The prevalence of mental disorders among income support recipients: An important issue for welfare reform

Major changes have been proposed for the Food Stamp Program, including replacing the program with block grants to the states, cashing out the benefits, and reducing program funding from baseline levels. This paper will explore the impacts of food stamp reform on food spending, income support, welfare reform, agriculture, and the rest of the economy. A comprehensive set of scenarios is used to examine the potential economic consequences. The analysis shows that the effect of cashing out the Food Stamp Program can be as much as four times larger than the effects of program reduction alone.

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Resetting Benefits: Benchmarks for adequate minimum incomes

Policy Quarterly ◽

10.26686/pq.v17i4.7320 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 17 (4) ◽

pp. 58-64

Author(s):

Greg Waite

Keyword(s):

Welfare Reform ◽

Government Policy ◽

Evidence Based ◽

Income Support ◽

Successful Management ◽

Evidence Based Policy ◽

Expert Advisory ◽

Housing Costs ◽

The Impact ◽

Local Research

New Zealand’s successful management of the Covid-19 pandemic has emphasised the value of evidence-based policy. Government policy on income support payments is also changing significantly in response to the Welfare Expert Advisory Group’s 2019 report. This article examines the report’s recommendations in the context of international and local research, considers whether benefit increases in the 2021 Budget deliver on those recommendations, and discusses the impact of high housing costs on welfare reform options.

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Welfare Activation and Youth Crime

Review of Economics and Statistics ◽

10.1162/rest_a_00787 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 101 (4) ◽

pp. 561-574 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Bernt Bratsberg ◽

Øystein Hernæs ◽

Simen Markussen ◽

Oddbjørn Raaum ◽

Knut Røed

Keyword(s):

Welfare Reform ◽

Capital Accumulation ◽

Social Assistance ◽

School Dropout ◽

Human Capital Accumulation ◽

Income Support ◽

Youth Crime ◽

Long Run ◽

The Impact ◽

Disadvantaged Families

We evaluate the impact on youth crime of a welfare reform that tightened activation requirements for social assistance clients. The evaluation strategy exploits administrative individual data in combination with geographically differentiated implementation of the reform. We find that the reform reduced crime among teenage boys from economically disadvantaged families. Stronger reform effects on weekday versus weekend crime, reduced school dropout, and favorable long-run outcomes in terms of crime and educational attainment point to both incapacitation and human capital accumulation as key mechanisms. Despite lowered social assistance take-up, we uncover no indication that loss of income support pushed youth into crime.

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Job Guarantees for the Unemployed: Lessons from Australian Welfare Reform

Journal of Social Policy ◽

10.1017/s0047279499005462 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 28 (1) ◽

pp. 53-71 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

DAN FINN

Keyword(s):

Welfare Reform ◽

Full Employment ◽

Income Support ◽

Time Limits ◽

British Labour ◽

Social Security Reforms ◽

Post War ◽

The Unemployed ◽

And Training

High levels of long-term unemployment have undermined some of the assumptions of the post-war welfare state. In response most OECD governments are now replacing what have been characterised as passive income support payments with active benefit systems. Many have introduced new time limits to unconditional benefit entitlement in the form of job and training guarantees for those without work. This article describes how the 1993–6 Australian Labor government modernised its commitment to full employment by combining labour market programmes and social security reforms to create a Job Compact for the long-term unemployed. It analyses the achievements of the strategy and what went wrong, and it draws out lessons of relevance to the British Labour government which has committed itself to using job guarantees to build new bridges between welfare and work.

