Search Salon

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Recently in Salon News

It's about character, stupid
Why the public needs to know whether, when and why George W. Bush used drugs.
By Fred Branfman
[08/31/99]

Bush won't have to testify in whistle-blower case
A Democratic judge rules Texas governor will not have to give a deposition in the so-called Formaldegate case.
By Robert Bryce
[08/31/99]

Don't ask, he'll tell
An openly gay Mormon Republican flouts the Clinton administration's gays-in-the-military policy.
By Amy Silverman
[08/30/99]

A question of faith
Why religion-based social help, the pet issue of Al Gore and George W. Bush, may be the next president's first broken promise.
By Michael Kress
[08/30/99]

Raising the stakes
California Democrats and Republicans unite to support a constitutional amendment allowing Indian tribes to run casinos.
By Claudia Buck
[08/30/99]

Complete archives for News

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Officially, Newt's vision never even made it to the drawing board. But as the two-year limits imposed by welfare reform begin to kick in, throwing a number of already struggling families deeper into poverty, a troubling possibility arises: Some families who lose their welfare benefits may also lose their children.

While it is too early to measure definitively, there are some unsettling early signs. In Wisconsin -- which embarked on welfare reform early and avidly -- 5 percent of former welfare recipients, or one in 20, reported being forced to abandon their children. In San Diego County, foster care placements doubled after the new welfare law took effect. When researchers interviewed San Diego families who had become homeless after losing their benefits, 18 percent said their children subsequently went into foster care.

Nationwide, the number of children in foster care is rising, even in a period of overall economic prosperity -- to 520,000 at last count, 20,000 more than a year before.

If growing up on welfare is hard for kids, growing up in foster care is harder. Children raised by the state are disproportionately likely to become homeless, go to jail, have children as teenagers and -- ironically enough -- wind up on welfare. Deprived of stable relationships as children, they often find it difficult to form and sustain them as adults.

In some cases, children may wind up in foster care when mothers who relied on a welfare check to feed them turn to social services departments in desperation when the money disappears. "We are hearing anecdotal stories that concern us," says Ann Sullivan, adoption program director at the Child Welfare League -- "a mother with one or two children is releasing the third for adoption."

Other former welfare recipients could lose custody of their children involuntarily, because they are unable to feed, clothe or house them. Neglect, not abuse, is the most common reason children are taken from their families -- and extreme poverty can manifest itself in many of the same symptoms as neglect.

A recent study by the Children's Defense Fund reveals that the number of children in single-mother families living in extreme poverty went up 27 percent in the first year after welfare reform legislation was enacted. "Extreme poverty" is defined as income less than half the federal poverty line -- or less than $6,401 a year for a family of three. Reports from the states show a significant number of former welfare recipients who have subsequently been unable to buy food, pay rent or keep up with their utility bills.

Next page | Where will all these children go?