Abstract

On a Tightrope Without a Net
Polakow, Valerie | May 1, 1995 issue

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In Michigan, the centerpiece of Governor John Engler's welfare reform has been work as a condition for receiving benefits. The first of Engler's trumpeted workfare innovations is something he calls the "Social Contract." It requires welfare recipients who are not in job training, working or in school to pay off their benefits by "volunteering" their unpaid labor for twenty hours per week, but neither transportation nor childcare are guaranteed. "Work First," Engler's most recent coercive plan to instill the work ethic in recalcitrant recipients, requires women to work twenty hours per week prior to enrolling in higher education or job-training programs. Recipients are limited to only two years of college, which effectively locks them in the low-wage pink-collar ghetto.

See Also:

PUBLIC welfare; ENGLER, John, 1948-; SOCIAL service; WOMEN -- Education (Higher); EMPLOYEES -- Training of; HUMAN services; MICHIGAN; UNITED States
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