A study of nearly 4,000 poor women in Los Angeles and three other big cities shows that welfare recipients suffer more severely than previously thought from multiple health problems that make it difficult for them to get and hold jobs.
The findings released today by the nonprofit Manpower Demonstration Research Corp., a New York-based social research group, point to serious barriers for women under pressure from welfare reform to become self-sufficient and those employed in low-wage jobs struggling to maintain a foothold in the labor market.
It also raises the question of whether many of those women are employable at all, an especially worrisome issue because they face federal time limits on welfare payments.
"Some of the barriers of welfare recipients--such as having chronic health problems or several children with illnesses--may be too intractable to remedy to the point where the women could become totally self-sufficient," it stated.
The survey is based on interviews conducted in 1998 and 1999 with women in Los Angeles, Cleveland, Miami and Philadelphia who had been on welfare within the previous three years and lived in poor neighborhoods.
Those low-income women and their children suffer substantially higher rates of hunger, homelessness, depression, obesity, addictions, physical abuse and such conditions as asthma and lead exposure than the general population, according to the study.
Women who leave welfare and find work are in much better physical and mental health but often lack health insurance and still experience many problems, according to the study.
Whether working or on welfare, the women surveyed had rates of health problems substantially higher than women of all income levels nationwide. Twenty-five percent described themselves as being in fair or poor health compared with 8% of women nationally.
The children of these women also were in poorer health than their peers: 8% of those who were preschool age were in fair or poor health compared to 3% nationally.
There were some variations among the four cities surveyed. A higher percentage of poor women in Los Angeles--56% of them--said they struggled to provide enough food for their families. And more of Los Angeles' poor--70%--reported being moderately to severely overweight than in the other communities.
