LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Welfare Reform: Work
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The fact that hardship declined during the period in which the federal welfare-reform package was being implemented does not mean that the reforms were responsible for the improvement. These were ... years of sustained economic growth. Unemployment fell from 1995 to 2000, and real wages among the worst-paid workers rose. Some scholars think that these changes fully account for the gains that mother-only families experienced. Indeed, it is even conceivable that single mothers and their children might have experienced even bigger declines in poverty and hardship had welfare reform not pushed so many unskilled recipients off the rolls.
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Since major welfare reform began in Wisconsin in the mid-1990s, IRP researchers have been studying the experiences of participating families. They are intensively studying the Wisconsin Works (W-2) program, investigating what happens to those families that have left welfare as well as those that remain. Reports covering some of those studies are listed below under the heading Wisconsin Studies.
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Despite the bipartisan consensus that welfare reform has been a great success, Congress has yet to reauthorize the legislation, which expired in September 2002. As this is written in mid September, hardly anyone expects congressional reauthorization before the presidential election. Instead, Congress-watchers predict still another temporary extension. The political stalemate has almost nothing to do with disagreement about the impact of the last round of reform. Instead, there is bitter disagreement over the merits of adopting even tougher work requirements.
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After extensive research, the evidence of welfare reform's impact on poverty remains complex. Many studies have explored the interaction of welfare policies, work support policies, and the economy. Poverty rates fell from a 25-year high of 15.1 percent in 1993 to near record lows of 11.3 percent in 2000. But the rates rose again to 12.7 percent in 2004, when the economy turned downward.
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One proposal currently being discussed to reform welfare would require all able-bodied welfare recipients, including women with pre-school children, to go to school for two years to learn a skill while receiving benefits. After that, they would be required to either get a job or take a job the government would give them and their welfare benefits would be discontinued. Child care would be provided for the children of working mothers. Do you favor or oppose this proposal?
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Republicans cheered, liberals jeered, but in the end politicians of all stripes joined the welfare reform parade. While the legislation was all about work, the assumptions driving it were about motherhood, namely that working mothers are better citizens, better role models and ultimately raise better children. Five years later, millions of women are off the rolls and in the workforce and most say welfare reform is a rousing success
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