“The Way They Treat You Is Inhumane”
“The Way They Treat You Is Inhumane”
Caseworkers and the Welfare Office
This chapter focuses on women's interactions with caseworkers in the welfare office. It is through caseworkers that women learn welfare rules and access welfare benefits. The nature of a woman's relationship with her caseworker determines in part her understanding of welfare rules and whether she believes they will be followed reliably. Most women interviewed for this study described caseworkers who paid inadequate attention to their needs and treated them with hostility. As a result of these difficult interactions, many women in both time periods either did not know official welfare rules or suspected that caseworkers honored only the rules that were not in a recipient's favor. Both the lack of communication of welfare rules and the distrust that they would be properly implemented undermined voluntary incentives designed to entice recipients into the labor market. Distrust thus inhibited women's positive response to voluntary incentives.
Keywords: caseworkers, welfare benefits, welfare rules, voluntary incentives, labor market, welfare access
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