An interview with Jo Anne Schneider

Jo Anne Schneider is associate research professor at the George Washington Institute for Public Policy and in the Anthropology Department at George Washington University. In this interview, she talks about her new book Social Capital and Welfare Reform. In a review of the work, Heidi Hartmann, president of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, writes, “Jo Anne Schneider offers a profoundly new take on what makes welfare reform fail or succeed. Elaborating the concepts of social and cultural capital, she shows how they operate on the ground and are the keys to real opportunity for poor people.”nnQ: What is social capital and why is it important for public policy?nnJo Anne Schneider: Social capital refers to relationships based on reciprocal, enforceable trust that people or institutions use to get access to resources such as jobs, government contracts, or services. For example, Progress Medical, a medical claims processing office, is more likely to interview and hire Tabitha, referred by a Philadelphia Secretarial College, a training provider that they have worked with in the past and know to refer quality applicants, than Mara, who has no connection to that employer and responded to an ad in the newspaper. (All examples using agency or individual participant names either are composites or use pseudonyms to protect privacy.)nnSocial capital is often the missing ingredient in social welfare policy. People get jobs not simply because they have skills or previous work experience but because they have connections to employers who are hiring. Social welfare policy often fails because the various parts of our complex system do not have connections to each other or work in opposition to each other. For example, in Milwaukee, the W-2 agencies—nonprofit and for-profit agencies that state government contracted with to manage the welfare-to-work program—did not have any formal connections to private organizations providing housing, child care, medical care, food, or clothing assistance, and the county workers responsible for government supports proved difficult to work with. As a result, they had limited ability to help the low-income families deal with the basic needs such as child care, food, and medical assistance necessary to enable the working-age adults in the family find and keep jobs.nnDeveloping strong social capital relationships among government, social service agencies, and faith communities can improve current systems. Compare Milwaukee’s difficulties to the much more functional system in Charlotte, North Carolina.nnIn Mecklenberg County, part of the Charlotte, North Carolina human service system, Richard Jacobson reached out to the Chamber of Commerce and developed a strong relationship with the growing banking industry drawn to Charlotte by local community renewal initiatives. In connecting with the chamber, he tied employment development to the growing labor market. The chamber, led by Hugh McCall of Bank of America, took on the challenge of hiring welfare program (TANF) participants. County DHS also works closely with other government systems (schools, foster care, etc.) and nonprofits to develop workforce development and family support initiatives. Jake worked with the local community college to develop a series of customized training programs tailored to fit the time limits related to North Carolina’s welfare-to-work system. The community college also connected with local employers to make sure that the people they trained were moved into jobs. The banks also did their own training for entry-level workers, supplementing the community college program.nnThe Mecklenberg County system both uses social capital effectively and pays attention to all of the factors important in providing low-income families the various supports they need to do well. These initiatives provide concrete resources—jobs, training, extra help for schoolchildren, medical assistance, food assistance—while also making the social capital connections between the labor market, training system, educational system for children, and nonprofit service providers for other supports. Social capital works best in partnership with local labor markets, social service delivery programs and systems, public policy, and the skills and education available among community residents. Policy makers need to pay attention to all of these factors in developing sound social welfare policy and programs.nnQ:Who are the families who use public assistance and what kinds of resources do they currently have to meet their needs? What do they need to meet their goals?nnJAS: The majority of families that use the U.S. public assistance system hope for a quality of life that includes enough income to meet their goals without public assistance. Most want to find jobs paying family-supporting wages, and those that don’t are often providing care so that other family members can work. Both my research and national studies show that only 10 to 20 percent of the people who use the public assistance system have never worked, with the majority starting work in high school and moving between work and welfare for most of their lives. Welfare serves as an unemployment system for the large percentage of people who do not qualify for state-sponsored unemployment due to part-time hours or the nature of their work.nnI call the women who have either never worked or held one job for less than six months “limited work experience.” Margaret, for example, is caring for a disabled husband and has several children with severe learning disabilities. Margaret reads at a second-grade level, even though she has a high school diploma. All these factors together make it difficult for her to maintain an internship, much less a paying job. But she is providing free caregiving services to both her immediate and extended family.nnMost individuals and families that use the public assistance system also have strong social capital networks that help them find work and other resources. For example, people in these networks work as nursing assistants, child care aides, security guards, in low-paid factory work, and as store clerks in retail—all jobs that have limited wages, often are part-time, and provide limited or no benefits, that may not be able to support a family. Research has found that families that use the public assistance system fall into five distinct groups:n

