Welfare Reform Initiatives

This essay presents an overview of the history of welfare and the welfare reforms enacted in the United States in 1996. With the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996, the administration of President Bill Clinton promised to "end welfare as we know it," and that promise has largely come to pass. Welfare recipients are now often required to attend training programs or perform work in order to receive benefits. The relative position of former welfare recipients to the official poverty line, however, remains a debated issue, as does the position of single parents and minority groups in the current welfare system.

Keywords Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC); Guaranteed Income; Medicaid; Poverty Line; Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA); Real Income; Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)

Social Issues & Public Policy > Welfare Reform Initiatives

Overview

The welfare rolls have plummeted by more than 60 percent nationally since the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) was enacted in 1996. President Bill Clinton signed the act and replaced Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, providing some of the most sweeping welfare reform to date. Other benefits, such as tax cuts for low-income workers, Medicaid, and food stamp programs, have been expanded to aid those who have attempted to join the conventional workforce since 1996. The first major test of PRWORA arrived with the recession of 2001, and it seems to have passed that test adequately (Hymowitz, 2004; Wolf, 2006). The caseloads of welfare caseworkers fell from 5.1 million in 1994 to 1.9 million in 2011. The rates of those receiving funds from Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), as welfare was known before 1996, and of spending on AFDC programs, had remained relatively stable between 1972 and 1989. The economy then fell into a recession and both increased significantly. Between 1965 and 1972, both categories had also expanded substantially (Snyder, 2004).

Poverty & Welfare

The conventional competing explanations for issues related to poverty and welfare policy are cultural and structural. Cultural explanations tend to be politically conservative and emphasize behavioral patterns, whereas structural explanations tend to be politically liberal or left-leaning and emphasize political and economic factors. A common argument from the cultural perspective is that the ready availability of welfare benefits leads to dependence, deterioration of the work ethic, and general societal irresponsibility. An extreme version of this argument asserts that welfare creates poverty. Structural arguments can take at least two significant angles: from an economic perspective, welfare benefits are viewed as a counteractive force to drastic and largely inevitable fluctuations in the health of the economy; from a more social perspective, harsh critiques of "welfare mothers" can be said to diminish the value placed on the activity of raising children (Funiciello, 1993).

A possible third angle emphasizes the degree to which relatively minor policy changes can affect those temporarily on the economic margins of society. Zuberi (2006) takes this approach and de-emphasizes both cultural and structural approaches (p.18). An alternative approach to welfare reform, known as guaranteed income, similarly does not fall along partisan political lines. Guaranteed income is a largely theoretical plan to transform welfare payments into something comparable to respectable social insurance programs. Such programs, including pensions, unemployment insurance, and disability benefits automatically supplement the income of qualified recipients in most cases and account for inflation (or the real value of income). Welfare recipients, by contract, must undergo a humiliating and ongoing series of application updates and investigations about the absence of earned income. Welfare funding, furthermore, is almost invariably well below the poverty line. In short, a guaranteed income policy would diminish the administrative distinction between respectable social insurance programs (such as pensions and unemployment insurance) and public assistance (welfare or "cash assistance"). The funding available through a potential guaranteed income program could easily be as low as AFDC/TANF funding, but those funds would be delivered more reliably, the application process would be considerably less humiliating or eliminated entirely, and recipients would likely have stronger legally defensible rights (i.e., a lobby group) (Funiciello, 1993; Patterson, 1994). Although President Lyndon B. Johnson considered such an approach under his efforts to solidify what he termed the Great Society and complete the "War on Poverty" in the 1960s, the administration of Richard Nixon actually attempted to enact such a policy.

History of U.S. Welfare Programs

As early as 1908, some states provided cash assistance to single mothers under a program known as the "Widow's Pension," and some of the recipients had not been married (Abramovitz, 2006). The AFDC program originated in a slightly different form under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1935 New Deal legislation. That program was primarily intended to allow single parents to care for dependent children. Only 2 percent of families who received funds were headed by a woman who had not been married; the other 98 percent were families headed by widows, abandoned but legally married women, or physically disabled fathers. That New Deal legislation also established unemployment insurance and Social Security (or pensions) at the national level (Shäfer, 1999; Snyder, 2004). This distinction established the later distribution of government funds along both gender-related and class-related lines.

