The Face Of Welfare: Case Histories

The names have been changed, but the following are actual case histories of Idaho welfare recipients, gathered in random checks by the state to assure that the right benefits were being paid.

Blanche lives in a camper with her two children, ages 4 and 6.

Her common-law husband is in jail. She works as a housekeeper at a nursing home, but needs welfare to get by. At 29, she’s been on and off welfare for the last eight years.

Diane is 41 and has a ninth-grade education. She’s been getting Aid to Families with Dependent Children since she moved from California to Idaho in the ‘80s. Her kids, 10 and 7, have different fathers, and neither pays child support. The only jobs she’s ever had were as a dishwasher and a bartender, “not in nice places, they were dives,” she told a welfare worker.

Sexually abused by her father and cast out by her family when she revealed it, Diane has had a troubled life. She recently taught herself to read.

Bobette, 31, is in her second year of college and plans to go to law school. Her children are 6 and 16; she moved from California to Idaho in 1992 and started college four months later. In addition to AFDC, she gets student financial aid. She’s never been married. She has family in the area.

Jolene, 33, says she met a man who was in town with a carnival, and became pregnant. No one can find the man. Her daughter is now 6, and the two moved to a small Idaho town in 1993 to escape meddling family members. She last worked in 1987, with her experience including janitorial and housekeeping jobs. Her only source of income is $251 a month from AFDC.

Cynthia’s boyfriend talked her into quitting her job at a photography studio to stay home with their newborn baby. But then he decided he couldn’t handle the responsibility of being a father, and he moved out. He pays no child support. At 31, she would like to earn her high school equivalency certificate. But for now, she has no transportation, no money for child care, and no family to help out.

, DataTimes