Mr. Edelman and I do not want to have the government write checks forever to those recipients who are willing and able to work. I am arguing that they need access to the kind of subsidized health insurance and child care and community-service jobs that Mr. Turner and Governor Thompson are now providing in Wisconsin. Unfortunately, many governors are unwilling to spend their own funds for these programs, and the new law does nothing to prevent governors from simply cutting access to any assistance at all, especially in times of recession. Mr. Rector acts as if welfare receipt itself has a large causal role in child development. I would argue instead that poverty has negative effects on child development.
Occasional poverty causes a four-point IQ drop.
Also, the Gautraux experiment in Chicago showed that the children of welfare recipients did much better both in school and in the labor market when a government program allowed them to move out of housing projects and into the suburbs.