Poverty: The Unemployables

The popular image of the typical dole recipient as a hale male malingerer is more than 99% myth by Government arithmetic. According to a new federal study announced last week by Presidential Aide Joseph Califano Jr., only some 50,000 — less than 1% — of the more than 7,300,000 persons now receiving welfare payments are men capable of self-support if given vocational training.

The report showed that 2,100,000 welfare cases are over 65 and most of these are women; 700,000 suffer severe physical handicaps such as blindness; 3,500,000 are under 18, and 83% of these are under 14; the remaining 900,000 women and 150,000 men answering the welfare roll call are the indigent parents of these children.

The preponderance of mothers underscores the matriarchal nature of slum society. Most of the women either never married or are widowed, divorced, or abandoned. Two-thirds of the fathers are classified as incapacitated by illness or injury, leaving only the balance of 50,000 employable at any given time. By law, men in this category must accept vocational training and jobs offered them through Government employment agencies or lose their relief benefits.