March 15^th

George Will, in his column today, fixates on a graph which shows quite conclusively that as unemployment decreases the welfare rolls are increasing. There is no doubt that this does seem to be happening. Will then concludes that social welfare programs obviously don’t work and suggests that we must look at the “social pathology” of unmarried black women having children; indeed 72 percent of African-American children are born to single women and three million mothers under thirty are not living with the fathers of their children. No one suggests that all of these three million are black.

Maybe we should look at this relationship between job growth and welfare growth first. This indicates that as jobs become more plentiful the welfare rolls increase. Will agrees with former Senator Moynihan who pointed this out that it is counter intuitive; it isn’t, at least not now. Will should make the acquaintance of some Walmart employees; when these people are hired they are given printed instructions about how to apply for food stamps and other government assistance. That’s welfare; it means they have a job so they’re employed but they earn so little that they are eligible for welfare. This and similar situations could well account for much of this relationship. Will assumes that if welfare rolls increase as jobs increase then welfare isn’t working; that’s nonsense!

Then there is Will’s contention that black fathers are absent because the mothers of many black children are single. In fact we now have about 73% of all women at age thirty and below who have lived with someone before they were married. Simply because a woman is single and a parent does not mean that there is no male in the house. And the male in the house may not be the child’s father.

If Will is so concerned about poor women, whether black or not—note that he doesn’t mention any but black women—having children that need public support why does he mention absolutely nothing about birth control? Organizations like Planned Parenthood provide free advice and free contraceptives to poor people. Will seems unaware of the organization, or of other routes poor people have to effective birth control. For someone so knowledgeable and so concerned about these issues this is a remarkable omission. Could it be that this doesn’t fit his right wing agenda?