Discourse (4)

Alex Grealish
Discourse

Wu, Liyun. “Does Welfare Help or Hurt Children’s Socio-Emotional Well-being?: A
Regression Discontinuity Analysis of Food Stamps Recipients” Social Work and Economics. 20 September 2010.


A write up on negative behavior side effects of children in homes using on welfare using food stamps focused on the nutritional side of these effects. Wu finds that not only can the children’s self esteem issues with their experienced “food hardships” or insecurities lead to their poor behavior but factors such as “a minimal nutritional diet, race, birth order, mom’s education, and home cognitive stimulation score” (Wu, 2&5). Because these parents are not always able to purchase the adequate food needed for the development of their growing children the stress of this and that they get from meeting “working environments” can be picked up by the children themselves further changing their behaviors.

This article can be a little bias. They mention only the negative side effects of nutrition in welfare. It is never mentioned how the benifits of welfare effect the childrens behaviors. I believe this is done so to more prove her point. It is important how ever that she writes her article this way because it emphasizes her point more strongly that it is a great deal worse for the children than it is good.