op-out (who later earned her Graduate Equivalency Degree) and is a single mother of four. To rise above the poverty threshold set by the federal government of $17,449 for a family of five, Turner would have to find a full-time job that pays at least $8.38 an hour. The problem is that she earns $4.46 an hour working part-time at a Salvation Army shelter. The most Turner ever earned was $6.15 an hour working at a cassette tape factory until she hurt her back in 1994.
The Republican-sponsored congressional solution to Turner's plight is known as the "Personal Responsibility Act." Among the features of this welfare reform package are requirements that welfare recipients work (which Turner already does), that Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) payments be cut off after five years, that most legal aliens be prohibited from receiving welfare assistance, that Supplemental Social Security Income (SSI) payments for mentally disabled children be cut, and that welfare assistance be denied to single mothers under 18. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this Act will cause 2.8 million families to lose some or all of their welfare benefits (Topolnicki, 1995, p. 122).
This type of welfare reform would certainly punish Turner and make her life harder, but it would do nothing to lift Turner and her children out of poverty. The father of the children is long gone and cannot be found. She has no parents to move in with and to help raise the children. Any jobs that are available to her pay less than the poverty level. Neither private enterprise nor the government is willing to train Turner for a higher paying job. And she cannot afford to receive a higher education. Quite simply, today's welfare reform will cause Julie Turner and her four children to fall without a safety net.
Before this nation blunders into another failed war against poverty, America should step back and ask some basic questions: Who are the poor? Why ...