Alice Bettencourt
February 12, 1999
Paper #2
" Ending Welfare As We Know It Versus Ending Poverty As We Know It"
President Clinton's declaration in 1994 to
"end welfare as we know it" may be an attainable policy
since the enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work
Opportunity Reconciliation Act (herein called PRWORA). This
policy of retrenchment signed on August 22, 1996 has imposed a
number of reforms to the United States' welfare system. Though it
has been developed to "end welfare as we know it", will
it actually help to end poverty as we know it? Will the new
policies of PRWORA only transfer those on welfare into the poor
working class who are barely surviving on minimum wage jobs that
do not provide health benefits, child care or pension
plans? Or, will PRWORA support a combination of education
and job training to actually move welfare recipients into the
working middle-class, empowering them with the ability to support
their families without government support. PRWORA has transformed
what used to be known as Aid to Families ith Dependent Children
(AFDC) into what is now known as Temporary Assistance to Needy
Families (herein known as TANF). TANF actually ends federal
entitlement of individuals under the previous AFDC to cash
assistance. Instead, block grants are given to states along with
the ability to determine eligibility for assistance.
TANF gives states the flexibility to create restrictive programs
that in the past had to be approved by the federal government.
States now have more control over their own welfare programs
therefore decreasing the federal government's responsibilities.
Similar to AFDC, TANF is limited to families with children and/or
pregnant women but unlike AFDC there is a time limit to how long
recipients can receive assistance. Under TANF an eligible
family has a lifetime five-year time limit. AFDC did not
have such a time limit. Stricter child support enforcement is
another key element to TANF. Those who do not cooperate
with child support enforcement will have their benefits reduced
to say the least. The concept behind this enforcement is
that parents, non-custodial and custodial, should be responsible
for raising their child, not the government. Assistance is
also denied to those who have been convicted of a drug-felony and
teenage parents who do not live in a "adult-supervised
setting." TANF has been in the limelight particularly due to
its strict work requirements. TANF recipients are required to
work after two years of receiving assistance. This
requirement will be increased gradually until the year 2002. Over
the five-year time limit, TANF recipients must increase their
weekly hours by five hours per week per year. By the year 2000,
TANF recipients must work 30 hours per week. (Cohen, June 1998)
Though states have the power to shape and control their programs,
all states are required to submit to the federal government an
outline of their plans stating how they will require a parent to
work once the state has decided that he/she is ready to go to
work or after they have been on TANF for twenty four months.
(Cohen, June 1998) Food stamps and nutrition programs have also
been affected by the new welfare reforms. Most legal immigrants
will be eliminated from eligibility to receive food stamps.
Again, states, not the federal government, will be able to
dictate criteria for eligibility to receive food stamps.
The federal government has also mandated that by 2002 all states
must change to Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) from the
traditional paper coupon food stamps. Reforms in the
welfare system will also affect Child and Adult Feeding Programs
that reimburse facilities serving meals to low income children
and adults in adult and day care programs. Also affected
due to the push to limit spending will be the summer food
programs for children, school breakfast programs and WIC.
The new welfare reforms require "able-bodied food stamp
recipients" between the ages of fifteen to fifty to work or
be cut off from food stamp benefits. PRWORA is expected to
save $54.6 billion over five years which in most part comes from
decreasing expenditures on the food stamps program and by denying
benefits to illegal immigrants (Camissa, Pg. 127). One of
the major changes to the United States' welfare program is its
Medical Assistance for Families program (herein known as
MAF). In the past to be eligible to receive Medicaid,
families had to be receiving AFDC. If a family had just
been removed from AFDC they were eligible for an extension for up
to twelve months. PRWORA established MAF to extend Medicaid
also to low income families who do not receive the cash grant of
TANF. There are not time limits to the eligibility for the
Medical Assistance for Families program. (Medical Assistance for
Families) Transitional Medical Assistance (herein known as TMA)
was also extended until the year 2001 under PRWORA so former
welfare recipients can continue to have health benefits even
after leaving government assistance programs. Those who
enter into the workforce after welfare are often placed in
low-paying professions that often do not provide health
benefits. In the past, many welfare recipients have opted
out of working for this primary reason. States have the
discretion to increase the duration of TMA benefits or to modify
standard for individuals to qualify for TMA. Twelve states
have decided to extend the duration of TMA benefits from eighteen
months to two years. Health care is an important factor in
keeping former welfare recipients in the workforce. ( Kaplan,
December 1997) PRWORA has established a force against
non-custodial parents avoid child support payments. The new child
support enforcement helps locate non-custodial parents, enforce
child support orders and, if necessary, attempts to establish the
paternity of a child receiving assistance.
