The road not taken
The Uncertain Hour
Marketplace
4.8 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 7 July 2016
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What’s the best path out of poverty — work or education?
Twenty years ago, welfare reformers came to this fork in the road and had to ask the question: Is it better to encourage welfare recipients to get a job, any job? Or is it better to support them while they get training and education that will eventually help them get better-paying jobs?
In the end, welfare reformers adopted a “work-first” strategy that required most folks to work in order to receive cash welfare.
In this episode, the what if….
We meet two women. One dropped out of college so she could work and continue to receive cash welfare. The other was part of a program that allowed to finish her degree.
Welcome back to “The Uncertain Hour,” the Wealth & Poverty desk’s new podcast hosted by Senior Correspondent Krissy Clark.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | About 10 years ago, Tressie McMillan-Cottom was confronted with a small but confounding mystery. |
| 0:06.8 | She just started a new job at a Cosmetology School in Charlotte, North Carolina. |
| 0:11.6 | It was in a strip mall next door to a seafood restaurant, a gas station, and a convenience store. |
| 0:17.7 | That's the campus. That is the campus. That's right. Tressie's job was to enroll new students |
| 0:23.6 | in this school. In a nine-month Cosmetology program to help them with their financial aid paperwork, |
| 0:29.6 | but Tressie soon realized this was not your typical college admissions job. |
| 0:34.4 | It became pretty apparent to me early on that the types of students that I was working with, |
| 0:38.6 | mostly very low-income women of color, often single moms. Needed a whole lot more from me. |
| 0:44.4 | More might mean Tressie would end up holding a crying baby during a meeting with a prospective student. |
| 0:50.0 | These women would come to me with their babies, you know, and tow. That was more common than having |
| 0:55.0 | them show up with, say their parents. I held babies, I held hands. I gave them rides home when |
| 1:00.7 | their boyfriends took their car and the buses had stopped running. And then there was this one |
| 1:06.0 | request students kept coming into Tressie's office with that she really wasn't prepared for. |
| 1:11.6 | So I would get young women who had come and they'd sent in my office and I would be talking to |
| 1:15.8 | them about changing their life and starting at this Cosmetology School. And overwhelmingly, |
| 1:21.2 | they were very quiet, very reticent until the moment when she would say, I would say, |
| 1:26.4 | well, do you have any questions? And the prospective student would slide this piece of paper |
| 1:31.1 | onto Tressie's desk and say, yeah, can you confirm that I was here today, right? Can you certify that |
| 1:37.2 | I was here? The paperwork, all these women were sliding across Tressie's desk asking her to sign, |
| 1:42.7 | was a very specific set of paperwork. Their certification paperwork to remain eligible for their |
| 1:49.2 | welfare benefits. As Tressie watched the stream of Cosmetology students coming to her to handle |
| 1:58.2 | their welfare documents, what was your reaction at first? Is this like, what is going on here? |
... |
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