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• Limited or no work experience. People from all racial and ethnic groups fell into this category. As with Margaret, the majority lacked networks to employment and faced significant barriers, disability, or addiction. Lack of education was not a significant factor. The majority of people in this category served as caregivers for other family members.

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• Low-skilled workers: Approximately 50 percent of the families in my research fit into this group. These families cycle between work and welfare, usually spending one or two years working or on welfare at a time. Low-skilled workers are the bulk of the families using public assistance.

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• Displaced workers/stable working class: These families are the traditional working class. As industry has moved to the South and overseas, they lose their jobs, run through their savings, and end up on welfare. Approximately 25 percent of the families in my study fell into this group.

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• Rising educated middle class. In many cases, these families were the first generation to go to college. Many of these people used the public assistance system when they were younger, and some, reluctantly, return to it when they fall on hard times. For example, Reginald was a middle-aged engineer with twenty years’ experience with an associate degree, who was downsized and couldn’t get a job because all jobs required a minimum of a B.A. His family went on food stamps and Medicaid while he finished a college degree to become a teacher.

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• Migrants and refugees: This is the smallest group (less than 10 percent) and least likely to use public assistance. They are all groups who do not speak English as a native language. Depending on their legal status, each had different relationships to the welfare system. Puerto Rican citizens and newly arrived refugees were most likely to use welfare while trying to find work.