Enforcement ranges from the restricting of driver's licenses to
even enforcing child support payments in cases involving minors
against the non-custodial parent's parents. If
non-custodial parents paid 100% of their required child support
payments, AFDC would have decreased its overall costs by 16%.
(Yales, May 1997) If states do not comply with child
support enforcement, they could be penalized financially. Welfare
reform has been an issue in the American political agenda since
Johnson's declared War on Poverty. PROWRA has made
significant changes in United States welfare policy.
Liberals and conservatives have recently agreed to pursue welfare
reform but at what cost to low income families in the United
States? Will the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act actually promote personal responsibility and
work opportunities for those hoping to better their lives
financially or those forced off of government assistance due to
time limits? In 1988, the Family Support Act was passed. It also
included increased work requirements for those receiving
government assistance but only eight years later the welfare
system was again in need of reform. PROWRA has been
designed to help those on welfare to enter into the workforce,
therefore decreasing their dependency on government assistance
programs. Since PROWRA was passed in 1996, we have seen a
substantial decrease in the number of families and recipients
receiving TANF. In August of 1996, 4,414,000 families were
receiving TANF while in September of 1998 only 2,896,000 families
were receiving TANF. This was a decrease in 1,519,000
families; equal to a thirty four percent decrease.
(Administration for Children & Families, DHHS, January 1999).
One who supports welfare reform may look at these numbers as
proof that Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act has in fact worked to change "welfare as
we knew it" by moving people off of welfare and into the
workforce. But in reality where are these families
now? Are they barely making ends meet? Are they
working in a minimum wage job without benefits or in fact are
they working in mid-level jobs due to the job training they
received in their welfare jobs training programs? Is PROWRA
promoting education and additional job training resulting in
higher paid positions or are most of those off of the welfare
system right where they were before they originally started
receiving welfare but this time with no where to go and no one to
turn to? While the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act requires recipients to return to work within
two years of initially receiving TANF, the program does not
excuse those who are working towards a post-secondary degree from
the work requirements. Many women who are trying to raise a
child while attending college classes in the attempt to better
their lives through a post-secondary education will be forced to
return to work therefore dropping their classes all together or
to part time status thus prolonging their dependency on welfare.
The "work first" approach that PRWORA promotes results in "quick job placement by requiring increasing proportions of state caseloads to be participating in work activities for increasing numbers of hours and limiting the extent to which education and training can count as such work activities." (Cohen, March 1998) PRWORA does allow for "vocational educational training" but only allows it to be counted as work activity for up to twelve months. It is also limited to no more than 30% of TANF recipients in a state. Though on the job training is considered work activity, a combination of this training along with classroom education would in my opinion be much more beneficial to the individual. Neither option by itself would as beneficial as if they were combined. An individual with job experience and an education has a greater chance of attaining a higher paying job. The positive effects of such combined programs will be long term by placing individuals in higher paying jobs, most likely with benefits, therefore decreasing their dependency on government assistance. PROWRA should give recipients the option to attend schools beyond the secondary level instead of working right away. A person with a college education has a better chance of escaping poverty than a person with only a high school education and limited job training. PROWRA was designed to end welfare as we know it but is it designed to end poverty? If our poverty rate decreases at the rate that those who received TANF from August 1996 to September 1998 did then PROWRA has done its job. Until we can eradicate poverty in the United States, the welfare system will need constant reform in its education, job training, health care and childcare policies.
WORKS CITED
1. Cammisa, Anne Marie, _From Welfare to Reform? Welfare Policy
in American Politics_. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1998
2. Administration for Children and Families, Department of Health
& Human Services, Change in Welfare Caseloads Since Enactment
of the New Welfare Law, [
http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/news/stats/aug-sep.htm ] January,
1999
3. Cohen, Marie, Welfare Information Network Issue Notes:
Education and Training Under Welfare Reform,
[http://www.welfareinfo.org/edissue.htm] March, 1998
4. Cohen, Marie, Welfare Information Network Issue Notes:
Post-secondary Education Under Welfare Reform,
[http://www.welfareinfo.org/vocational%20ed.htm] , June, 1998
5. Kaplan, Jan, Welfare Information Network Issue Notes:
Transitional Medicaid Assistance, [
http://www.welfareinfo.org/tmedicaid.htm] December, 1997
6. Medical Assistance for Families,
[http://train.missouri.org/dfs/mafwws.htm ]
7. Yales, Jessica, Welfare Information Network Issue Notes: Child
Support Enforcement and Welfare Reform,
[http://www.welfareinfo.org/childsupportresource.htm] May, 1997