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President Bill Clinton signing welfare reform legislation, looked on by his Health & Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala
President Bill Clinton signing welfare reform legislation, looked on by his Health & Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA, Pub.L. 104-193, 110 Stat. 2105, enacted 1996-08-22) is a United States federal law considered to be a fundamental shift in both the method and goal of federal cash assistance to the poor. William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III, August 19 1946 served as the forty-second President of the United States Donna Edna Shalala (surname pronounced ʃəˈleɪlə born February 14, 1941) has served as president of the University of Miami, a private university The United States Statutes at Large, commonly referred to as the Statutes at Large and abbreviated Stat Year 1996 ( MCMXCVI) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar) Events 392 - Arbogast has Eugenius elected Western Roman Emperor. The bill was a cornerstone of the Republican Contract With America and was introduced by Rep. E. Clay Shaw, Jr. (R-Florida) who believed welfare was partly responsible for bringing immigrants to the United States. The Contract with America was a document released by the United States Republican Party during the 1994 Congressional election campaign The United States House of Representatives is one of the two chambers of the United States Congress; the other is the Senate. Eugene Clay Shaw Jr (born April 19 1939) is an American politician who was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives This is an incomplete list of Members of the United States House of Representatives from Florida in alphabetical order [1] Bill Clinton signed PRWORA on August 26, 1996 under his promise to "end welfare as we know it". William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III, August 19 1946 served as the forty-second President of the United States Events 1071 - Battle of Manzikert: The Seljuk Turks defeat the Byzantine Army at Manzikert. Year 1996 ( MCMXCVI) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar)

PRWORA instituted Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) which became effective July 1, 1997. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF often pronounced "TAN-if" is the United States of America 's Federal assistance program commonly known as "July 1st" redirects here For the Ayumi Hamasaki song see H (song. Year 1997 ( MCMXCVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1997 Gregorian calendar Replacing Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), which had been in effect since 1935, and supplanting the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS) program of 1988, TANF was heralded as a "reassertion of America's work ethic" by the US Chamber of Commerce, largely in response to the bill's workfare component. The United States Chamber of Commerce (USCC is the world's largest not-for-profit business federation representing 3000000 businesses (via its Federation of local chambers Workfare is an alternative model to conventional Social welfare systems Some criticize the bill as a reinstitution of workhouses and believe the new system is ineffective in getting people out of poverty. A workhouse, colloquially known as a spike was a place where people who were unable to support themselves could go to live and work Although PRWORA has expired, Congress has continued to fund the program until a new bill is enacted.

Contents

History

Social welfare to poor mothers had historically been funded by AFDC following its inclusion in the Social Security Act of 1935. Social Security, in the United States currently refers to the federal Old-Age Survivors and Disability Insurance ( OASDI) program As restrictions on the availability of cash support to poor families (especially single-parent, female-headed households) were reduced, AFDC caseloads increased dramatically from the 1930s to the late-1960s. Between 1936 and 1969, the number of families receiving welfare increased from 162,000 to 1,875,000. [2] Reasons for the increasing rolls were many, but included the influence of the Great Migration as well as the effects of the War on Poverty and the Civil Rights Movement. See also Second Great Migration (African American The Great Migration was the movement of approximately seven million African-Americans out of the The War on Poverty is the name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B See also Protests of 1968 Historically the civil rights movement was a concentrated period of time around the world of approximately twenty years (1960-1980 in Under the Social Security Act, federal funds only covered part of relief costs, providing an incentive for localities to make welfare difficult to obtain. More permissible Northern laws were put to the test during the Great Migration between 1940 and 1970 in which millions of people migrated from the agricultural South to the more industrial North. See also Second Great Migration (African American The Great Migration was the movement of approximately seven million African-Americans out of the In addition, many people were originally disqualified from obtaining AFDC, including all able-bodied adults without children as well as two-parent families. Court rulings concurrent with the Great Society program struck down many of these regulations, creating new categories of people eligible for relief. The Great Society was also a 1960s band featuring Grace Slick, and a 1914 book by English social theorist Graham Wallas. Community organizations growing out of the Civil Rights Movement, such as the National Welfare Rights Organization, were also instrumental in informing citizens of their ability to receive government assistance. See also Protests of 1968 Historically the civil rights movement was a concentrated period of time around the world of approximately twenty years (1960-1980 in The National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO was an American activist Organization that fought for the rights of people especially women and children reliant upon government [3]

With many more people applying for welfare, and a larger percentage of those applying being accepted, AFDC caseloads swelled between the 1950s and 1960s. [3] Primarily in response to an unease about the expansion of the welfare apparatus from New Right politicians, federal funding for AFDC began to lag behind inflation. New Right is used in several countries as a descriptive term for various forms of conservative right-wing or self-proclaimed dissident oppositional movements and groups that emerged Between 1970 and 1994, a typical state's AFDC benefits for a family of three fell 47% after adjusting for inflation. [4]