The 1935 legislation that established most welfare programs at the national level made a sharp distinction between social insurance and public assistance. This distinction has been described as separate and unequal programs for "employables" and "unemployables" respectively (Patterson, 1994, p. 206). Not surprisingly, those respectable social programs provide greater financial benefits and legal rights that can be asserted in court. Whereas the Social Security lobby has considerable influence on government policy, welfare recipients tend to vote at a low rate (Abramovitz, 2006, p. 350). In 1970 the Supreme Court determined that individual states were required to declare an "actual standard of need" for welfare recipients, but states were not required to pay that amount (Funiciello, 1993, p. 268).

The Nixon administration expanded Supplemental Security Income (which accounts for inflation) for the disabled, blind, and elderly in 1972. A few years later, the national poverty rate fell to 11 percent, down from 21 percent in 1962 (Patterson, 1994, p. 224). By the mid-1970s, an anti-welfare coalition had organized. That group was central in the drafting and enactment of PRWORA once Republicans had achieved the difficult task of controlling both Congress and the Senate simultaneously (Shäfer, 1999). In the 1980s Congress effectively halved the cuts the Reagan administration attempted to make to welfare and other social programs, particularly to disability benefits. However, many former recipients of disability benefits were able to regain their former levels of funding through the courts (Patterson, 1994, p. 212).

Nixon's 1970 speech about guaranteed income in the proposed Family Assistance Plan (FAP) during the White House Conference on Children made an impassioned plea to provide adequate funding to poor families that would eliminate the humiliating policing of personal habits and finances; it also evoked Nixon's personal experience of poverty during the Depression. The FAP was defeated after intensive policy debates on both sides of the political spectrum, but both potential Democratic candidates for the 1972 national election favored a form of guaranteed income for poor parents (Funiciello, 1993, pp. 278-80, 294). If the FAP had been enacted, the Democratic Party's extensive political organization through welfare offices would have been seriously disabled (Funiciello, 1993, p. 281). The international oil crisis and domestic economic crisis in the 1970s probably ended any chance of extending guaranteed income to poor families (Quadagno & Street, 2006, p. 303).

In the 1970s, economist Milton Friedman argued that the problem of welfare could be dealt with through a negative income tax (Funiciello, 1993, p. 277; Patterson, 1994, p. 206). That is essentially what has happened. The 1996 version of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) allowed low-income earners with two children to keep an extra 40 percent (or up to $4,400) of their income (Shäfer, 1999). The EITC was enacted in 1975 and expanded in 1986, 1990, 1993, and 1996, when those tax credits were worth $25 billion to 20 million people. The average annual expenditure on AFDC/TANF has been about half that amount. This element of the 1996 welfare reforms is probably more responsible for decreases in poverty rates than any other single factor (Quadagno & Street, 2006, p. 306).

Further Insights

Welfare Reform Today

Senator Edward Kennedy termed PRWORA "legislative child abuse" when it was proposed, and three prominent Clinton appointees resigned in protest after it was enacted. Their predicted "race to the bottom" in terms of benefits and living conditions for welfare recipients, however, did not materialize. In 1996, the economy was extremely healthy and unemployment was at a thirty-year low. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) replaced AFDC. The poverty rate for single mothers fell from 42 percent in 1996 to 30 percent in 2012. Child poverty among African American families hit an all-time low before the 2001 recession, and teen violence and pregnancy have declined since the early 1990s (Hymowitz, 2004).

