SOC 224 Politics of Social Policy: Poverty Inequality Welfare

Spring 2003

MW 10-11:30 am

Instructor Sanford Schram                                                                                           

Office: Social Work Room 212

Office Hours: Tuesdays, 9-11:30 am, Wednesdays 9-10 am and by appointment                                  

Email: sschram@brynmawr.edu                                                                       

Phone: x6222

 ____________________________________________________________________________

Course Description: This course is about poverty, inequality and the welfare system’s relationship to these problems in the United States today. The course examines the levels and varieties of hardship and deprivation in the U.S., overviews the ways in which the existing U.S. welfare system affects these conditions, highlights the role of class, race and gender regarding inequality, poverty and welfare, and considers the prospects for social change. The course is open to students who have had an introductory sociology course.

The course first examines basic questions about wealth and poverty. How equally are economic resources distributed in the U.S., and why are some people more likely than others to experience poverty? What role does class, race and gender play? Do the dynamics of poverty and inequality work differently in rural and urban communities? Do work and wages offer low-income Americans a way out of poverty?

In section II, we turn our attention to the U.S. welfare state, past and present. In our first session, we will familiarize ourselves with key aspects of the welfare system’s history and structure. With these fundamentals in hand, our second session will take a closer look at the nature, origins, and consequences of contemporary welfare reform. Finally, we examine what is distinctive about the reformed welfare system of today. 

Section III of the course is a sustained investigation of the forces that shape the U.S. welfare system and explain its development over time. We will compare and contrast approaches that emphasize state structures and political economy as well as class, race, and gender as explanatory factors.

Finally, in section IV, we turn our attention to culture, mass media, public opinion, and political action as dynamic elements of how we as a society deal with issues of poverty, inequality and welfare. In this part of the course, we investigate the moral and ideological dimensions of poverty debates, asking how cultural values and images of the poor influence the ways we think about and act on the problem of poverty. In addition, we investigate how public discourse about poverty and welfare – often viewed as a “free marketplace of ideas” – can be understood as a type of political action and as a product of political action. Building on this analysis, we then explore the ways mass media portray poverty issues and how these portrayals affect public opinion. Finally, we end the course by examining political mobilization efforts by and on behalf of low-income people. 

Required Readings:

The following books which may be purchased at the Bryn Mawr College bookshop--

Randy Albelda and Chris Tilly. 1997. Glass Ceilings and Bottomless Pits: Women's Work, Women's Poverty. Boston, MA: South End Press.

Randy Albelda and Ann Withorn, eds. 2002. Lost Ground: Welfare Reform, Poverty, and Beyond. Boston, MA: South End Press.

Barbara Ehrenreich. 2001. Nickel and Dimmed: On (Not) Getting By in America. New York : Metropolitan Books.

Martin Gilens. 1999. Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Edward Wolff. 2002. Top Heavy: The Increasing Inequality of Wealth in America and What Can Be Done About It, Second Edition. New York: New Press.

Other required readings listed on the syllabus are available via e-reserves.

Assignments and Grading:

Grades for this course will be assigned on the following basis—

Group Project                         10%

Response Papers                   20%

Participation                           20%

2 Analytical Essays              20%    

                                                30%

                                                ___

                                                100%              

To develop a better understanding of poverty, work, and welfare, students will complete a “hands‑on” group project simulating the economic dilemmas that confront many low-income single parents. This project will count for 10 percent of your final grade. In small groups, you will assess the real purchasing value of the minimum wage and/or the welfare grant allotted to a single parent with two children living in Philadelphia, PA. You will construct a one‑month budget for your family based on actual prices you find for housing, utilities, transportation, food, clothing, and other necessities. You will also assess the feasibility of your budget and its implications for your family. Based on your findings, you will evaluate current policies for low-income families in Philadelphia and make recommendations for policymakers. Group assignments and more detailed guidelines for the project will be distributed in class.

Students in this course will be responsible for writing four brief response papers (one page, single-spaced). One paper will be a personal evaluation of the group project just described. The remaining three will consist of responses to our assigned week’s readings. At the top of your paper, you should present a brief quotation (or contrasting pair of quotations) from the readings. Feel free to select any passage that gets you thinking. But pick something that really does interest you and that you think should strike the rest of us as important. Your response should then do the following.

Each response paper should: (1) briefly explain the quotation’s context and significance; (2) respond to the quotation by developing its implications, offering a critique, or doing something else that you think will be constructive for the group; and (3) try to end your commentary with a specific assertion or question that you think merits group discussion.

