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Welfare Reform: Welfare Reform Act
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Progressive pessimists were blind to the promise of reform partly because they believed that the American discomfort with welfare was really a mask for racism. The term “progressive” may imply forward thinking, but in many ways the pessimists are still living in George Wallace’s America. Welfare recipients were, and are, disproportionately black: African Americans totaled about 37 percent of the welfare rolls in 1996, though they were only about 12 percent of the population. If Americans didn’t like welfare, pessimists reasoned, it was because they didn’t like black people. Wags referred to welfare reform as “racism in drag” and to workfare as “slavefare.” A perfect example of the Left’s assumption that racist motives prompted welfare reform is a 1999 book called Why Americans Hate Welfare, by Yale political scientist Martin Gilens. Far from being mean-spirited, Americans are actually a fairly generous people, Gilens argued.
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The 1996 federal welfare reform act imposed some tough recipient work requirements on the states. Adults in at least 25 percent of all welfare families must be working; in two-parent families, 75 percent of adults must work. States that fail to meet either work criteria are fined. California and all other states met the requirement for 25 percent of all welfare families to be working. But along with the District of Columbia and 16 other states, California failed to meet the requirement for two-parent families, in fact only 24 percent of adults in two-parent families were working in 1997. As a result, federal officials in December levied a $7 million penalty on the state.
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On August 22, 1996, President Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, the new welfare reform law that established the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Under the legislation, the states have unprecedented flexibility to design welfare programs to meet the particular needs of welfare families. In return the federal government demands new, measurable results related to moving families into work and self-sufficiency.
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The Healthy Marriage Initiative Web site ... includes a press release of the Reauthorization of the Welfare Reform Act (February 8, 2006). The reauthorization includes $150 million to support programs designed to help couples form and sustain healthy marriages and to encourage responsible fatherhood. The welfare reauthorization provisions also made several improvements to the child support enforcement program, including a change that provides more support directly to families, especially those who have left welfare. Additional Information is available on the Web at http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/healthymarriage/index.html. Information in Spanish about this initiative is available on the Web at http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/healthymarriage/about/spanish_factsheets.html.
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In 1996, President Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, commonly known as welfare reform. This law slashed the 60-year-old vital safety net for millions of poor and working families. The new system has altered the administration of welfare in many ways:
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The passage of major welfare reform in the U.S. now places state and local governments in an active role in addressing the public assistance needs of their people. The Southern Rural Development Center, in partnership with the land-grant institutions in the region and the Farm Foundation, is seeking to shed light on the host of challenges and opportunities that face governments, communities and people as product of this landmark legislation. The following Information Briefs address a variety of welfare reform issues in the US South, with special attention dedicated to the rural South.
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Welfare Reform Act