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chapter 10 Contemporary Approaches to Enduring Challenges Using Performance Measures to Promote Racial Equality under TANF susan tinsley gooden The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) allows states considerable discretion in developing their Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs . Although national TANF caseloads have decreased dramatically, recent studies suggest racial disparities exist in caseload declines, case management services, and employment outcomes. This chapter ‹rst provides a historical context, outlining the importance of race in welfare administration and discussing why this context is an important factor in contemporary welfare policy. In doing so, it highlights the lack of national attention to the role of case management and labor market discrimination in explaining differences in employment outcomes among welfare recipients. Second, it identi‹es ‹ve key areas in TANF policy that are important in examining the contemporary relationship between race and welfare. Finally, it discusses the common approach of using performance measures to identify, assess, and encourage social policy goals. It proposes an extension of the contemporary application of performance measures in welfare services to include speci‹c racial dimensions. 254 ⠂ The Historical Importance of Race in Welfare Administration Around 1910, states began to provide public assistance in categorical programs for particular types of needy people.1 These programs, called Mother’s Pension programs, were intended for children whose fathers were deceased. The mothers who received a Mother’s Pension grant were regarded as prestigious. To be judged capable of living up to such standards not only differentiated them from the mass of paupers, but set them apart from the totality of mothers (Bell 1965, 13). The state and the mother entered into a partnership in which both parties assumed certain responsibilities directed toward ensuring that a small group of needy children would remain in their own homes and be supervised and educated so as to become assets, not liabilities to a democratic society (Bell 1965, 5). The state would grant suf‹cient ‹nancial support to enable mothers to maintain “suitable homes” as determined by welfare administrators in local social service agencies. Home inspections, as well as character evaluations from neighbors, clergy, former employees , and relatives were routine (Bell 1965, 8). Local discretion was the norm in mothers’ pensions programs in all states. State supervision existed only in a small number of states in which there was state ‹nancial participation. Each local agency developed its own policies, practices, and mechanisms or programmatic accountability . Opportunities existed for discrimination in the consideration of applications within a state and even within a single county. Local workers infused policy terms with meaning, and in doing so, they tended to restrict the programs to white widows and move separately, but in concert , to protect their young programs from black and/or unmarried mothers who might attract criticism (Bell 1965, 19). The Department of Labor conducted the only systematic study of the racial composition of mothers’ pensions in 1931. This report contained information on approximately half of the aided families across the nation. Of 46,597 families, 96 percent of them were white, 3 percent were black, and 1 percent were of “other racial extraction” (U.S. Department of Labor 1933). African Americans were simply not eligible at the same rates as whites. Almost half of the African American families aided were reported by counties in two states, Ohio and Pennsylvania . The reports by the other states indicated that few, if any blacks received bene‹ts. In examining race, the Department of Labor noted, contemporary approaches to enduring challenges 255 Comparison of the percentage of Negro families in the total population of counties reporting race, with the percentage of the families aided that were Negro, shows that provisions for Negro families was limited in a number of States. The disproportion between probable need and provision is even greater when the lower income level of Negro families is taken into consideration. (U.S. Department of Labor 1933, 13) Additionally, limited provision for African American families was particularly obvious in areas in which 19 to 45 percent of the families were African American. The most common tactic states employed was to avoid establishing Mother’s Aid programs in localities with a large African American population. The New Deal Era The structure of the Social Security Act of 1935, which contained the Aid to Dependent Children (ADC) or “welfare” component, changed the dynamics of program administration. It shifted the emphasis from statelocal relations to federal-state relations. The act stipulated that states had to provide a single agency...

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