American Dream Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation's Drive to End Welfare

by Deparle, Jason

• ISBN13: 9780670892754
• ISBN10: 0670892750
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-09-09
• Publisher: Viking Adult

Summary

Bill Clinton vowed to end welfare as we know it” in his first run for president in 1992. Four years later, Congress translated a catchy slogan into a law that sent nine million women and children streaming from the rolls. Did it work? In his definitive book on this unprecedented upheaval in social policy, New York Timesreporter and two- time Pulitzer Prize finalist Jason DeParle follows three women in one extended family to a set of surprising answers.Cutting between the corridors of Washington and the meanest streets of Milwaukee, DeParle tracks the story from the White House to the local crack house. After twelve years on welfare, Angie, a truculent mother of three, finds a job and a 401(k)— and a boyfriend who tries to shoot her. Her cousin Jewell, glamorous even in sweatpants, adores the children she struggles to support. Opal combines an antic wit with an appetite for cocaine while the welfare agency that is supposed to help her squanders its millions. Drawing on more than a decade of reporting, DeParle traces their story back six generations to a common ancestor—a Mississippi slave—and adds politicians, case workers, reformers, and rogues to an epic exploration of America’s struggle with poverty and dependency.Probing the law’s unlikely successes—and haunting failures—American Dreamprovides a startling expose´ in this election year.

Author Biography

Jason DeParle, a reporter for The New York Times, has also written for The New Republic, the Washington Monthly, and The New Orleans Times-Picayune. A former Henry Luce Scholar, DeParle was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1995 and 1998 for his reporting on the welfare system.

Table of Contents

PART I. WELFARE
1 The Pledge: Washington and Milwaukee, 1991	3	(17)
2 The Plantation: Mississippi, 1840-1960	20	(18)
3 The Crossroads: Chicago, 1966-1991	38	(20)
4 The Survivors: Milwaukee, 1991-1995	58	(27)
PART II. ENDING WELFARE
5 The Accidental Program: Washington, 1935-1991	85	(16)
6 The Establishment Fails: Washington, 1992-1994	101	(22)
7 Redefining Compassion: Washington, 1994-1995	123	(15)
8 The Elusive President: Washington, 1995-1996	138	(17)
9 The Radical Cuts the Rolls: Milwaukee, 1995-1996	155
PART III. AFTER WELFARE
10 Angie and Jewell Go to Work: Milwaukee, 1996-1998	175	(21)
11 Opal's Hidden Addiction: Milwaukee, 1996-1998	196	(12)
12 Half a Safety Net: The United States, 1997-2003	208	(14)
13 W-2 Buys the Crack: Milwaukee, 1998	222	(8)
14 Golf Balls and Corporate Dreams: Milwaukee, 1997-1999	230	(21)
15 Caseworker XMI28W: Milwaukee, 1998-2000	251	(13)
16 Boyfriends: Milwaukee, Spring 1999	264	(18)
17 Money: Milwaukee, Summer 1999	282	(21)
18 A Shot at the American Dream: Milwaukee, Fall 1999	303	(20)
Epilogue Washington and Milwaukee, 1999-2004	323	(16)
Timeline	339	(4)
Notes	343	(62)
Acknowledments	405	(6)
Index	411

Excerpts

The Pledge: Washington and Milwaukee, 1991 Bruce Reed needed a better line.A little-known speechwriter in a long-shot campaign, he was trapped in the office on a Saturday afternoon, staring at a flat phrase. A few weeks earlier, his boss, Bill Clinton, had stood on the steps of the Arkansas Capitol to announce he was running for president. One of the things Clinton had criticized that day was welfare. ?We should insist that people move off the welfare rolls and onto the work rolls,? he said. It wasn?t the kind of thing most Democrats said, which was one reason Reed liked it; he thought the party carried too much liberal baggage, especially in its defense of the dole. But the phrase wasn?t particularly memorable, either. With Clinton planning a big speech at Georgetown University, Reed tried again. ?If you can work, you?ll have to do so,? he wrote. Mmmmm...still not right. At thirty-one, Reed had a quick grin and an unlined face, but he was less of an innocent than he seemed. Five months earlier, when Clinton was still weighing the race, Reed had struck a hard-boiled pose. ?A message has to fit on a bumpersticker,? he wrote. ?Sharpen those lines and you?ll get noticed. Fuzz them and you?ll disappear.? Now the welfare rolls hit new highs with every passing month. And Reed lacked bumper-sticker stuff. At 5:00 p.m. he joined a conference call with a half-dozen other operatives in the fledgling campaign. Clinton wasn?t on the line. He was in such a bad mood he wanted to cancel the speech. His voice was weak; he didn?t feel ready. He wanted Mario Cuomo, the rival he most feared, to define his vision first. He was angry to hear that invitations had gone out and it was too late to turn back. The group reviewed the latest draft, which outlined Clinton?s domestic plans, and agreed the welfare section needed work. How about calling for an ?end to permanent welfare?? Reed asked. That was better. Not quite right, but better. They swapped a few more lines, and the following morning Reed sent out a draft with a catchy new phrase. If Clinton spotted the change, he didn?t say. On October 23, 1991, he delivered the words as drafted: ?In a Clinton administration we?re going to put an end to welfare as we know it.? By the time it was clear the slogan mattered, no one could say who had coined it. At first, no one noticed. The New York Times didn?t cover the speech, and The Washington Post highlighted Clinton?s promise to create a ?New Covenant.? But soon the power of the phrase made itself known. End welfare as we know it. ?Pure heroin,? one of the pollsters called it. When Reed reached the White House, he taped the words to his wall and called them his ?guiding star.? In time, they would send 9 million women and children streaming from the rolls. One of those women was Angela Jobe. The month Bill Clinton announced that he was running for president, she stepped off a Greyhound bus in Milwaukee to start a new life. She was twenty- five years old and arrived from Chicago towing two large duffel bags and three young kids. Angie had a pretty milk-chocolate face and a fireplug build?her four-foot-eleven-inch frame carried 150 pounds?and the combination could make her look tender or tough, depending on her mood. She had never seen Milwaukee before and pronounced herself unimpressed. ?Why they got all these old-ass houses!? she groused. ?Where the brick at?? Irreverence was Angie?s religion. She arrived in Milwaukee as she moved through the world, a short, stout fountain of exclamation points, half of them capping sentences that would peel paint from the bus station walls. Absent her animating humor, the transcript may sound off-putting. But up close her habit of excitable swearing, about her ?cheap-ass jobs? and ?crazy-ass friends? and her ?too-cool, too- slick motherfucker? men, came off as something akin to charm. ?I just express myself so accurately!? she laughed. The cas