Chapter 3 Devolution, social exclusion, and spatial inequality in U.S. welfare provision

Abstract

The United States has always been an outlier in its approach to social welfare and safety net provision compared to other industrial and postindustrial nations. A large literature has emerged to explain U.S. exceptionalism. Much of this theory and research centers on U.S. race relations and, more recently, on gender ideologies embedded in state policies that have fostered “poverty knowledge” and policies that emphasize individual responsibility and dependency rather than structural factors and processes that create social stigma and exclusion (O'Connor, 2001). Relatively unrecognized is the way spatial inequality shapes U.S. welfare policies. The restructuring of the welfare state by the enactment in 1996 of PRWORA, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, more familiarly known as welfare reform, highlighted the significance of spatial inequality through one of its key provisions: devolution of authority for program formation and administration to state and local jurisdictions. Devolution, a major element of neoliberal policies designed to diminish state redistributive power, places responsibility for welfare reform in local jurisdictions and agencies with varying capacities and resources for this task. Rural areas are particularly subject to disadvantage from devolution as they often lack the means to successfully implement welfare to work policies. Studies of the impacts of welfare reform using national data and crude proxies for spatial differences obscure differences in outcomes for individuals and communities that emerge when more attention is paid to spatial variation. The result is a form of extreme spatial inequality that marginalizes rural regions, communities, and their impoverished residents. This chapter examines the relationship between spatial inequality, devolution, and social exclusion for rural peoples and places in the era of welfare reform and shows how these form key elements of U.S. welfare provision. Illustrations are drawn from primary research on the impacts of welfare reform in rural Appalachia.

Citation

Tickamyer, A.R. and Henderson, D.A. (2010), "Chapter 3 Devolution, social exclusion, and spatial inequality in U.S. welfare provision", Milbourne, P. (Ed.) Welfare Reform in Rural Places: Comparative Perspectives (Research in Rural Sociology and Development, Vol. 15), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 41-59. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1057-1922(2010)0000015005