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nEach of these family types has access to different forms of social capital, approaches educational and training opportunities differently, has linkages to different parts of the labor market, uses social service systems and faith community supports in different ways, and requires a different set of additional social capital, human capital (skills and training), work linkages, and social supports to meet their needs. Rather than developing one-size-fits-all policies, government and private providers would do well to develop assessments to determine family types and programs that meet the diverse needs of each of these groups.nnFor example, county workers responsible for helping welfare recipients access training in Philadelphia tried to fit participants into the programs available through the Private Industry Council (PIC)—nursing assistance, data entry, and clerical training, primarily—regardless of their skills and interests. The training programs were contracted to find their participants jobs, but had limited connections to the labor market. In contrast, the Alternative Work Experience Program, a model program funded by the PIC that combined internships with careful assessments and encouraged training appropriate for individual interests, developed several strategies that succeeded in helping a diverse population get jobs. Displaced workers were placed as maintenance men in nonprofits, often leading to employment by those agencies or recent work experience that they could parlay into other maintenance positions. Women who wanted to work in clerical positions were encouraged to take high-quality training programs while working as clerical aides in nonprofits. Refugee, immigrant, and rising educated middle-class professionals like Reginald, discussed earlier, were encouraged to use their experience in internships related to their previous professions or explore new opportunities like teaching. Limited work experience individuals like Margaret were encouraged to try new things and given support to deal with limited literacy and family challenges.nnQ: How is the current social welfare system organized?nnJAS: The U.S. social welfare system has always included both government agencies and private sector agencies that provide services. The prior system developed slowly through the states in the 1880s-1920s as mother’s pensions and only became a small federal program as part of the 1935 Social Security Act. Many eligible people were kept off the rolls by idiosyncratic local rules until welfare rights initiatives in the 1970s. Before that time, poor families relied primarily on their own networks, congregations, and private charities for support.nnThe current system is very fragmented, with separate sets of agencies providing income supports, education and training, emergency services (food, shelter, clothing), health, and recreation. In general, four overlapping systems provide the range of services that families need to meet their goals: 1) the government-contracted social welfare system, where government provides cash assistance, employment, and training services either through government agencies or through closely monitored contracts with for-profit or nonprofit organizations; 2) the ancillary services system, where groups of agencies provide health, education, recreation, immigrant and refugee, senior services, emergency services, and other supports that families need; 3) the community-based system of organizations associated with neighborhoods or racial/ethnic/immigrant groups, often providing the same services as ancillary services agencies; and 4) faith communities.nnAfter the 1996 welfare reform act, each state designs its own welfare system based on federal guidelines. In Pennsylvania, government—through the county welfare agency—provides cash assistance while the state contracts out to nonprofits and for-profits for job placement, training, and a variety of other services. In Wisconsin, each locality bids for state funds to provide a package of cash assistance, job placement, child care, medical assistance, and training.nnFor example, in Milwaukee, a nonprofit W-2 agency has subcontracted with a community-based nonprofit—Neighborhood Settlement House. Neighborhood Settlement House serves a large public housing project and a neighborhood with many welfare recipients. Neighborhood Settlement House also has a large subsidized child care program, an alternative school, after-school programs for youth, a food pantry, a medical clinic, and a seniors program. The W-2 agency expects that its program participants will be able to use Neighborhood Settlement House’s other programs to meet their needs.nnWhile the strategy of locating the W-2 program at this agency seemed like a natural way to bring together the government-contracted, ancillary, and community-based systems, in practice, social capital connections did not exist at the agency level to make this work for all program participants. The county workers refused to work with anyone else in the agency, and the rules governing the alternative school and child care program meant that the W-2 participants served at Neighborhood Settlement House could not always get placed in child care or education at the agency. As a result, Neighborhood Settlement House had trouble getting families that showed up at the medical clinic or food pantry government assistance that they needed, and children whose mothers performed community service as this agency had to take their children elsewhere for child care. W-2 counselors did tell their participants about the food pantry and medical clinic, which were soon overwhelmed with extra requests for assistance.nnHowever, some individuals who had community service placements at this agency found their way into a network of older women who volunteered at the agency. These women found out about all the programs available at the agency and were able to get all of their basic needs and supports met. These individual social capital networks worked well to get these women off of welfare, but did little to encourage them to advance, as all of their needs were met within the one agency.nnQ: What kinds of organizations provide services to families? How did welfare reform affect them?nnJAS: There are several types of organizations that provide social welfare services that are differentiated by size.nnLarge Citywide Agencies: Established organizations that provide a significant share of services throughout the locality to address a given social problem. Their boards generally include city elites. Agencies usually have multiple sites, several-million-dollar budgets, numerous funding sources, and large, diverse staff.nnSmall/Middle-Sized Citywide Agencies: Organizations founded by citywide elites focusing on a single social problem. These institutions may form network affiliations with large citywide organizations or participate in social capital affiliations with organizations tied to a