Family Caps, Abortion and Women of Color: Research Connection and Political Rejection PDF
Preview Family Caps, Abortion and Women of Color: Research Connection and Political Rejection
Family Caps, Abortion, and Women of Color This page intentionally left blank FAMILY CAPS, ABORTION, AND WOMEN OF COLOR Research Connection and Political Rejection Michael J. Camasso 1 2007 1 OxfordUniversityPress,Inc.,publishesworksthatfurther OxfordUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellence inresearch,scholarship,andeducation. Oxford NewYork Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto Withofficesin Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore SouthKorea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright#2007byOxfordUniversityPress,Inc. PublishedbyOxfordUniversityPress,Inc. 198MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NewYork10016 www.oup.com OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recording,orotherwise, withoutthepriorpermissionofOxfordUniversityPress. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Camasso,Michael. Familycaps,abortion,andwomenofcolor:researchconnection andpoliticalrejection/MichaelJ.Camasso. p. cm. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN978-0-19-517905-7 1. Welfarerecipients—Governmentpolicy—UnitedStates. 2. Familysize— Governmentpolicy—UnitedStates. 3. Low-incomesinglemothers—Government policy—UnitedStates. 4. Publicwelfare—UnitedStates. 5. Publicwelfare—Law andlegislation—UnitedStates. 6. Abortion—UnitedStates. I. Title. HV95.C3142007 362.5'561—dc22 2006101654 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica onacid-freepaper To myfather who,through example,demonstrated the difference between moralearnestness and realmorality This page intentionally left blank Preface Theprimarypurposeofthisbookistoacquaintreaderswithawelfarereform initiative known variously as the ‘‘Family Cap’’ or ‘‘child exclusion provi- sion.’’ But as the title suggests, the contents are not limited to research findings and data-based analysis. I use the Family Cap research, primarily research I have conducted, to take the interested on a journey—a rather bumpy ride, in fact—into the estate where politicians and their anxious companions,thepolicyexperts,dwell.Formanypublicpolicyresearchers thiscanbeanunfriendlyland,especiallyforthosewhofailtoheedHenry BrooksAdams’swarningthat‘‘practicalpoliticsconsistsinignoringfacts.’’ As we shall see, however, some policy experts are quite at home in this environment—indeed,somecouldnotsurviveoutsideofit. The attention of the book is focused on New Jersey, the state where the firstFamilyCapwasimplemented.From1993through1999Iservedasthe principalinvestigator,responsibleforthefederallymandated,independent evaluation of New Jersey’s welfare reform called the Family Development Program.TheFamilyCap,whichwasacenterpieceoftheprogram,ignited national controversy and debate from the moment it was implemented in October1992.Theresearchundertakenbymycolleaguesandme,assome- timeshappenswithsocialscienceresearch,ratherthanbeingignored,was seizeduponbypoliticians,journalists,academics,legalanalysts,andespe- ciallypolicyexpertsastheysoughttomakesenseoutofthelegislation.The results from these efforts, while they were at times enlightening, created a haze of confusion in the general public about Family Cap impacts that viii Preface persists even now as the dance over welfare reform reauthorization, after passageoftheDeficitReductionActof2005,beginstochangerhythm.Itis hoped this book will help inform a public that could benefit from a few morefactsabouthowandwhyFamilyCapsaffectthefertilitydecisionsof womenon public welfare. Acknowledgments TheevaluationofNewJersey’sFamilyDevelopmentprogramwassupported under contract number A63003 by the New Jersey Department of Human Services, by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), United States Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS), and by the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), USDHHS. Addi- tionalfundingwasprovidedbytheHenryJ.KaiserFamilyFoundation.Rudy Myers,assistantdirectorforplanningandoperations,NewJerseyDivisionof Family Development, played a pivotal role in supplying public assistance, labor, and Medicaid administrative data. Without his help it is difficult to imaginehowthisevaluationprojectwouldeverhavebeencompleted. ThesamecanbesaidformycolleaguesontheRutgersevaluationteam: Carol Harvey, Mark Killingsworth, and Radha Jagannathan. Carol Harvey served as the project’s co-principal investigator and cost-benefit expert. As the criticism of our research increased in both volume and shrillness, Carol’s faith in the conceptual and methodological soundness of our work neverwavered.MarkKillingsworthbroughthissuperbskillsineconometric modeling and a certain stoicism to the project, a combination of rigor and detachmentthatkeptourinterpretationfromstrayingtoofarfromthedata. Radha Jagannathan began the project as a Rutgers student, provided virtu- ally all of the critical programming on the project while completing her doctorate at Princeton University, and finished the project as a Rutgers University faculty member. To say that Radha was the glue that held the team together would be to vastly understate her role. Her analytic and
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