A War on Poverty Subtly Linked to Race

A War on Poverty Subtly Linked to Race
By JASON DePARLE and STEVEN A. HOLMES
Published: December 26, 2000

As his turbulent first term approached its close in 1996, Bill Clinton
faced one of the most consequential decisions of his presidency: whether
to sign a popular welfare bill largely shaped by his Republican enemies.

Many of his allies saw the bill’s get-tough features as an unthinkable
surrender of victories won in the New Deal and the Great Society. In
signing the measure, they said, Mr. Clinton would push millions of poor
people and minorities deeper into poverty. Worse, many suspected he
would be doing so for his own short-term political gain.

But others turned the accusation of expedience on its head. They told
Mr. Clinton that the welfare restrictions — time limits and work
requirements — would do more than revamp one discredited program. The
restrictions would help create a political climate more favorable to the
needy. Once taxpayers started viewing the poor as workers, not welfare
cheats, a more generous era would ensue. Harmful stereotypes would fade.
New benefits would flow. Members of minorities, being disproportionately
poor, would disproportionately benefit.

Whether driven by a vision of social renewal or a clear-eyed look at the
polls, Mr. Clinton not only signed the bill but also went on to embrace
it as a centerpiece of his domestic legacy, calling it a new ”social
bargain with the poor.”

Now as his presidency comes to a close, Mr. Clinton’s contentious drive
to ”end welfare as we know it” stands as an embodiment of his broader
approach to the problems of poverty and race. Blending the causes of the
left and the right in ways that unsettled both, Mr. Clinton pursued a
bold, some say risky, antipoverty strategy that he hoped would attract
public support and avoid the racial backlash that had burdened previous
programs for the poor.

At its heart was a demand that the poor go to work, even those with very
young children, low skills and low wages. With strict time limits and
vast local discretion to turn the needy away, Mr. Clinton carried his
antiwelfare crusade much further than even he had once intended. As a
result, he leaves far fewer protections for families who, for whatever
reason, fail to hold jobs.

At the same time, Mr. Clinton has presided over an unprecedented
expansion of aid for poor families who do work. He won billions of
dollars in wage supplements and smaller subsidies for everything from
child care to children’s health insurance, all framed as a moral
obligation to ”make work pay.”

The shift in antipoverty policy, though sold in race-neutral terms, is
central to the racial legacy Mr. Clinton leaves. At times he spoke
explicitly, even eloquently, about racial justice; he defended
affirmative action; and he appointed record numbers of blacks and
Latinos to positions of influence. Yet much of his work consisted of
more subtle efforts to reshape racial perceptions.

In taking tough stands on issues like welfare and crime, Mr. Clinton
sought to reduce stereotypes and resentments among some whites. In
seeking new benefits for the working poor, Mr. Clinton understood that
an outsize share of the aid would flow to Hispanics and blacks. But
neither those efforts, nor many others, were cast in racial terms.

”Clinton understood that welfare had become a racially stigmatized
program,” said Theda Skocpol, a political scientist at #Harvard
University who studies programs for the poor. ”He ended the most
controversial aspects of welfare, but at the same time, he built up
supports for working families. And he certainly did see this as an
effort to quiet racial disputes about social supports for the vulnerable.”

Citing initiatives from urban tax breaks to college scholarships, Hugh
B. Price, president of the National Urban League, put it this way: ”He
has attempted to do things that have been of enormous benefit to
communities of color, without labeling them that way. The idea was that
you could build a stronger consensus for public policies that were cast
in race-neutral terms.”

Has the strategy been good for the poor? And have race relations improved?