Many critics of the current welfare system argue that existing welfare

Many critics of the current welfare system argue that existing welfare regulations foster family instability. They maintain that those regulations, which exclude most poor husband-and-wife families from Aid to Families with Dependent Children assistance grants, contribute to the problem of family dissolution. Thus, they conclude that expanding the set of families eligible for family assistance plans or guaranteed income measures would result in a marked strengthening of the low-income family structure. If all poor families could receive welfare, would the incidence of instability change markedly? The answer to this question depends on the relative importance of three categories of potential welfare recipients. The first is the “cheater”—the husband who is reported to have abandoned his family, but in fact disappears only when the social caseworker is in the neighborhood. The second consists of a loving husband and devoted father who, sensing his own inadequacy as a provider, leaves so that his wife and children may enjoy the relative benefit provided by public assistance. There is very little evidence that these categories are significant.

The third category is the unhappily married couple who remain together out of a sense of economic responsibility for their children, because of the high costs of separation, or because of the consumption benefits of marriage. This group is numerous. The formation, maintenance and dissolution of the family is in large part a function of the relative balance between the benefits and costs of marriage as seen by the individual members of the marriage. The major benefit generated by the creation of a family is the expansion of the set of consumption possibilities. The benefits from such a partnership depend largely on the relative dissimilarity of the resources or basic endowments each partner brings to the marriage. Persons with similar productive capacities have less economic “cement” holding their marriage together. Since the family performs certain functions society regards as vital, a complex network of social and legal buttresses has evolved to reinforce marriage. Much of the variation in marital stability across income classes can be explained by the variation in costs of dissolution imposed by society, e.g., division of property, alimony, child support, and the social stigma attached to divorce.

Marital stability is related to the costs of achieving an acceptance agreement on family consumption and production and to the prevailing social price of instability in the marriage partners’ social-economic group. Expected AFDC income exerts pressures on family instability by reducing the cost of dissolution. To the extent that welfare is a form of government-subsidized alimony payments, it reduces the institutional costs of separation and guarantees a minimal standard of living for wife and children. So welfare opportunities are a significant determinant of family instability in poor neighborhoods, but this is not the result of AFDC regulations that exclude most intact families from coverage. Rather, welfare-related instability occurs because public assistance lowers both the benefits of marriage and the costs of its disruption by providing a system of government-subsidized alimony payments.

1. The author’s primary concern is to

(A) interpret the results of a survey
(B) discuss the role of the father in low-income families
(C) analyze the causes of a phenomenon
(D) recommend reforms in the welfare system
(E) change public attitude toward welfare recipients



2. Which of the following would provide the most logical continuation of the final paragraph?

(A) Paradoxically, any liberalization of AFDC eligibility restrictions is likely to intensify, rather than mitigate, pressures on family stability.
(B) Actually, concern for the individual recipients should not be allowed to override considerations of sound fiscal policy.
(C) In reality, there is virtually no evidence that AFDC payments have any relationship at all to problems of family instability in low-income marriages.
(D) In the final analysis, it appears that government welfare payments, to the extent that the cost of marriage is lowered, encourage the formation of low income families.
(E) Ultimately, the problem of low-income family instability can be eliminated by reducing welfare benefits to the point where the cost of dissolution equals the cost of staying married.



3. All of the following are mentioned by the author as factors tending to perpetuate a marriage EXCEPT

(A) the stigma attached to divorce
(B) the social class of the partners
(C) the cost of alimony and child support
(D) the loss of property upon divorce
(E) the greater consumption possibilities of married people



4. Which of the following best summarizes the main idea of the passage?

(A) Welfare restrictions limiting the eligibility of families for benefits do not contribute to low-income family instability.
(B) Contrary to popular opinion, the most significant category of welfare recipients is not the “cheating” father.
(C) The incidence of family dissolution among low-income families is directly related to the inability of families with fathers to get welfare benefits.
(D) Very little of the divorce rate among low-income families can be attributed to fathers’ deserting their families so that they can qualify for welfare.
(E) Government welfare payments are at present excessively high and must be reduced in order to slow the growing divorce rate among low-income
families.



5. The tone of the passage can best be described as

(A) confident and optimistic
(B) scientific and detached
(C) discouraged and alarmed
(D) polite and sensitive
(E) callous and indifferent



6. With which of the following statements about marriage would the author most likely agree?

(A) Marriage is an institution that is largely shaped by powerful but impersonal economic and social forces.
(B) Marriage has a greater value to persons in higher income brackets than to persons in lower income brackets.
(C) Society has no legitimate interest in encouraging people to remain married to one another.
(D) Marriage as an institution is no longer economically viable and will gradually give way to other forms of social organization.
(E) The rising divorce rate across all income brackets indicates that people are more self-centered and less concerned about others than before.



7. The passage would most likely be found in a

(A) pamphlet on civil rights
(B) basic economics text
(C) book on the history of welfare
(D) religious tract on the importance of marriage
(E) scholarly journal devoted to public policy questions