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Ethos Issue 3, Oct 2007
Aid for Work: The Singapore and
US Models in Context
Theresa W. Devasahayam
| NOTES |
| 01. |
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC),
otherwise called the Earned Income Credit (EIC), is a
refundable federal income tax credit for low-income workers
and families. The underlying rationale of the EITC is
that a tax refund may be claimed if it exceeds the amount
of taxes owed. |
| 02. |
Blank, Rebecca, "What We Know,
What We Don’t Know, and What We Need to Know about
Welfare Reform" (paper presented at the "Ten
Years After: Evaluating the Long-Term Effects of Welfare
Reform on Children, Families, Work and Welfare Conference"
organised by the University of Kentucky Center for Poverty
Research, Kentucky, USA, 12-13 April, 2007). |
03. |
Mead, Lawrence M., personal communication,
21 June 2007. |
| 04. |
Thompson, Tommy and Bennett, William
J., "The Good News about Welfare Reform: Wisconsin’s
Success Story," The Heritage Foundation,
6 March 1997, http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/HL593.cfm
(accessed on 6 June 2007). |
| 05. |
Rebecca Blank has cautioned not to
homogenise the welfare recipient group as there are single
women who have been found to be worse off after welfare
reform particularly in finding and retaining jobs (see
Note 2). |
| 06. |
Evidently, the welfare system prior
to 1996 indirectly encouraged the perpetuation of single-parent
households for which the US federal government saw urgency
to correct. |
| 07. |
Duncan, Greg J. and Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne,
Consequences of Growing Up Poor (New York: Russell
Sage Foundation, 1997). |
| 08. |
Under welfare reform 1996, it was
found that few families in reality achieved full financial
independence and, as such, most were not able to move
away from assistance completely. See Cancian, Mary and
Meyer, Daniel R., "Alternative Measures of Economic
Success among TANF Participants: Avoiding Poverty, Hardship,
and Dependence on Public Assistance," Journal
of Policy Analysis and Management 23 (2004): 531-48. |
| 09. |
While the state of California generally
mandated education and training in its welfare reform,
the county of Riverside was an exception as it emphasised
work over education and training. Like Wisconsin, Riverside
was characterised by high job placement rates and low
rates of engagement in education and training which accounted
for its success. Note also that Riverside did not provide
financial benefits nor did it impose time limits. See
Walker, Robert, et al., "Successful welfare-to-work
programs: Were Riverside and Portland really that good?"
Focus 22 (2003): 11-18. |
| 10. |
Cancian, Maria, et al., "Income
and program participation among early TANF recipients:
The evidence from New Jersey, Washington, and Wisconsin,"
Focus 22 (2003): 2-10. |
| 11. |
Lerman, Robert, "Increasing
the Employment and Earnings of Welfare Recipients,"
Welfare Reform: An Analysis of the Issues (Washington:
Urban Institute, 1995). http://www.urban.org/publications/306620.html. |
| 12. |
Devasahayam, Theresa D. and Yeoh,
Brenda S. A., Working and Mothering in Asia: Images,
Ideologies and Identities (Singapore and Denmark:
National University of Singapore Press and Nordic Institute
of Asian Studies, 2007). |
| 13. |
There is evidence demonstrating that
poor women in Singapore struggle to negotiate adequate
childcare provision, being forced instead to remain in
the home or at best seek the services of Family Service
Centre. See Davidson, Gillian M., "The Spaces of
Coping: Women and ‘Poverty’ in Singapore,"
Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 17 (1997):
113-31. |
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