SOCIAL WELFARE C an we cure poverty? Maybe not but we can make a start. The Tyranny of Kindness describes what can be done about it. The basic tenets are simple. Poor people, especially welfare mothers and their children are increasingly and more desperately poor. When single mothers work, they need even more income because they now have to pay for transportation to work, appropriate workplace clothing, child care, and medical care. (Their jobs rarely provide medical insurance, and even those that did usually expected workers to pay a large part of the cost.) Taxes and social security aside, working mothers with two or more children typically spent $15,000 a year. Hardly any got by on less than $12,000. Work yielded only two significant material advantages: working mothers had better ward- robes, and they were more likely to own cars. Working mothers also spent more time with adults and less time with their children, but while some thought of this as a benefit, others saw it as a cost. If we allow for taxes and social security, welfare mothers almost all need a steady job paying at least $7 an hour to make ends meet from work alone. Most would have to earn $8 or $9. Today's homeless mothers are never going to get jobs like that in the private sector. Unskilled single mothers currently earn about $5 an hour. Job training raises a mother's chances of finding a job, but it seldom has much effect on her hourly wages. Even if an unskilled single mother works full time, her annual earnings are unlikely to exceed $10,000. If the economy is
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