Beginning in the 1980s and into the 1990s, AFDC came under attack by liberals and conservatives for the program's alleged ineffectiveness. While acknowledging the need for a social safety net, liberals often cited a "culture of poverty" that AFDC engendered. The culture of poverty concept is a Social theory explaining the Cycle of poverty. [5] Stereotypes explaining welfare recipients as "trapped in a cycle of dependency" developed into an American folklore, often becoming internalized by those receiving welfare. [6] Highlighting instances of welfare fraud, conservatives pledged to "dismantle the welfare state". Welfare fraud refers to various intentional misuses of state welfare systems by withholding information or giving false or inaccurate information Ronald Reagan's oft-repeated story of a welfare queen from Chicago's South Side became part of a larger discourse on welfare reform, fueling popular anecdotes about the immorality of single-mothers on welfare. A welfare queen is a Pejorative Neologism used to describe women who are presumed to collect welfare checks or excess amounts through fraud or manipulation [5][7]

Republican governor Tommy Thompson began instituting welfare reform in Wisconsin during his governorship in the late-1980s and early-1990s. Tommy George Thompson (born November 19, 1941) a United States Politician, was the 42nd Governor of Wisconsin and the 7th Wisconsin ( or wɪˈskɑnsɨn (French Ouisconsin) is one of the fifty United States of America, located in the north central part of the United States In lobbying federal government to grant states wider latitude in their implementation of welfare, Thompson wanted a system where "pregnant teen-aged girls from Milwaukee, no matter what their background is or where they live, can pursue careers and chase their dreams. "[8] His solution was workfare, whereby poor individuals, typically single-mothers with children, had to work to receive assistance. Workfare is an alternative model to conventional Social welfare systems Thompson was later awarded a position as Health and Human Services Secretary under President George W. Bush. The United States Department of Health and Human Services ( HHS) is a Cabinet department of the United States government with the goal of protecting George Walker Bush ( born July 6 1946 is the forty-third and current President of the United States.

Passage of PRWORA was the culmination of many years of debate in which the merits and flaws of AFDC were argued. Research was used by both sides to make their points, with each side often using the same piece of research to support the opposite view. [5] The political atmosphere at the time of PRWORA's passage included a Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Senate (defined by their Contract with America) and a Democratically-controlled presidency (defined by Bill Clinton's promise to "end welfare as we know it. The United States House of Representatives is one of the two chambers of the United States Congress; the other is the Senate. The United States Senate is the Upper house of the bicameral United States Congress, the Lower house being the House of Representatives The Contract with America was a document released by the United States Republican Party during the 1994 Congressional election campaign The Democratic Party is one of two major Political parties in the United States, the other being the Republican Party. William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III, August 19 1946 served as the forty-second President of the United States ")

PRWORA proposed TANF as AFDC’s replacement. The Congressional findings in PRWORA highlighted dependency, out-of-wedlock birth, and intergenerational poverty as the main contributors to a faulty system. [9] In instituting a block grant program, PRWORA granted states the ability to design their own systems, as long as states met a basic set of federal requirements. In a Federal system of Government, a block grant is a large sum of money granted by the national government to a regional government with only general provisions as The bill's primary effects included:

In granting states wider latitude for designing their own programs, some states have decided to place additional requirements on recipients. Although the law placed a time limit on federally funded welfare of no more than 2 consecutive years and no more than 5 years over a lifetime, some states have enacted briefer limits. All states, however, have allowed exceptions with the intent of not punishing children because their parents have gone over the time limit. Federal requirements have ensured some measure of uniformity across states, but the block grant approach has led individual states to distribute federal money in different ways. Certain states more actively encourage education, while others may use the money to help fund private enterprises helping job seekers.

The legislation also greatly limited funds available for unmarried parents under 18, and restricted any funding to immigrants (legal or illegal). [2] Some state programs emphasized a shift towards work with names such as "Wisconsin Works" and "WorkFirst". Between 1997 and 2000, enormous numbers of the poor have left or been terminated from the program, with a national drop of 53% in total recipients. [10] Since there is less training and education available than with the earlier JOBS program, these "last hired, first fired" recipients have been returning to welfare and caseloads have been increasing.

Welfare and poverty rates both declined during the late-1990s, leading many commentators to declare the legislation a success. An editorial in The New Republic opined, "A broad consensus now holds that welfare reform was certainly not a disaster--and that it may, in fact, have worked much as its designers had hoped. The New Republic ( TNR) is an American Magazine of politics and the arts "[11]

Criticism

Critics of the law argue that a large reduction in the number of people collecting welfare was largely a result of steady and strong economic growth in the years following enactment of the law. [12] Others question the definition of success, asking whether "success", as measured by caseload reduction, was merely a political construction for policy makers to easily claim credit in front of their constituencies. In analyzing the effects of welfare reform, political scientist Joe Soss notes that caseload reduction is not very demanding, especially compared to improving material conditions in poor communities:

