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I thought you might be interested in the article from the FAIR web site. The following article will be appended to your message: Five Media Myths About Welfare 1. Poor women have more children because of the "financial incentives" of welfare benefits. Repeated studies show no correlation between benefit levels and women's choice to have children. (See, for example, Urban Institute Policy and Research Report, Fall/93.) States providing relatively higher benefits do not show higher birth rates among recipients. In any case, welfare allowances are far too low to serve as any kind of "incentive": A mother on welfare can expect about $90 in additional AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) benefits if she has another child. Furthermore, the real value of AFDC benefits, which do not rise with inflation, has fallen 37 percent during the last two decades (The Nation, 12/12/94). Birth rates among poor women have not dropped correspondingly. The average family receiving AFDC has 1.9 children -- about the same as the national average. 2. We don't subsidize middle-class families. Much of the welfare debate has centered around the idea of "family caps"--denying additional benefits to women who have children while receiving aid. This is often presented as simple justice: "A family that works does not get a raise for having a child. Why then should a family that doesn't work?" columnist Ellen Goodman wrote in the Boston Globe (4/16/92). In fact, of course, families do receive a premium for additional children, in the form of a $2,450 tax deduction. There are also tax credits to partially cover childcare expenses, up to a maximum of $2,400 per child. No pundit has suggested that middle-class families base their decision to have children on these "perks." 3. The public is fed up with spending money on the poor. To read the rest of the article, please click on the link below. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1302 This article was published on Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting's Website (http://www.fair.org).

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