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Demographic
Welfare dependence in the United States is typically associated with female-headed households with children.[25] Mothers who have never been married are more likely to stay on welfare for long periods of time than their counterparts who have ever been married, including women who became separated or divorced from their partners.[26] In her study using data from the 1984 Survey of Income and Program Participation, Patricia Ruggles found that 40% of never-married mothers remained on welfare for more than two years, and that while the median time spent on welfare for ever-married women was only 8 months, for never-married women it was between 17 and 18 months.[27] Statistics from 2005 show that while only 1% of people living in married-couple families could be classified as welfare-dependent as per the government definition, 14% of people in single-mother families were dependent.[28]
Teenage mothers in particular are susceptible to having to rely on welfare for long periods of time because their interruption in schooling combined with the responsibilities of childrearing prevent them from gaining employment; there is no significant difference between single and married teenage mothers because their partners are likely to be poor as well.[29] While many young and/or single mothers do seek work, their relatively low skill levels along with the burdens of finding appropriate childcare hurt their chances of remaining employed.[14]
Black women are more likely than their White counterparts to be lone parents, which partially explains their higher rate of welfare dependency. At the time of the Moynihan Report, approximately one-quarter of Black households were headed by women, compared to about one in ten White households.[30] Ruggles’ data analysis found that, in 1984, the median time on welfare for nonwhite recipients was just under 16 months, while for White recipients it was approximately 8 months.[31] One year earlier, Bane & Ellwood found that the average duration of a new spell of poverty for a Black American was approximately seven years, compared to four years for Whites. In 2005, official statistics stated that 10.2% of Black Americans were welfare dependent, compared to 5.7% of Hispanics and 2.2% of non-Hispanic Whites.[28]
William Julius Wilson, in The Truly Disadvantaged, explained that a shrinking pool of “marriageable” Black men, thanks to increasing unemployment brought about by structural changes in the economy, leads to more Black women remaining unmarried.[32] However, there is no evidence that welfare payments themselves provide an incentive for teenage girls to have children or for Black women to remain unmarried.[33]
There is an association between a parent's welfare dependency and that of her children; a mother's welfare participation increases the likelihood that her daughter, when grown, will also be dependent on welfare. The mechanisms through which this happens may include the child's lessened feelings of stigma related to being on welfare, lack of job opportunities because he or she did not observe a parent's participation in the labor market, and detailed knowledge of how the welfare system works imprinted from a young age.[34] In some cases, the unemployment trap may function as a perverse incentive to remain dependent on welfare payments, as returning to work would not significantly increase household earnings as welfare benefits are withdrawn, and the associated costs and stressors would outweigh any benefits. This trap can be eliminated through the addition of work subsidies.[35]
Other factors which entrench welfare dependency, particularly for women, include lack of affordable childcare, low education and skill levels, and unavailability of suitable jobs.[25] Research has found that women who have been incarcerated also have high rates of social welfare receipt, especially if they were incarcerated in state prison rather than in county jail.[36]