"The TANF program does not offer benefits sufficient to lift recipients out of poverty, and despite a strong economy, the majority of families who have moved off the TANF rolls have remained in poverty. Considerations of another traditional economic goal, reduction of inequality, only makes matters worse. Welfare reform has coincided with massive growth in income and wealth disparities; it has done little to slow the expansion of inequality and may have actually accelerated the trend. Has welfare reform created job opportunities for the poor? Has it promoted wages that allow low-wage workers to escape poverty? In both of these areas, the economic story remains the same: we have little evidence that reform has produced achievements that warrant the label of success. "[10]

Frances Fox Piven questioned whether the problem with AFDC was not so much a problem with the welfare system, but with the structuring of low-wage work in general:

"Logically, but not in the heated and vitriolic politics created by the attack on welfare, a concern with the relationship of welfare to dependency should have directed attention to the deteriorating conditions of the low-wage labor market. Frances Fox Piven, born in Calgary Alberta, Canada in 1932 is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology at The Graduate Center After all, if there were jobs that paid living wages, and if health care and child care were available, a great many women on AFDC would leap at the chance of a better income and a little social respect. "[13]

Feminist critics, such as Barbara Ehrenreich, point to a degree of misogyny and racism in the lead up to PRWORA, claiming that advocates for workfare rehashed stereotypes that had been around for centuries. Feminism is a discourse that involves various movements theories, and Philosophies which are concerned with the issue of Gender difference, advocate Barbara Ehrenreich (born August 26, 1941, in Butte Montana) is an American Feminist, Socialist and political activist Misogyny (mɪˈsɒdʒɪni is hatred (or contemptof women Misogyny is parallel to Misandry — the hatred of men List of racism-related topics|Racism by country Racism, by its simplest definition is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that [14] Through the perceived demonization of single mothers, Ehrenreich sees welfare reform as stigmatizing "unpaid, family-directed labor" and believes that the reform put many women into exploitative situations:

"Stigmatizing unemployment obviously works to promote the kind of docility businesses crave in their employees. TANF requires recipients to take whatever jobs are available, and usually the first job that comes along. Lose the job – for example, because you have to stay at home with a sick child or because you tell the boss to stop propositioning you – and you may lose whatever supplementary benefits you were receiving. The message is clear: Do not complain or make trouble; accept employment on the bosses’ terms or risk homelessness and hunger. "". [15]

References

  1. ^ Lacayo, Richard. "Down on the Downtrodden", Time Magazine, December 19, 1994. Events 324 - Licinius abdicates his position as Roman Emperor. Year 1994 ( MCMXCIV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full 1994 Gregorian calendar) Retrieved on 2008-04-01. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common Events 527 - Byzantine Emperor Justin I names his nephew Justinian I as co-ruler and successor to the throne  
  2. ^ a b "Children and Poverty: Analysis and Recommendations" (PDF) (1997). The Future of Children.  
  3. ^ a b Piven, Frances Fox (1979). Poor People's Movements. Vintage Books, 264. ISBN 0394726979.  
  4. ^ National Coalition for the Homeless (2007). "NCH Fact Sheet #12" (PDF).  
  5. ^ a b c Zuckerman, Diana (2000). "Welfare Reform in America: A Clash of Politics and Research". National Center for Policy Research on Women and Families.  
  6. ^ Gilliam, Franklin (1999). "The 'Welfare Queen' Experiment: How Viewers React to Images of African-American Mothers on Welfare" (PDF). Nieman Reports 53 (2). UCLA: Center for Communications and Community.  
  7. ^ Hays, Sharon (2004). Flat Broke with Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform. Oxford University Press, USA, 122. ISBN 0195176014.  
  8. ^ The Good News About Welfare Reform: Wisconsin's Success Story (html). Retrieved on 2008-04-03. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common Events 1043 - Edward the Confessor is crowned King of England.
  9. ^ Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (html). Retrieved on 2008-04-03. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common Events 1043 - Edward the Confessor is crowned King of England.
  10. ^ a b Soss, Joe (2002). Success Stories. South End Press, 65. ISBN 0896086585.  
  11. ^ September 4, 2006, editorial on page 7
  12. ^ Sawicky, Max (2002). Events 476 - Romulus Augustus, last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, is deposed when Odoacer proclaims himself Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. "The Mirage of Welfare Reform". WorkingUSA 6 (3): 55–69. doi:10.1111/j.1743-4580.2002.00055.x. A digital object identifier ( DOI) is a permanent identifier given to an Electronic document.  
  13. ^ Piven, Frances Fox (1998). The Breaking of the American Social Compact. New Press, 169. ISBN 1565844769.  
  14. ^ Ehrenreich, Barbara (2003). A Step Back to the Workhouse?. NYU Press, 504. ISBN 0814756549.  
  15. ^ Ehrenreich, Barbara (May 2002). "Chamber of Welfare Reform". The Progressive. The Progressive is an American monthly magazine of politics and culture with a pronounced leftist perspective  

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