Those receiving TANF benefits have been required to take some sort of academic courses, receive work training, or perform work-for-welfare such as raking leaves in parks, working in municipal offices, or performing unskilled tasks for nonprofit organizations (Abramovitz, 2006). Benefits for parents on TANF rolls are now limited to two consecutive years and five years over a lifetime. Single able-bodied adults can only receive benefits for three months every three years without participation in education or training programs. Many legal immigrants cannot receive TANF benefits for five years, and illegal immigrants are only eligible for emergency medical services. About a million people were forcefully removed from TANF rolls after 1996 for exhausting their benefits or violating regulations (Wolf, 2006).

The most discussed and most contentious issue related to contemporary welfare reform is the large number of inner-city single mothers (or "lone mothers") who have been long-term welfare recipients. Although both the majority of those who live below the poverty line and those on welfare are white, African American single mothers form a large percentage of long-term welfare recipients and of their own demographic group (Funiciello, 1993, p. 269).

Many single mothers formerly on AFDC rolls worked with or through TANF programs (Fremstad, 2004). UPS and CVS/pharmacy cooperated with the government and hired about a combined 100,000 former welfare recipients. About 60 percent of the people CVS/pharmacy hired became long-term employees. This story, however, seems to be an exception to some major trends. Other employers report keeping less than 5 percent of the former welfare recipients they hired circa 1996 (Wolf, 2006). The glut of low-wage workers forced on to the job market after 1996 was also detrimental to the earning ability of the existing blue-collar workforce. The subsequent wage depression affected both former welfare recipients and non-welfare recipients (Abramovitz, 2006, p. 353).

The overall post-1996 scope of the welfare system is actually more expansive than it was in 1972 (Wolf, 2006). However, welfare offices have largely been transformed into job-placement agencies (Hymowitz, 2006).

Just before the enactment of PRWORA, Patterson (1994) noted that "many of those eligible for welfare calculated correctly that they were better off on welfare than working (and paying for child care, transportation, and other work-related expenses)" (p. 230). A version of this story appears in dozens of commentaries on the issue of welfare reform. The potential loss of food stamp benefits and Medicaid are often the crucial factor. Among those who left welfare rolls after 1996, 55 percent still lived below the poverty line after one year and 42 remained at that level of income after five years. According to one California study, about half of those forced off welfare made only $60 to $70 more each month than they had received in AFDC benefits (Fremstad, 2004; Hymowitz, 2004). A 2007 study, however, indicated that 60 percent of former AFDC/TANF recipients were better off financially and only 10 percent were worse off (Berkowitz, 2007). Presumably, the other 30 percent were treading water at the time of the study. Another study, of employed single parents formerly on welfare, concluded that the financial and psychological benefits of a full-time job at best balance out with the anxiety created by fears about the quality and availability of child care (Abramovitz, 2006, p. 344).

Early studies of the effects of PRWORA revealed an increase in problem behavior and lower levels of academic performance among the children of former welfare recipients (Hymowitz, 2004). Miller and Zhang (2008) have since identified a 20-plus percent decrease in drop-out rates among seventh- through twelfth-grade students in low-income families since 1996; the income gaps among those families have also narrowed by about the same percentage. This study provides support for the culture-based argument that children learn poor habits from welfare-dependent parents or, more generally, that welfare dependence has a detrimental effect on the poor. Miller and Zhang attribute the findings of earlier studies to the narrowness of those studies and the likelihood that the benefits of the 1996 welfare reforms have taken several years to materialize (2008, p. 18).

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the poverty line (or "federal poverty threshold") was $11,490 for an individual and $23,550 for a family of four in 2013. However, it has been argued that the official poverty line fails to catch nearly half of those who actually live in what is literally meant by the term "poverty" (Patterson, 1994, pp. 234-235). In the late 1960s, AFDC funding slightly exceeded the national poverty line in New York state for a short time. Child care tends to cost more than $3,000 annually (Patterson, 1994, p. 232). Unlike social insurance funding, AFDC/TANF funding is not indexed to account for inflation; in other words, welfare benefits do take real income into consideration.

