After President Bill Clinton signed legislation in 1996 “ending welfare as we know it,” many highlighted this “common sense” solution and criticized progressives for opposing the bill. Soon after passage, politicians and the media said it had not caused the downsides that activists had predicted, ignoring that the law had not been fully implemented. But troubling reports soon emerged. Jason DeParle wrote a number of pieces in the New York Times about rising homelessness among Milwaukee families denied welfare under the new law. Welfare rolls were down, but the nation had unusually low unemployment, and many leaving the rolls had become homeless. Now, a new report shows that the Clinton welfare law is performing exactly as opponents feared, as the nation’s deep recession allows states to force families off aid and into destitution. It is an American tragedy, largely ignored because the victims are primarily low-income women and their children.
After reading Robert Pear’s April 11 story on how welfare reform is playing out in blue-state Rhode Island, I wondered whether it would echo through the rest of the media. After all, the media had given extraordinarily positive coverage of the “success” of the 1996 law eliminating the federal welfare entitlement, and recall many reporters in the late 1990’s who expressed surprise when I told them I thought the bill would cause great harm to families.
Today, a decade after implementation, the Clinton-Republican “bipartisan” welfare law is a failure. As unemployment has doubled since 2007 and the number of people receiving food stamps has skyrocketed by 40%, the welfare caseload has risen only 10% -- a clear indication that the nation’s poorest families are not receiving welfare grants due to the restrictive time limits imposed by the 1996 law.
Ask yourself: if the federal government allowed states to put time limits on food stamps, would those numbers have gone up 40%? Or would we have even more kids on the streets begging for alms?
--snip--
Safeguards like avoiding lifetime time limits, which were completely unrealistic in light of the nation’s boom and bust economy. Or allowing states to cut or even eliminate benefits as sanctions against families allegedly missing work requirements, regardless of surrounding circumstances.
Liberal supporters pointed to the increased funding for job training, and argued that this was worth the trade-off. Others pointed to the current system not giving recipients sufficient incentive to work (as if the meager grants available prior to 1996 would lead many people to prefer welfare to employment).
Few with experience working with low-income families felt the time limits were anything but a strategy for states to reduce their rolls. And that is precisely what happened.
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http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=8029
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