Catch 22: Women with HIV on Wisconsin's Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) Program: A Qualitative Narrative Analysis

摘要

In 1996 when Congress eliminated the federal Aid to Families with Dependent Children program, it was the largest income source of women living with HIV in the United States. In its place, Congress created a new federal block grant, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), to fund state-run compulsory workfare programs. To learn how welfare reform affected HIV-positive women, this qualitative narrative analysis examines the experiences of nine seropositive women enrolled in Wisconsin's TANF program, Wisconsin Works, between 2000 and 2003- Repeated in-depth interviews over 24 months explored participants' efforts to secure health care, income, and social services. This article analyzes the verbatim transcripts of those in-depth qualitative interviews. Constrained by the double stigma of HIV/AIDS and welfare, with Wisconsin Works Program incomes below half the poverty level, their families lived intermittently on Wisconsin Works income, rent assistance, food assistance, Medicaid, and sometimes child support. Between illness and benefit disruptions, these mostly long-term HIV survivors described feeling exhausted, angry, and demoralized, struggling daily for respect against the system's bureaucratic disentitlements.