PHYLLIS'S CALCULATIONS, POST-REFORM

To keep the baby or give it up? To get married or not? What are the pros and cons?

Phyllis comes from a poor family. They want her out of the house, just as she wants to get out of the house. If she gives up the baby for adoption (or, in some states by 1970, has a legal abortion), she will be expected to support herself; and, as in 1960, the only job she will be able to find is likely to be unattractive, with no security and a paycheck no larger than her baby would provide. The only circumstance under which giving up the baby is rational is if she prefers any sort of job to having and caring for a baby. It is commonly written that poor teenaged girls have babies so they will have someone to love them. This may be true for some. But one need not look for psychological explanations. Under the rules of 1970, it was rational on grounds of dollars and cents for a poor, unmarried woman who found herself to be pregnant to have and keep the baby even if she did not particularly want a child.

In Phyllis's case, the balance favors having the baby. What about getting married?

If Phyllis and Harold marry and he is employed, she will lose her AFDC benefits. His minimum wage job at the laundry will produce no more income than she can make, and, not insignificantly, he, not she, will have control of the check. In exchange for giving up this degree of independence, she gains no real security. Harold's job is not nearly as stable as the welfare system. And, should her marriage break up, she will not be able to count on residual benefits. Enforcement of payment of child support has fallen to near-zero in poor communities. In sum, marriage buys Phyllis nothing-not companionship she couldn't have otherwise, not financial security, not even increased income. In 1970, her child provides her with the economic insurance that a husband used to represent.

Against these penalties for getting married is the powerful positive inducement to remain single: Any money that Harold makes is added to their income without affecting her benefits as long as they remain unmarried. It is difficult to think of a good economic reason from Phyllis's viewpoint why marriage might be attractive.

Let us pause and update the table of economic choices, plugging in the values for 1970. Again, we assume that the two want to live together. Their maximum weekly incomes (ignoring payroll deductions and Harold's means-tested benefits-see note 5) are:

[Table]

The dominant cell for maximizing income is clearly "living together unmarried, Harold employed." If they for some reason do decide to get married and they live in a state that permits AFDC for families with unemployed fathers (as most of the industrial states do), they are about equally well off whether or not Harold is employed. Or, more precisely, they are about equally well off, in the short run, if Harold moves in and out of the labor market to conform to whatever local rules apply to maintaining eligibility. This is a distinction worth emphasizing, and it is discussed at more length in the notes: the changed rules do not encourage permanent unemployment so much as they encourage periodic unemployment.

Harold and Phyllis take the economically logical step-she has the baby, they live together without getting married, and Harold looks for a job to make some extra money.