Income Maintenance

Welfare expenses account for a relatively small portion of federal and state spending on social programs. In the early 1990s, only about a tenth of federal income maintenance payments and subsidies (including those to the farming industry) flowed to those below the poverty line (Patterson, 1994, p. 234). The AFDC program alone exhausted less than 1 percent of the annual federal budget (Funiciello, 1993, p. 267). AFDC/TANF cases are evaluated on a case-by-case basis rather than an all-or-nothing basis like Social Security, the benefits of which are four times as high on average. Social insurance recipients (such as widows), unlike welfare recipients, can also earn some income without losing any of their government-derived funds (Funiciello, 1993, pp. 268-269). Both Social Security and welfare can be termed forms of income maintenance or income transfer payments in that both derive from recent tax revenue (Funiciello, 1993, p. 265).

Before the explosion of rates of welfare recipients in the 1960s, AFDC benefits were routinely denied to eligible candidates due to restrictive policy implementation (Patterson, 1994, p. 224). In the 1960s, welfare programs in some states reversed the policy of discriminating against non-white potential recipients and even attempted to compensate them for the discrimination they were likely to face in the job market (Abramovitz, 2006, p. 354). This development, however, is somewhat misleading. States received additional federal funding for qualifying more needy nonwhite families on AFDC rolls. The growing number of middle-class welfare caseworkers became an influential (and profitable) component of the Democratic Party's political organization (Funiciello, 1993, p. 276).

In the late 1970s, about 20 percent of welfare recipients (or 0.25 percent of the population) received long-term AFDC benefits; the average duration for women was forty-four months. Most cases of potential fraud at that time were attributed to administrative error rather than deliberate deception (Patterson, 1994, pp. 202-203). In the 1980s, two years or less of AFDC benefits was the average time frame for 50 to 70 percent of those on the rolls. However, about the same percentage applied for further benefits within five years. AFDC rolls increased by 25 percent during the recession of 1989-1991 (Patterson, 1994, p. 229). A record amount of $23 billion was distributed in 1992, but the real value of welfare benefits had been diminished by 30 percent since the mid-1970s. Numerous AFDC recipients during that recession attempted to violate regulations by not reporting income in order to receive extra funds (Patterson, 1994, p. 233).

In 1992, there were almost twice as many whites as African-Americans living below the poverty line. In terms of the percentages of those in poverty among their own demographic groups, however, African-Americans represented a percentage more than three times as high (33.3) as whites (9.6). Even more disturbing, the percentage of children living below the poverty line in the United States was twice as high as in Canada and ten times as high as in Sweden (Patterson, 1994, p. 226).

Of the 35 million Americans living below the poverty line in the 1980s, perhaps a quarter can arguably be termed an "underclass." Most of those families had fallen below the poverty line recently due to illness or the loss of a job or spouse, and many were working-class whites in families headed by two parents that were only intermittently employed in low-paying jobs (Patterson, 1994, pp. 217, 211, 215). The number of caseloads for welfare caseworkers increased throughout the early 1990s, but the percentage of welfare recipients had declined since the mid-1970s both in terms of the total population and in terms of the proportion of the population living below the poverty line (Abramovitz, 2006, p. 350).

Marriage, Children & Welfare

States are granted a great deal of leeway in determining their own welfare policies, and most states have taken a more generous approach than the federal government. Under TANF regulations, states are permitted to deny funds to teen mothers, although none have elected to do so. Forty-seven states have opted to allow former TANF recipients to keep some benefits while earning income. As of 2006, however, twenty states had activated a "family cap" that denies any extra funds to women on welfare who have an additional child (Hymowitz, 2006). Since 2001, twenty-three states have cut funding to child-care programs, and twenty-six states have limited the availability of child-care programs for recent TANF recipients (Abramovitz, 2006). Some minor funding increases for child-care programs were implemented in 2004. Unsurprisingly, there is a strong correlation between expanded child-care programs and former welfare recipients remaining employed (Fremstad, 2004).

