Welfare Dependency in Delaware

This article contrasts the views of two advocacy groups, Action for Families and Children and the Statewide Association of Tenants (SWAT), composed of social service providers and current and former welfare recipients who are residents of assisted housing, respectively, with those framing Delaware's welfare reform program, “A Better Chance” (ABC). Since the mid-1980s, the focus of welfare reform in the state has been on reducing welfare dependency; not addressing poverty, low-wage jobs, growing income inequality, or lack of access to affordable food and housing, as the problems are defined by Action and SWAT. The state claims that “welfare mothers ought to work” and invokes an image of an irresponsible, “dependent” single-parent. Delaware advocates argue that welfare reform is no substitute for anti-poverty policy and confusing the two only promotes excessive welfare bashing such as led to the 1996 welfare law. Focusing on the welfare dependence of single parents as the centerpiece of welfare reform perpetuates a model of individual and family deficit and entirely misses major systemic factors that contribute to poverty and the need for public assistance.