The Women’s Alliance

The Women’s Alliance is a community group in Framingham, Massachusetts, that assists low-income women in such areas as child care, housing, and welfare.

Welfare-reform programs similar to those in Massachusetts will unjustly punish welfare recipients by cutting off benefits after two years. To keep their benefits, individuals would be forced to work. However, programs that mandate work have failed to improve the employability of participants. Workfare programs also cost taxpayers more money to administer than is saved by reducing the number of welfare recipients. Government must recognize that child care is important and valuable work and that unemployed single mothers should not be penalized for staying home to raise their children.

Welfare recipients have become the disenfranchised group most fashionable for candidates (not only on the Right!) to use for political capital. Because...