Faces of Poverty: Portraits of Women and Children on Welfare

Battling media stereotypes of welfare recipients as lazy, scheming ``welfare queens,'' Berrick, Director of the Center for Research on Public Social Services at the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley, provides probing profiles of five typical welfare mothers. The slide into welfare may be triggered by misfortune, such as a workplace injury, or it may seem the inexorable result of a life stuck in a web of misfortune. Many welfare recipients, the author observes, work off the books to augment their meager stipends, as each increment of reported income decreases their checks. Since women on welfare are a diverse lot, some needing a boost, others much more help, Berrick warns that any universal reform will fail. She concludes with a tart critique of various welfare reform proposals such as time limits and caps on family grants. ``Welfare is only part of the dilemma,'' warns Berrick, noting that poverty policy is linked to issues like raising the minimum wage and providing child care and health coverage. (Sept.)