Students will be assigned to one of three groups (A, B, or C). Each week, students from one group will be responsible for writing response papers. When it is your group’s turn, you should come to class prepared to turn in your response paper and to briefly describe your response to the class. We will begin each class with a quick “round robin” session in which students will read the quotations they have selected and briefly state their responses. Following the round robin, we will open the floor for student reactions. Each group has four opportunities to submit the three additional response papers (beyond the one you must do for your group project). So you can skip one time whichever one you choose, at the beginning, the end, or the middle of the course. The four response papers will count for 20 percent of your final grade (5 points each). Each response paper will receive a grade from 0 to 5.

Students will write two medium-sized papers for this course. The first one involves writing a companion piece for the following article: Katherine Boo. 2001. “After Welfare.” The New Yorker. April 9: 92-107. Boo’s article tells the story of Elizabeth Jones, a mother of three children in Washington, DC, who left welfare and now works as a police officer. Imagine the audience for your paper consists of college-educated U.S. citizens who have never paid close attention to poverty, inequality, or welfare. The people in the group have just read Katherine Boo’s story, and they are going to be given only one more thing to read: your paper. Based on what you’ve learned in weeks 1 though 7 of this course, what else do you think they should know? Your paper should build directly on the single case described in Boo’s article, providing readers with the broader context they need to make sense of poverty and welfare issues. The broader perspective offered by your paper should help readers figure out which aspects of this particular story are unusual and which aspects reflect more general patterns related to poverty and welfare reform in the United States. It should also go beyond the article to provide readers with the information they need for an adequate understanding of poverty and inequality in the United States. Your paper should make a coherent argument about the specific aspects of causes and consequences of poverty and inequality that you consider most important. You should communicate a point of view on these issues and back up your claims with appropriate citations to the literature we’ve read.  No outside research is required for this paper. In addition, you should assume two things about your audience. First, they have already read Katherine Boo’s article. While they will appreciate specific references to what they’ve read, you should not waste space trying to summarize large parts of the article for them. Second, your readers are real sticklers for grammar, spelling, proper citation, and so on. Be sure to proofread your paper! You should also remember that this paper functions as the midterm for this class. To receive a good grade, your essay will need to demonstrate your thoughtful and detailed engagement with relevant course materials. The paper will be due on Wednesday, March 19 in class. It should be 6-8 pages in length and will count for 20% of your final grade. Late papers will be penalized 3 points for each day after the due date.

The final paper for the course should do the same for the “After Welfare” article but this time focusing on extending the discussion in the article to address issues of welfare reform, its impacts on poverty and inequality and recommendations for changing the current system of public assistance. This second paper should, like the first, use the readings in class to provide a sustained and compelling argument about welfare, reform and responses to better address issues of poverty and inequality in the U.S. today. This paper should be 7-9 pages in length and will count for 30% of your final grade. This paper will be due at my office on Wednesday, May 7 by 4:00 pm.

The usual expectations for class work apply in this course.  Late assignments will be penalized in grade. Should you need accommodation for any reason, please speak to me.  If you have any questions about what is appropriate regarding any aspect of the class, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Course Outline:

I. Introduction to Poverty, Inequality, and Welfare in the U.S.

Week 1: Introduction and Overview

1/20

Syllabus review

1/22

Joe Soss. 2002. “The Growing Divide: Some Facts about Inequality in America,” (Factsheet).

Timothy Smeeding. 2001. “United States Poverty in a Cross-National Context.” Focus. 21(3): 50-54.

Week 2: Poverty and Wealth: Who? How Much? Where?  (Group A)

1/27

Edward N. Wolff. 2002. Top Heavy: The Increasing Inequality of Wealth in America and What Can Be Done About It, Second Edition. New York: New Press.

Paul Krugman. 2002. “For Richer,” New York Times Sunday Magazine, October 20.

Group Project Assigned

1/29

Michael B. Katz. 2001. “Poverty and Inequality in the New American City.” The Price of Citizenship. New York, NY: Metropolitan Books. pp. 33-56.

Cynthia M. Duncan. 1992. “Persistent Poverty in Appalachia: Scarce Work and Rigid Stratification.” In C.M. Duncan, ed. Rural Poverty in America. New York, NY: Auburn House. pp. 111-33.

Catholic Charities: Budgeting for Poverty

Week 3: Poverty and Inequality: Class, Race and Gender Predicates  (Group B)

2/3

Randy Albelda and Chris Tilly. 1997. Glass Ceilings and Bottomless Pits: Women's Work, Women's Poverty. Boston, MA: South End Press. pp. 1-44.