In 1999, the federal government offered an "illegitimacy supplement" in the form of $20 million for the five states that most decreased rates of out-of-wedlock births. The 1996 reforms also allowed welfare caseworkers to reduce funding if the children of parents receiving TANF benefits missed school, appointments with doctors, or did not receive inoculations (Abramovitz, 2006, p. 340). The preamble to PRWORA announces that encouraging two-parent families is a central objective (Cherlin & Fomby, 2004). In 2002, the administration of President George W. Bush spent about $300 million on the Healthy Marriage Initiative. Women's groups feared that this program would encourage teen marriage or encourage women in abusive marriages not to leave those relationships (Abramovitz, 2006). EITC deductions are based on family earnings rather than individual earnings, which produces a financial incentive not to marry. A common-law marriage (or cohabitation) allows for greater EITC deductions than a legal marriage (Cherlin & Fomby, 2004, pp. 545–546).

The rate of illegitimate (or out-of-wedlock) births grew steadily until 1994, and in Europe it is still growing. The rate in the United States in 2011 was nearly 41 percent of all births. The average size of the family on welfare is the same as the national average: two children (Abramovitz, 2006). Only 16 percent of male-headed single-parent families lived below the poverty line in 2012 (Hess, 2013).

Whereas employment rates for African American women have increased significantly since the early 1990s, the rates for African American men have remained the same (Hymowitz, 2006). Higher employment rates produce what is termed an "income effect," which increases the likelihood of marriage; but also an "independence effect," which reduces the incentive to marry for economic reasons (Cherlin & Fomby, 2004, p. 563). Rogers-Dillon and Haney (2005) concluded that stability and security, rather than independence or self-sufficiency, are the most important factors for single mothers formerly on AFDC/TANF rolls. The majority of those women used what child-care programs were available to forge security-enhancing relationships with other women rather than with men (pp. 251–252). This study suggests that the apparent failure of the Healthy Marriage Initiative might have been fortunate.

A study of census data between 1996 and 2000 indicates a 4-percent increase in low-income married couples. However, that increase is almost entirely composed of cohabitating stepfamilies, which tend to be unstable. Multiple studies conclude that stable single-parent households produce adolescents that are more socially and academically well-adjusted than two-parent families with serious conflict issues or, in many cases but to a lesser degree, households with changing family structures. Single women with children are also about three times as likely to enter into a cohabitation-type relationship after losing a job and are more likely to quit a job when entering such a relationship. In general, cohabitation-type marriages have a high correlation rate with a single mother's likeliness to seek TANF funding (Cherlin & Fomby, 2004, pp. 251, 246, 260–261). It seems unlikely, therefore, that PRWORA will promote two-parent families along the lines of its stated objectives to any substantial degree.

Issues

The Future of Welfare Reforms

Although politicians have apparently abandoned the idea of guaranteed income for poor families, academics continue to argue for its economic viability (Murray, 1997). Patterson's pre-1996 comment on this issue now echoes somewhat bitterly: "No substantial improvements in welfare or social insurance benefits were likely to be legislated unless a severe depression threatened the middle classes, as it had in the 1930s, or unless policy makers again summoned great confidence in the capacity of liberal social programs, as they had in the early 1960s" (1994, p. 223). Although the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed in 2009 in response to the Great Recession, did direct money toward expanded unemployment benefits and other social programs, this was a one-time expenditure that did not structurally alter the welfare system.

States now receive block grants for welfare-related payments. Previously, the federal government had provided half the funds that states distributed. The federal government, which distributes Social Security benefits, is not required to have a balanced budget. State constitutions, however, do require that degree of fiscal responsibility. It has been suggested that some states will stiffen their regulations in the future in order to drive welfare recipients out and keep those from other states at bay (Fremstad, 2004; Abramovitz, 2006, p. 354)

About half of those who qualify for welfare benefits apparently do not apply (Wolf, 2006). Until 1996, 80 percent of families that were eligible for benefits received those funds. After 2000, that figure dropped to 48 percent (Abramovitz, 2006, p. 352). Little is known about "diversionary" tactics that welfare caseworkers might use to keep possible recipients off TANF. Those tactics may be primarily aimed at white candidates with especially high or low levels of education and, to a lesser degree, nonwhites. As of 2004, the number of TANF recipients with serious health problems or mental health issues was increasing (Fremstad, 2004). TANF was reauthorized for five years in 2005 . It was up for reauthorization again in 2010, but Congress has instead been funding it through temporary extensions since then.

