The Conservative Dependency on the Cycle of Dependency Argument

Lowman Henry’s February 3, 2019 commentary in the Reporter recycles the same arguments over how government perpetuates poverty since Ronald Reagan first talked in 1976 about “strapping young bucks” buying T-bone steaks using public assistance. Henry’s argument, using language derived from addiction treatment, is that government aid sustains a “cycle of dependency” by financially enabling individuals to evade their economic and social obligations.

At the heart of this argument are two key assumptions. The first, as revealed by social researchers such as Arlie Hochschild, is the sentiment held by many that a significant segment of our population is line skipping ahead of the hardworking rule-followers to undeserved financial benefits provided by misguided government policies. This, in turn, leads to the second key assumption which is that the solution should be to remove these perverse financial incentives to not work and, coupled with certain key reforms considered pro-growth (e.g. school vouchers, tax incentives for job training, more tax cuts) the economy will take care of the rest. There is no question that Henry is sitting on a pile of reports churned out by conservative think tanks supporting this argument. The only problem is that there really is no data that conclusively shows this is the best strategy or even the right one.

The national labor participation rate has been dropping since 2000 and right now hovers around 63% for the last several years. Most social researchers and economists are still not sure why though many variables have been examined including government anti-poverty policies. These latter studies have shown that most recipients of public assistance would be classified as the working poor. There may, of course, be fraudulent participants that are gaming the system just as there would be in any system where money is involved but how many fall into that category is really unknown.

However, a review of these discussions indicates that while work requirement rules for any kind of public assistance are effective in reducing the number of beneficiaries, it is not the case that this eventually leads to their economic selfsufficiency. This is because the imposition of work requirements is not usually accompanied by increased funding for programs that either incentivize work or remove significant economic obstacles to working such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, child care support, better access to public transportation and apprenticeship training modeled after similar programs in Europe as an alternative to college.

In addition, staffing levels for the agencies administering work requirement programs are usually not increased or given additional resources to insure smooth implementation or contact with all eligible recipients. What does seem to happen, as articles on these work requirement programs emerge, is that many of those who were purged were unable to navigate confusing, onerous or even poorly communicated work reporting requirements. An example is the Arkansas Medicaid work requirement program which demands all reporting to be done online even though about 30% of beneficiaries don’t have Internet access. This appears to be the case that an over-burdened bureaucracy is desirable if it leads to a reduction of beneficiaries. Henry’s commentary is larded with many highminded platitudes about the dignity of work and the need to rescue those trapped into a life of indolence by the evil government. But he ignores completely the structural reasons for persistent poverty and recasts it merely as the exploitation of character flaws for political ends. It has the appeal of bumper sticker simplicity but in no way does it address what needs to be done and how.