Glenn Loury. 2002. The Anatomy of Racial Inequality. (W.E.B. Du Bois Lectures.) Cambridge: Harvard University Press. pp. 55-108.

2/5

Charles Tilly. 1998. Durable Inequality. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. pp. 229-246.

First Essay Assigned

Week 4: Poverty and Work, Wages and Welfare  (Group C)

2/10

Lawrence M. Mead. 1992. The New Politics of Poverty: The Nonworking Poor in America. New York, NY: Basic Books. pp. 48-84.

Randy Albelda and Chris Tilly. 1997. Glass Ceilings and Bottomless Pits: Women's Work, Women's Poverty. Boston, MA: South End Press. pp. 45-77.

2/12

Barbara Ehrenreich. 2001. Nickel-and-Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. New York: Metropolitan Books. pp. 1-191.

II. Introduction the U.S. Welfare State: Past and Present

Week 5: U.S. Welfare Provision: History and Structure  (Group A)

2/17

Michael B. Katz. 1995. “The Welfare State.” Improving Poor People. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. pp. 19-59.

Mark Greenberg and Jim Baumohl. 1996. “Income Maintenance: Little Help Now, Less on the Way.” In J. Baumohl, ed. Homelessness in America. pp. 63-77.

2/19

Randy Albelda and Chris Tilly. 1997. Glass Ceilings and Bottomless Pits: Women's Work, Women's Poverty. Boston, MA: South End Press. pp. 79-105, 147-64.

Barbara Ehrenreich. 2001. Nickel and Dimmed: On (Not) Getting by in America. New York: Metropolitan. pp. 193-221.

Week 6: Contemporary Welfare Reform (Group B)

2/24

Hugh Heclo. 2001. “The Politics of Welfare Reform.” In R. Blank and R. Haskins, eds. The New World of Welfare. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. pp. 169-200.

Mark H. Greenberg et al. 2002. “The 1996 Welfare Law: Key Elements and Reauthorization Issues Affecting Children.” Children and Welfare Reform. 12(1): 27–57.

2/26

Robert Rector and Patrick Fagan. 2001. The Good News About Welfare Reform. Washington, DC: The Heritage Foundation. Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No.1468.

Barbara Ehrenreich and Frances Fox Piven. 2002. “Without a Safety Net.” Mother Jones. May/June. pp. 35-41.

Week 7: The New Welfare Regime (Group C)

3/3

GROUP PROJECT DUE

Bill Berkowitz. 2002. “Welfare Privatization: Prospecting Among the Poor,” In G. Delgado, ed. From Poverty to Punishment. Oakland, CA: Applied Research Center. pp. 73-88.

Barbara Ehrenreich. 1997. "Spinning the Poor into Gold," Harper's, 295 (August): 44-52.

3/5

Frances Fox Piven. 2002. “Welfare Policy and American Politics,” In G. Delgado, ed. From Poverty to Punishment. Oakland, CA: Applied Research Center. pp. 11-24.

Sanford F. Schram. 2002. “Compliant Subjects for a New World Order: Globalization and the Behavioral Modification Regime of Welfare Reform,” In Praxis for the Poor: Piven and Cloward and the Future of Social Science in Social Welfare. New York: New York University Press. Chapter 8, pp. 201-240.

SPRING BREAK

III. The U.S. Welfare System: Explanations and Consequences

Week 8: State Structures and Political Economy  (Group A)

3/17

Charles Noble. 1997. Welfare as We Knew It: A Political History of the American Welfare State. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 19-35.

Theda Skocpol. 1995. “State Formation and Social Policy in the United States.” Social Policy in the United States: Future Possibilities in Historical Perspective. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. pp. 11-36.

3/19

Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward. 1997. “The Historical Sources of the Contemporary Relief Debate.” The Breaking of the American Social Compact. New York, NY: New Press. pp. 173-212.

Frances Fox Piven. 2002. “Globalization, American Politics, and Welfare Policy.” In R. Albelda and A. Withorn, eds. Lost Ground: Welfare Reform, Poverty, and Beyond. Boston, MA: South End Press. pp. 27-41.

FIRST ESSAY DUE

Week 9: Racial Politics  (Group B)

3/24

Waheema Lubiano. 1992. "Black Ladies, Welfare Queens, and State Minstrels: Ideological War by Narrative Means," In Toni Morrison, ed. Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power. New York: Pantheon. pp. 323-64.