specific approach to solving problems. They also tend to participate in associations affiliated with the social problem they address. Most also have ties to government and political circles. These organizations have budgets under $500,000 and staffs of less than 20.nnMiddle-Sized Community-Based Organizations: Like Neighborhood Settlement House, organizations usually have several-million-dollar budgets and provide several different types of service. In contrast to citywide institutions, they focus on one neighborhood or ethnic/racial community. Board and staff often have connections to city-wide institutions addressing the same community or type of service.nnSmall Community-Based Organizations: Organizations range in size and form. Agencies in this study often have budgets under $500,000 and paid staffs of less than 20. These organizations may or may not have affiliations with citywide institutions or others serving similar communities. Often, they form associations with other small organizations serving the same community.nnFaith-Based Organizations: Faith-based institutions come in a variety of organization forms and have different strengths and weaknesses. Faith-based institutions are organizations where program staff, mission, and funding are closely tied to a religious community. While all organization programs may not directly refer to religion, program design and staff activities represent a particular faith in action. Most of the faith-based organizations in this project had staffs of under 30 and budgets of under $500,000.nnFor-Profit Organizations: For-profit organizations varied greatly by size, mission, and motivation. It is difficult to generalize about these institutions. In some instances, nonprofits created for-profit entities to run welfare-to-work programs because it would be easier to close a for-profit if it did poorly on a welfare-to-work contract without impact on the parent nonprofit. Some social service professionals founded for-profit firms because it was easier to raise capital. On the other hand, some for-profit trade schools in Philadelphia were known for providing substandard training.nnEach of these types of agencies responded differently to welfare reform and were impacted in various ways by the new policy. In general, agencies associated with the contracted services system—particularly large agencies—were able to benefit from expanded government contracting. Other citywide organizations and community-based organizations like Neighborhood Settlement House also expanded welfare-related contracts. Smaller agencies were very vulnerable to delays in contracting, but also were able to expand services through welfare-related contracts.nnAgencies providing ancillary services, on the other hand, found increasing need for their services in a time when their resources were diminishing as families lost government supports for income, food assistance, and medical care. Most agencies, like the homeless shelter in Kenosha, offering food pantries and medical assistance were overwhelmed. All agencies found increased need to provide case management and referral to other organizations as well as education on the changing welfare system, services that they seldom were funded to provide. For example, Neighborhood Settlement House’s parenting program spent significant amounts of session time working with participants frustrated by the welfare-to-work program.nnQ: What role do faith communities play in supporting families that use public assistance?nnJAS:Faith communities provide community, social capital, instrumental, and spiritual supports both to their members and to others in need. Faith communities clearly see their chief role as providing spiritual sustenance through worship, with creating a community among members as an important secondary function.nnThe majority of faith communities are active in offering emergency services, often in partnership with nonprofits. For example, both the Kenosha shelter and food pantry and Neighborhood Settlement House’s food pantry depended on local churches for donations and volunteer labor. None of the faith communities in this research, and only a small percentage in national literature, have the capacity and interest to develop formal social programs like welfare-to-work activities.nnSome faith communities were active in advocacy around a variety of issues related to poverty. For example, the Kenosha African American churches worked with others on issues related to intergroup relations, poverty, and education. Faith communities teach cultural and moral values, ways of behaving, and sometimes serve as venues for leadership training; however, various types of faith communities offer different values, and not all of the socialization, social capital development, and cultural messages provided through congregations are helpful in the labor market or navigating various social welfare systems. For example, churches serving primarily low-income residents preached messages meant to keep their members away from vice, but did not offer models or messages to excel in education or improve work behavior. The insular nature of these communities—habits like not returning phone calls from outsiders—informally sanctioned similar behavior among their members that hurt their ability to function in the labor market.nnFaith communities have a clear role in social supports for families—as a base community for families and providing some limited services to families, like food support or informal educational programs for children. The majority welcome chances to work with nonprofits to provide supports through volunteering or collecting donations for families in need. Very few faith communities were interested in more formal roles, and faith communities do not see themselves as replacing the agencies providing welfare—to—work or related programs. Instead, they prefer to work in partnership with nonprofits and perhaps government in the same way as they are now.nnQ: How can we stop some of the fragmentation of the current system?nnThe Katrina disaster highlighted the lack of coordination in our system, a fact familiar to most observers of U.S. social service systems. While we presume a three—legged stool of government, nonprofits, and faith communities providing assistance, limited energy and funds have been committed to creating comprehensive communication among parts of this system. The same is true of our public assistance system.nnThis research advocates funding initiatives to foster strong social capital links among different parts of our system and enabling case management and communication across agencies offering different kinds of assistance. The same kinds of linkages need to be created among the federal, state, regional, and local levels. The book suggests a variety of mechanisms to enhance social capital—including efforts to formalize outreach among agencies and ombudspeople through local nonprofits or faith communities to help individual families navigate the system.