'Wisconsin Works'?: Race, Gender and Accountability in the Workfare Era

Abstract

This Book offers an evaluative analysis of the Wisconsin Works (W-2) program as the model initiative within national welfare reform strategies. The purpose of W-2 presents mothers receiving welfare with alternatives to dependency. The mothers of this study offer insights from their perspectives and experiences that take this claim, by W-2, to task. The Author explores a series of issues including: How do the mothers evaluate the transition from welfare to the W-2 Program? What is the central goal of self-sufficiency mean to them? What does welfare reform in general mean? And, finally, is anyone listening?

The research question is what happens when we place the actual voices of Black mothers living through the transition from welfare to work in the model state of Wisconsin at the center of analysis and interrogate how these experiences might challenge a statistical assessment of Wisconsin's reported success. Most mothers in this study voice concerns about the inability of W-2 to directly address their specific needs or take into account their specific conditions. In order to both contextualize and fully develop this theory, the Author 1) analyzes the racial and gendered discourse surrounding the development and implementation of the Wisconsin Works Program; and 2.) examines specifically how welfare to work laws/policies affected the lives of Black mothers in Milwaukee since Wisconsin's transition from AFDC to W-2 in 1997.

What emerges from these evaluations are three dominant clusters that best describe how mothers receiving W-2 benefits evaluate the program: paternalistic essentialism, work first principle, and privatization. Embedded within these clusters are many sub-themes. While, these three concepts in no way fully encapsulate the range of experiences encountered by W-2 participants, they still give us a powerful understanding about the overarching negotiations taking place between citizen actors, state policy, and market power within the world of W-2.

Keywords: Wisconsin Works, welfare reform, Black, African Americans, mother, public policy, social welfare, gender, race