Working on Welfare

Archive Report

The Underclass, Welfare and Work

Scenes from a ghetto.

Scene One:

Alice Sondra Jackson, a 23-year-old unmarried mother, living in Newark, N.J., and pregnant with her third child, tells journalist Bill Moyers: “I don't think I would have had the second two children, if I didn't think welfare was there, 1 don't like welfare because it makes me lazy.”

Bill Moyers: “It does?”

Jackson: “Yeah, it makes you lazy just to sit around and wait for a monthly check to come in. You know, I just like to work, I like money coming every week or every two weeks.”

Scene Two:

Timothy McSeed, the unemployed, 26-year-old father of Jackson's children and of three others by as many other women –none of whom he supports: “Well, the majority of the mothers arc ...

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