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Hopelessness, Demoralization and Suicidal Behaviour: the Backdrop to Welfare Reform in Australia

Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry ◽

10.1080/j.1440-1614.2006.01864.x ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 40 (8) ◽

pp. 648-656 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Peter Butterworth ◽

Kate A. Fairweather ◽

Kaarin J. Anstey ◽

Timothy D. Windsor

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Suicidal Ideation ◽

Welfare Reform ◽

Suicidal Behaviour ◽

Policy Development ◽

Suicide Attempts ◽

Poor Mental Health ◽

Income Support ◽

Psychological Measures ◽

Lone Mothers

Objectives: To estimate rates of suicidal ideation and attempts, and psychological characteristics of demoralization among Australian income support recipients. To provide information for policy-makers to inform the current welfare reform discussion. Method: Data from the 1997 National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing were analysed using sequential logistic regression models, comparing working age people dependent on government income support payments with those having other main sources of income. Results: Three groups of income support recipients, unemployed, lone mothers and disability payment recipients, reported significantly higher levels on all psychological measures related to demoralization (hopelessness, worthlessness and dissatisfaction with life) than non-recipients. A similar pattern was demonstrated for measures of suicidal ideation and reported suicide attempts, with increased odds of between 3 and 9 for these high-risk groups of welfare recipients. The elevated rates of suicidal ideation, attempts and demoralization among income support recipients were in part explained by sociodemographic characteristics (socioeconomic status, age, educational qualification, experience of serious violence, loneliness, experience of psychiatric disorders), though the unemployed and disability payment recipients remained elevated on the psychological measures. Conclusions: Demoralization, poor mental health and suicidal behaviour are common among income support recipients targeted by recently announced welfare reforms. This needs to be considered in the design and implementation of Australian Government policies. Psychiatric epidemiology has a key role in policy development and evaluation.

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Reductionist thinking and animal models in neuropsychiatric research

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x18001231 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 42 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Nicole M. Baran

Keyword(s):

Animal Models ◽

Mental Disorders ◽

Environmental Factors ◽

Neuropsychiatric Disorders ◽

Model Organisms ◽

Developmental Genetic ◽

Term Study ◽

Genetic And Environmental Factors ◽

Mechanisms Of Plasticity

AbstractReductionist thinking in neuroscience is manifest in the widespread use of animal models of neuropsychiatric disorders. Broader investigations of diverse behaviors in non-model organisms and longer-term study of the mechanisms of plasticity will yield fundamental insights into the neurobiological, developmental, genetic, and environmental factors contributing to the “massively multifactorial system networks” which go awry in mental disorders.

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Assessing Mental and Behavioral Disorder Impairment: Overview of Sixth Edition Approaches

Guides Newsletter ◽

10.1001/amaguidesnewsletters.2008.novdec01 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 13 (6) ◽

pp. 1-7

Author(s):

Norma Leclair ◽

Steve Leclair ◽

Robert Barth

Keyword(s):

Mental Disorders ◽

Behavioral Disorders ◽

Psychotic Disorders ◽

Behavioral Disorder ◽

Behavioral Impairment ◽

Central Nervous System Damage ◽

Brain Functioning ◽

Sixth Edition ◽

Diagnostic And Statistical Manual ◽

Mental And Behavioral Disorders

Abstract Chapter 14, Mental and Behavioral Disorders, in the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment (AMA Guides), Sixth Edition, defines a process for assessing permanent impairment, including providing numeric ratings, for persons with specific mental and behavioral disorders. These mental disorders are limited to mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and psychotic disorders, and this chapter focuses on the evaluation of brain functioning and its effects on behavior in the absence of evident traumatic or disease-related objective central nervous system damage. This article poses and answers questions about the sixth edition. For example, this is the first since the second edition (1984) that provides a numeric impairment rating, and this edition establishes a standard, uniform template to translate human trauma or disease into a percentage of whole person impairment. Persons who conduct independent mental and behavioral evaluation using this chapter should be trained in psychiatry or psychology; other users should be experienced in psychiatric or psychological evaluations and should have expertise in the diagnosis and treatment of mental and behavioral disorders. The critical first step in determining a mental or behavioral impairment rating is to document the existence of a definitive diagnosis based on the current edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The article also enumerates the psychiatric disorders that are considered ratable in the sixth edition, addresses use of the sixth edition during independent medical evaluations, and answers additional questions.

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