Terms & Concepts

Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC): Developed in the 1950s from the Aid to Dependent Children (ADC) program that was enacted in 1935 to assist single or disabled parents with children. It is largely synonymous with welfare, public assistance, or "cash assistance." The AFDC program was replaced with the more restrictive and demanding TANF program in 1996.

Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC): Originally enacted in 1975, allows low-income families with two or more children to pay a significantly lower rate of taxes. "Negative income taxation" is a generic term for this system of poverty relief through lower taxation.

Guaranteed Income: Guaranteed income is a largely theoretical plan to transform welfare payments into something comparable to respectable social insurance programs. Such programs, including pensions, unemployment insurance, and disability benefits automatically supplement the income of qualified recipients in most cases and account for inflation (or the real value of income). Welfare recipients, by contract, must undergo a humiliating and ongoing series of application updates and investigations about the absence of earned income. Welfare funding, furthermore, is almost invariably well below the poverty line.

Medicaid: Medicaid is a health care program for low-income earners that is jointly funded by states and the federal government. Medicare, by contrast, is specifically designed for the elderly and is federally funded. Nevertheless, the elderly, disabled, and ill often exhaust much of the funding that is allocated for Medicaid. Remaining on welfare rolls can be appealing to families facing medical expenses because eligibility for Medicaid is based on income.

Poverty Line: The poverty line, or federal poverty threshold, is supposed to reflect the cost of the basic necessities that are required to maintain a tolerable existence such as shelter, clothes, and food. A nation might be motivated to keep the official poverty line low in order to classify fewer citizens as those living in poverty.

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA): Replaced AFDC with TANF and announced that two-parent families would be encouraged in 1996.

Real Income: Terms such as "real income," "in real terms," or the "real value of assets" describe income in terms of its relationship to the inflation rate over a period of months or years. Welfare payments almost invariably do not account for inflation and, as such, ignore the real value of the funds welfare recipients receive.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF): Replaced Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) in 1996. It usually requires participation in work programs, work training, or educative programs in exchange for welfare benefits; it also limits access to benefits for recent immigrants.

Bibliography

Abramovitz, M. (2006). Welfare reform in the United States: gender, race and class matter. Critical Social Policy, 26, 336-364.

Bell, A. (2013, September 19). 30 percent of single American moms are living in poverty. Slate. Retrieved November 6, 2013 from http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx%5Ffactor/2013/09/19/census%5Fpoverty%5Fdata%5Fnot%5Fgood%5Ffor%5Fwomen%5Fparticularly%5Fsingle%5Fwomen.html

Bennett, P. R., & Cherlin, A. J. (2011). The neighborhood contexts in which low-income families navigate welfare reform: Evidence from the three-city study. Social Science Quarterly (Wiley-Blackwell), 92, 735–760. Retrieved November 6, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=64702581

Bentele, K., & Nicoli, L. (2012). Ending access as we know it: State welfare benefit coverage in the TANF era. Social Service Review, 86, 223–268. Retrieved November 6, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=77326900

Berkowitz, B. (2007, March 23). Ten years after welfare reform recipients decline while poverty rate increases: Safety net of services and support that once protected the poor lies in tatters. Media Transparency. Retrieved May 26, 2008 from http://www.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=184

Cherlin, A. J., & Fomby, P. (2004). Welfare, work, and changes in mothers' living arrangements in low-income families. Population Research and Policy Review, 23(5/6), 543–565. Retrieved May 26, 2008 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=15640849&site=ehost-live

Fremstad, S. (2004, January 30). Recent welfare reform research findings: Implications for TANF reauthorization and state TANF policies. Retrieved May 26, 2008 from Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. http://www.cbpp.org/1-30-04wel.htm

Funiciello, T. (1993). Tyranny of kindness: Dismantling the welfare system to end poverty in America. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press.

