How do they fare on welfare: Single mothers receiving aid to families with dependent children (AFDC) and living in New York City

Over the last two decades, dramatic changes in the US economy that increased the income gap between high-skilled and low-skilled workers, contributed to social scientists' renewed interest in examining the causes and consequences of poverty. One of the widely accepted findings was that the poor were often women, and therefore, the term "feminization of poverty" was coined to describe the relationship between gender and poverty. Researchers also seemed to agree that nonwhite women were at a higher risk for becoming poor and welfare dependent. Descriptions of the urban poor invariably depicted nonwhite mothers on welfare living in inner city neighborhoods, thus rendering white mothers on welfare invisible. This dissertation aims to make white single mothers on welfare visible, and compare their experiences to those of black (African American) and Puerto Rican single mothers on welfare. It addresses three issues. First, it identifies the ways in which race/ethnicity, class, and gender intersect and pave the different pathways women follow into single motherhood and poverty. Second, it examines the role of gender, race/ethnicity, and class in confining women in the secondary labor market, and thus leading them to welfare. Third, it examines the workings of the welfare system on the street level, that is, as it becomes manifested in the day-to-day encounters between workers and clients in order to understand the impact of the system on the everyday lives of welfare mothers and of its front-line employees.; I conducted an ethnographic study in several New York City welfare offices for sixteen months. I collected field notes and interviewed 70 single mothers receiving AFDC benefits, and 18 eligibility welfare workers. I began my study in May of 1996, when major welfare policy changes were taking effect that were supposed to end welfare as we knew it. Therefore, this study examines the workings of the welfare system as it was changing, and suggests reasons why both those working and receiving assistance at the welfare offices would welcome a systemic change.