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Welfare Policy as Social Control

A Specific Test of the Piven and Cloward Thesis

University of Cincinnati

Melissa W. Burek

Bowling Green State University

John K. Cochran

University of South Florida

Most macrolevel analyses of governmental aid to the poor focus on the relationship between indicators of social threat and the expansion of welfare programs. In this article, the authors' investigation extends that research by exploring the consequences of welfare contraction. Taking advantage of Wisconsin's ongoing natural experiment with welfare reform, the authors examine the extent to which the codification of more restrictive eligibility requirements functions to enhance the labor supply. The interrupted time series autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) analyses of monthly welfare caseloads and labor force size fail to support previous contentions that restrictive eligibility requirements are designed to enforce work norms. The authors interpret those findings, raising serious doubts about the efficacy of the conflict perspective's contention that non-legal institutions, like welfare, serve as vehicles for the macrosocial control of subordinate groups or strata.

Key Words: macrosocial control • interrupted time series • conflict theory

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