Sanford F. Schram. 2002. “Putting a Black Face on Welfare: The Good and the Bad,” In Praxis for the Poor: Piven and Cloward and the Future of Social Science in Social Welfare. New York: New York University Press. Chapter 5, pp. 157-185.

3/26

Joe Soss, Sanford F. Schram, Tom Vartanian, and Erin O’Brien. 2002. “The Hard Line and the Color Line: Race, Welfare, and the Roots of Get-Tough Reform.” In S.F. Schram, J. Soss, and R.C. Fording, eds. Race and  the Politics of Welfare Reform. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Bruce Western and Becky Pettit. 2002. “Beyond Crime and Punishment: Prisons and Inequality,” Contents. Fall. pp. 37-43.

Week 10: Gender Politics  (Group C)

3/31

Linda Gordon. 1990. “The New Feminist Scholarship on the Welfare State.” In L. Gordon, ed. Women, the State, and Welfare. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 9-35.

Gwendolyn Mink. 2002. “Violating Women: Rights Abuses in the Welfare Police State.” In R. Albelda and A. Withorn, eds. Lost Ground: Welfare Reform, Poverty, and Beyond. Boston, MA: South End Press. pp. 95-112.

4/2

Frances Fox Piven. 1997. “Women and the State: Ideology, Power, and the Welfare State.” The Breaking of the American Social Compact. New York, NY: New Press. pp. 213-42.

Robert Rector. 2001. “Using Welfare Reform to Strengthen Marriage.” American Experiment Quarterly. (Summer): 63-7.

Martha F. Davis. 2002. “Legislating Patriarchy.” In G. Delgado, ed. From Poverty to Punishment. Oakland, CA: Applied Research Center. pp.147-54.

IV. Poverty Discourse, Public Attitudes, Political Action

Week 11: Culture I: Ideology, Desert, and Dependency (Group A)

4/7

Jennifer Hochschild. 1995. “What Is the American Dream?” Facing Up to the American Dream. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. pp.15-38.

Linda Gordon. 2002. “Who Deserves Help? Who Must Provide?” In R. Albelda and A. Withorn, eds. Lost Ground: Welfare Reform, Poverty, and Beyond. Boston, MA: South End Press. pp.9-25.

4/9

Nancy Fraser and Linda Gordon. 1994. “A Genealogy of Dependency: Tracing a Keyword of the U.S. Welfare State.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. 19(2): 309-336.

Week 12: Culture II: Constructing Poverty Discourse  (Group B)

4/14

Charles Murray. 1999. “And Now for the Bad News.” Society. 37(1): 12-15.

Barry Schwartz. 1999. “Capitalism, the Market, the ‘Underclass,’ and the Future.” Society. 37(1): 33-42.

Herbert J. Gans. 1995. The War Against the Poor: The Underclass and Antipoverty Policy. New York: Basic Books. pp. 1-9.

4/16

Kristin Luker. 1996. “Constructing an Epidemic.” Dubious Conceptions: The Politics of Teenage Pregnancy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. pp. 81-108.

Sanford F. Schram and Joe Soss. 2002. “Success Stories: Welfare Reform, Policy Discourse, and the Politics of Research.” In R. Albelda and A. Withorn, eds. Lost Ground: Welfare Reform, Poverty, and Beyond. Boston, MA: South End Press. pp. 57-78.

Week 13: Mass Media and Public Opinion  (Group C)

4/21-4/23

Martin Gilens. 1999. Why Americans Hate Welfare: Race, Media, and the Politics of Antipoverty Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Week 14: Praxis by and for “the Poor”

4/28

Randy Albelda and Chris Tilly. 1997. Glass Ceilings and Bottomless Pits: Women's Work, Women's Poverty. Boston, MA: South End Press. pp. 165-81.

Deepak Bhargava. 2002. “Progressive Organizing on Welfare Policy.” In G. Delgado, ed. From Poverty to Punishment. Oakland, CA: Applied Research Center. pp. 199-208.

4/30

Mimi Abramovitz. 2002. “Learning from the History of Poor and Working-Class Women’s Activism.” In R. Albelda and A. Withorn, eds. Lost Ground: Welfare Reform, Poverty, and Beyond. Boston, MA: South End Press. pp. 163-78.

Willie Baptist and Mary Bricker-Jenkins. 2002. “A View from the Bottom: Poor People and Their Allies Respond to Welfare Reform.” In R. Albelda and A. Withorn, eds. Lost Ground: Welfare Reform, Poverty, and Beyond. Boston, MA: South End Press. pp. 195-210.

5/7

SECOND ESSAY DUE