: Tables HH1 and FM1). Most
US households do not have any children under the age of 18 (30.4 percent
in 2009 versus 48.7 percent in 1960); but of families with children in 2009,
23.6 percent were single-mother families, while 5.9 percent were singlefather families – up from 8.2 and 0.9 percent, respectively, in 1960 (US
Bureau of the Census 2010a: Table FM1.)
The civil and welfare rights movements in the US in the 1960s called
attention to, and insisted upon, inclusion of black paid workers and poor
mothers in the sets of social provisions that were existing for whites since
the 1930s. As black women increasingly claimed the AFDC to which they
were entitled, a greater number became welfare recipients in the 1970s (Jill
Quadagno 1994; Brown 1999). Simultaneously, the decline in
manufacturing and the concerted effort on the part of employers to
lower employment costs have resulted in fewer jobs that pay breadwinning
wages and offer employer benefits (Annette Bernhardt, Heather Boushey,
Laura Dresser, and Chris Tilly 2008). The percentage of male paid workers
who earned US$17 (in 2006 dollars) or more per hour, had employersponsored health insurance, and had an employer-sponsored retirement
plan fell from 37.7 percent in 1979 to 27.2 percent in 2006 (John Schmitt
2007). Most notably, median male wages, especially for those without
college degrees, have declined since the 1970s (Lawrence Mishel, Jared
Bernstein, and Heidi Shierholz 2009).
These changes have important implications for all families and paid
workers, as well as for the efficacy of the social protection systems in the US.
Here, we focus on one slice of these implications: the time-use assumptions
embedded within antipoverty programs (as well as within the methods for
measuring poverty) and their impact on poor and low-income, singlemother families (which account for two-thirds of all single-mother families)
in light of employment-promotion programs instituted in the US over the
196 THE WELL-BEING OF SINGLE MOTHERS last several decades.7 Since single fathers constitute 20 percent of singleparent families and 46 percent of them are poor or low income, some of
the arguments presented here also apply to them (US Bureau of the Census
2010b: Table C3).
Employment promotion and poor single mothers’ employment
The increases in married mothers’ employment, the percentage of children
born to unmarried mothers, and black women’s usage of cash assistance led
to a formidable change in antipoverty policies in the late 1980s and early
1990s that struck a new relationship between poor mothers and the state
than that established in 1935. A broad political consensus emerged
claiming that poor mothers must take on individual responsibility by
becoming less dependent on government support and more self-reliant on
their own earnings.8 Since the majority of mothers of all income levels were
employed, poor mothers, who were presumably being paid to stay out of
the formal labor force, seemed incongruous and unfair to much of the
public (despite the fact that welfare payments were extremely low and that
most recipients were actually either in and out of employment or
performing informal money-generating activities; see Roberta SpalterRoth, Beverly Burr, Heidi Hartmann, and Lois Shaw [1995]; Kathryn Edin
and Laura Lein [1997]). Employment promotion in the major programs
that poor mothers received became an enduring political and legislative
theme in the late 1980s through the 1990s. The Family Support Act of 1988
required states to develop employment and education programs for
mothers receiving cash assistance from the AFDC program. In the 1990s,
federal policymakers implemented TANF and revamped Food Stamps and
housing assistance with provisions that strongly promoted, if not required,
employment of low-income mothers with young children. TANF
employment requirements are reinforced with stiff financial penalties for
states failing to meet overall employment participation rates and for
families who fail to meet employment and other behavioral requirements.
Options for pursuing education and training also narrowed considerably,
almost precluding post-secondary education (Kathleen M. Shaw, Sara
Goldrick-Rab, Christopher Mazzeo, and Jerry A. Jacobs 2006).
The employment promotion changes to traditional welfare programs in
the mid 1990s were accompanied by an expansion of policies intended to
facilitate the transition of poor mothers to employment. These included
expanding the refundable EITC, increasing funding for childcare,
establishing SCHIP, and an increase in the minimum wage. The new
compact insisted that poor mothers using TANF had to find employment
quickly and the government would continue to provide other forms of
assistance, plus childcare assistance and health insurance, while recipients
transitioned from welfare to paid work. Antipoverty programs for single
197 ARTICLE mothers were turned into ‘‘work-support’’ programs. However, as discussed
below, these programs still require just as much work to apply and maintain
enrollment, they phase out quickly with increased employment, and key
government support programs remain vastly underfunded. Policymakers
did not institute changes to these programs to assure that low-wage workers
would stay eligible as earnings increased, nor did they enact employer
mandates to require employers to provide benefits to all employees.
The success of these measures is contested, but two results are irrefutable:
single mothers’ employment increased and the use of cash assistance
decreased. Use of AFDC/TANF fell dramatically: in 1993, 35 percent of all
single mothers received AFDC; by 2006, only 10 percent received TANF
(Thomas Gabe 2007). There was a similar dramatic increase in single
mothers’ employment: 57.3 percent of single mothers were employed in
1993 and, by 2006, 69.6 percent were employed (Gabe 2007). The increases
for women with young children (under age three) are even greater, 35.1
percent in 1993 to 57.0 percent in 2006 (Gabe 2007). Poverty rates also
declined from 46.1 percent in 1993 to 37.2 percent in 2008 (US Bureau of
the Census 2010c), but not by as much as the declines in those receiving
AFDC/TANF or the increases in employment for women with young
children.
Poor and low-income single mothers typically find low-wage employment.
In 2001, 30 percent of all paid workers and 45 percent of unmarried,
employed mothers were in low-wage jobs – earning US$10.28 or less per
hour in 2008 dollars (US Department of Health and Human Services,
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation 2009). Lowwage work has few guaranteed, employer-provided benefits and few
opportunities for long-term education and training that typically facilitate
career an...

 

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