IPR Publications, Government Spending
Government Spending for the Poor in Cook County, Illinois: Can We Do Better?
by Diane Kallenback and Arthur Lyons
Nearly two-thirds of welfare allocations in Cook County go directly to service providers, while the poor get less than 35 cents out of every antipoverty dollar the government spends. Center researchers drew this conclusion from a comprehensive analysis of the $4.85-billion appropriated and spent for welfare in the county during fiscal year 1984. This figure would have raised every poor person in the county out of poverty if each had received an equal share in cash, the report points out. Instead, nearly $3.2-billion of the allocations went to professionals, service providers, and businesses, while 781,000 people remained below the poverty line.
The report offers several recommendations for redirecting welfare expenditures to improve the economic status of poor people. It concludes that new policies are needed to make welfare dollars truly productive for the people they were designed to help.
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