Right Data

UNDER the new welfare law, states must find work for at least 25 per cent of their welfare caseload next year. Within five years, half of all adults on welfare— about 2.2 million people—must be working at least 30 hours a week. Not surprisingly, many policymakers doubt that enough jobs can be created. Harvard sociologist William Julius Wilson has gone so far as to propose a new WPA for the nation’s inner cities.

But are jobs the problem? In a recent book Wilson says that businesses began to leave the inner cities “in the early 1970s.” He implies that urban decay followed shortly thereafter. But a close look at the data suggests his time line is wrong. Welfare dependency and its attendant pathologies were rising well before the jobs left.

ER

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Ed Rubenstein

UNDER the new welfare law, states must find work for at least 25 per cent of their welfare caseload next year. Within five years, half of all adults on welfare— about 2.2 million people—must be working at least 30 hours a week. Not surprisingly, many policymakers doubt that enough jobs can be created. Harvard sociologist William Julius Wilson has gone so far as to propose a new WPA for the nation’s inner cities.

But are jobs the problem? In a recent book Wilson says that businesses began to leave the inner cities “in the early 1970s.” He implies that urban decay followed shortly thereafter. But a close look at the data suggests his time line is wrong. Welfare dependency and its attendant pathologies were rising well before the jobs left.