Testing Your Welfare IQ


MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS:



1.  The average state spends the following share of its budget on AFDC:
    ___ 20% ___ 10% ____ 3% ____ 2%


    answer:  2%  [Massachusetts: 3%] 


2.  The federal government is spending the following percentage of
    its budget on AFDC:
    ____ 5% ____ 3% ____ 1% ____ more than 5%


    answer:  1%


2.  The average family on welfare has
    ____ 5 ____ 3 ____ 2 ____ more than 5 children.


    answer:  2 (average family size -- including the mother -- is 2.9)


3.  AFDC caseloads are
    ____ 15% ____ 10% ____ 5% ____ 3% of the population.


    answer:  5% 


4.  This percentage is
    ____ higher ____ twice as high ____ about the same ____ less than
    the percentage of the population receiving AFDC twenty years ago?


    answer:  About the same. 


5.  A ____ higher ____ lower
    share of poor families are receiving AFDC than 15 years ago.


    answer:  Lower 


6.  A person just entering the welfare rolls will stay on it an
    average of ____ 2 ____ 4 ____ 8 ____ 10 years or more.


    answer:  2.  70% of the people just begnning a spell of receiving
    AFDC will be off the rolls within two years.


8.  If you are a young woman whose mother was "highly dependent" on
    welfare, the probability that you would be "highly dependent" on
    welfare yourself is: ____ 80% ____ 50% ____ 30% ____ 20%.


    answer:  20%  


9.  If you are a young woman whose mother was "highly dependent" on
    welfare, the probability that you would not be on welfare at all is
    ____ 20% ____ 30% ____ 50% ____ greater than 50%.


    answer:  Greater than 50%.  The answer is 64% (a different study
    found the number to be even higher --- 73%).



TRUE/FALSE QUESTIONS:


10.  The U.S. welfare system is more generous than that of other
     countries.  True ____, False ____.


     answer:  False.  The US is significantly less effective at
     raising children out of poverty than other countries, and our
     record is getting worse.  In 1986, US government programs reduced
     the poverty rate for children in single-parent families by only 4
     percentage points -- from 58 percent to 54 percent.  In contrast,
     in Great Britain, the same figure was reduced from 71 percent to 9
     percent. In 1979, US government programs raised almost one in five
     poor families with children out of poverty; by 1991, only one in
     eight was lifted out of poverty.


11.  AFDC plus Food Stamps are enough to raise a woman and two
     children out of poverty in Massachusetts today.
     True ____, False ____.


     answer:  False.  AFDC and Food Stamps together provide less than
     $10,000 for a mother and two children in Massachusetts.  


12.  AFDC benefits plus food stamps in Massachusetts have increased
     faster than the rate of inflation since 1970.
     True ____, False ____.


     answer:  False.  AFDC plus Food Stamps have fallen 26% in real
     purchasing power in Massachusetts since 1970.


13.  The more generous a state's welfare benefits, the more
     female-headed families you are likely to find in that state.
     True ____, False ____.


     answer:  False.  A major study showed there is no relationship
     between the different benefit levels in different states and the
     prevalence of female headed families.  During the 1980s, when the
     share of poor children receiving AFDC fell, the share living in
     female-headed families rose.  Out-of-wedlock births appear to be
     rising most rapidly among college educated women holding
     professional and managerial jobs.


14.  If families leave the AFDC rolls and find a job, chances are
     good that they can move out of poverty.  True ____, False ____.


     answer:  False.  An increasing number of jobs pay less than
     poverty-level wages.  In 1989, for instance, 40 percent of women
     working full-time year-round earned less than $13,500.  In 1991,
     5.5 million people lived in working poor families with children,
     where at least one wage earner worked full-time year-round.  The
     Census Bureau estimates that one in five full-time year-round
     workers failed to earn enough to bring a family of four above the
     poverty line in 1990.  The number of working poor Americans jumped
     by over two million during the 1980s.




__________
Sources: New York Times, 7/5/1992; US House of Representatives,
Select Committee on Hunger; Children's Defense Fund, The State of
America's Children 1992; US House Ways and Means Committee, The
Green Book 1994; David Ellwood, Poor Support; ; Child Trends, The
Life Circumstances and Development of Children in Welfare Families