To many city and shire officials th...

To many city and shire officials the words "welfare reform" are right up there with "that reporter from the paper is forward line one," in terms of phrases local restraint officials do not want to hear.

Everyone knows the welfare stereotype: black single mother driving a Cadillac, and using different names to scrape together enough money to put her in Michael Jordan's tax bracket. (Ronald Reagan swore she existed; no single in kind ever found her.)

In reality, the typical welfare recipient is a woman, more frequently white than black, between 20- and 29-years-old with common child, who receives benefits for les than a year. She is either divorced from or has not at any time been married to her child's father, and child support to her is like recent art to me - we don't secure it.

She is a living emblem of what economists call "the feminization of poverty" And