Equity versus equality: Discourses and practices within decentralized welfare‐to‐work programs in California

Abstract

The U.S. welfare reform of 1996 brought about highly decentralized Welfare-to-Work (WTW) programs, granting discretion to states and local governments to implement policies. Previous research has emphasized racial disparities in WTW sanction rates, by focusing on state/county characteristics or frontline-workers' biases. There is a dearth of research focusing on different understandings of equity or equality and corresponding practices embedded within WTW programs at the state and local levels. This knowledge is important to better understand how race disparities in WTW may be shaped. Our case is California's comparatively generous and highly devolved WTW program and its implementation in two most different counties. Descriptive analysis of administrative data reveals racial disparities in WTW sanctions and exemptions at the state-level and contrasting racial disparity patterns across two counties. Drawing on an equity framework, critical discourse analysis (CDA) of policy documents and interviews at the state level reveals conflicting discourses and practices around equity and equality, leaving room for interpretation at local agencies. CDA of county-level documents and interviews with county administrators showcases contrasting discourses and practices: while one county operates on an equality discourse that does not challenge existing disparities, the other county adopts an equity-related discourse of providing

At the intersection of immigration and welfare governance in the United States: State, county and frontline levels and clients’ perspectives

“…Central-County implements culturally-sensitive engagement practices with the immigrant clients, while Bay-County has limited programs specifically for immigrants. This difference can be situated in the predominately race-conscious equity discourses versus predominately race-neutral equality discourses in two local WTW systems (see Lanfranconi et al 2020). Frontline-workers across both counties use their discretion to help clients navigate the CalWORKs system.…”

“…This study uses the data which was collected in the frame of a broader study on "Social Equity in California's WTW-Program" (see Chang et al 2020;Lanfranconi et al 2020). California's program Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) provides temporary cash assistance to meet basic family needs and WTW services.…”

“…In order to capture county-level discretionary WTW practices and heterogeneity, we selected two most different counties (Flyberg 2001), based on a cluster-analysis of five key program and sociodemographic characteristics (WTW exemption, WTW sanction, non-White population, poverty rate, and political ideology) of all 58 Californian counties (see detailed information on the county selection process in Lanfranconi et al 2020). We named the two selected counties, for anonymity reasons, Central-and Bay-County.…”

“…While we find a lack of culturally sensitive practices mainly in Bay-County, we find limited resources to address the specific needs of immigrants in Central-County. Bay-County operates on a discourse of treating everyone the same (equality, see Lanfranconi et al 2020) and lacks of culturally sensitive practices or specific programs for specific immigrant groups: "All programs are open to everyone, whether everyone takes the same advantage, probably not. But anyone is welcome" (Bay-County, Director).…”

“…In Central-County, besides its generally more inclusive discourses and practices (equity-related, see Lanfranconi et al 2020), having limited resources is a key barrier to fully implementing inclusive practices. For example, there is a lack of services that fit to the specific needs of immigrant clients: "They [the immigrants] don't come to us for help.…”