Hymowitz, K. S. (2006). How welfare reform worked. City Journal. Retrieved May 26, 2008 from http://www.city-journal.org/html/16%5f2%5fwelfare%5freform.html

Kaufman, E., & Nelson, L. (2012). Malthus, gender and the demarcation of ‘dangerous’ bodies in 1996 US welfare reform. Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, 19, 429–448. Retrieved November 6, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=78142367

Miller, A. R., & Zhang, L. (2008, April). Intergenerational effects of welfare reform on educational attainment. Social Science Research Network. Retrieved May 26, 2008 from SSRN http://ssrn.com/abstract=1126785

Murray, M. L. (1997). "…and economic justice for all": Welfare reform in the 21st century. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

Nam, Y., & Kim, W. (2012). Welfare reform and elderly immigrants' naturalization: Access to public benefits as an incentive for naturalization in the United States. International Migration Review, 46, 656–679. Retrieved November 6, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=80026586

Patterson, J. T. (1994). America's struggle against poverty, 1900-1994. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Quadagno, J., & Street, D. (2006). Recent trends in U.S. social welfare policy: Minor retrenchment or major transformation? Research on Aging, 28, 303–316.

Rogers-Dillon, R., & Haney, L. (2005). Minimizing vulnerability: Selective interdependencies after welfare reform. Qualitative Sociology, 28, 235–254. Retrieved May 26, 2008 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=17941440&site=ehost-live

Shäfer, A. R. (2007). [1999/2000]. Social policy and welfare reform in the United States: An introduction. American Studies Journal, . Retrieved May 26, 2008 from http://www.asjournal.org/archive/49/1.html

Snyder, T. (2004, September 2). Welfare: History, results and reform. Unpublished paper. Retrieved May 26, 2008 from Neoperspectives.com. http://www.neoperspectives.com/welfare.htm

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2008). The 2007 HHS poverty guidelines. Retrieved May 26, 2008 from http://aspe.hhs.gov/POVERTY/07poverty.shtml

Wolf, R. (2006, July 18). How welfare reform changed America. USA Today. Retrieved May 26, 2008 from http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-17-welfare-reform-cover%5f ;x.htm

Zuberi, D. (2006). Differences that matter: Social policy and the working poor in the United States and Canada. Cornell, NY: ILR Press.

Suggested Reading

Auletta, Ken. (1983). The underclass. New York: Vintage.

Bowie, S. L., Barthelemy, J. J., & White, G., Jr. (2007). Federal welfare and housing policy at the crossroads: Outcomes from a rent incentive-based welfare-to-work initiative in a low-income, predominantly African American, urban public housing community. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 15(2/3), 391–414. Retrieved May 26, 2008 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=28032436&site=ehost-live

Deacon, A. (2003). Ending consensus as we began to know it: Welfare reform and the Republicans after 2002. Social Policy and Society 2, 171–175.

Jennings, J. (2003). Welfare reform and the revitalization of inner city neighborhoods. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.

Jong, G. F., Graefe, D. P., Irving, S. K., & Pierre, T. S. (2006). Measuring state TANF policy variations and change after reform. Social Science Quarterly, 4, 755–781. Retrieved May 26, 2008 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=22908387&site=ehost-live

Lint, Y. (2008). The mid-1990s earned income tax credit expansion: EITC and welfare caseloads. Social Work Research, 32, 46–54. Retrieved May 26, 2008 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=31243867&site=ehost-live

Murray, C. (1984) Losing ground: American social policy 1950–1984. New York: Basic Books.

Steensland, B. (2008). Why do policy frames change? Actor-idea coevolution in debates over welfare reform. Social Forces, 86, 1027–1054. Retrieved May 26, 2008 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=31673137&site=ehost-live

Viladrich, A. (2012). Beyond welfare reform: Reframing undocumented immigrants’ entitlement to health care in the United States, a critical review. Social Science & Medicine, 74, 822–829. Retrieved November 6, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=72596303