The Senate is Killing State Welfare Reform
Jameson Taylor / July 06, 2018 / 0 Comments
Few policy reforms have been as popular as welfare-to-work. Why, then, is the U.S. Senate trying to kill state efforts at encouraging able-bodied adults to get a job?
Welfare-to-work was one of the signature policy wins of the 1990s, resulting in the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act.
The legislation was signed by President Bill Clinton, after being shepherded through Congress by House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, who recognized welfare had become a trap for many Americans.
The two most important features of the federal law were time limits on how long recipients could remain on welfare and work requirements for those on welfare. Both of these reforms were targeted at able-bodied, working-age adults on cash assistance (TANF) and food stamps (SNAP).
The positive impact of federal welfare reform is well documented. A 2004 report by the left-of-center Brookings Institution states: “The welfare-to-work objective was predicated on a simple proposition: poor families are better off employed than on welfare.
Jobs are the best antidote to poverty. The work requirements have helped increase the employment rate of single mothers, lowering welfare dependency and child poverty.â€
In particular, poverty rates for black children reached an all-time low.
In spite of its immense success and popularity, the temptation to reverse federal welfare-to-work and related reforms has been unrelenting. Even though he signed PRWORA, Clinton crafted an expansive waiver process that had already started to undo some of PRWORA’s gains by the time he left office.
President George W. Bush not only failed to reign in the waiver process, he oversaw passage of the 2002 Farm Bill (in his defense, he vetoed the 2008 Farm Bill), which loosened food stamp requirements even more, including opening up the program to noncitizens....
https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/07/06/the-senate-is-killing-state-welfare-reform/
