Welfare reform: An outcomes analysis of policy changes

Welfare as a public policy issue has always been a contentious one and among the broad range of people in society, it evokes different feelings and emotions. On one hand there are those who strongly believe that welfare is an entitlement program that should be done away with completely or at least severely limited because of its effects of building a culture of poverty. Others on the opposite end have always seen welfare as a means of meeting the needs of the poor in society and as a way of equalizing the unfairness of the American socio-economic system. According to this camp, it is morally justifiable to meet the needs of those who cannot provide for themselves and no limits should be placed on such kind of help.

From the time of the great society programs and President Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty programs in the 1960’s to the early 1990’s this debate raged deeply among the American people. Many calls were made to reform the welfare system because many people judged the system as it was a failure in rooting out poverty and stabilizing millions of people living in poverty especially single mothers and their children. As a result, in 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (PRWORA) into law which ushered in a new set of welfare policies that made work –not need – the centerpiece of the welfare system. Over ten years since the enactment of this law, conflicting outcomes have been evidenced. The article reviewed below closely examines the impacts and outcomes of the 1996 welfare reform and evaluates its successes and failures. Essentially, what the article contends is that welfare reform is not enough and the system needs to be better structured to adequately meet the needs of those it serves. As has been stated above, this is just one of the sides of this debate and others would strongly disagree with such a conclusion. Really, depending on one’s own ideological view, it is possible to come up with a different set of conclusions. Advocates of the welfare system, even in its reformed state say that the system has enabled many individuals and especially many young single mothers lead a dignified life with their own health and the health of their children assured.

According to Tanner, M. (2003) “welfare reform has not been the disaster predicted by its critics, but neither has it been the extraordinary success hailed by its supporters” (1). He contends that welfare reform has been less successful in meeting many of its stated goals including the enforcement of time limits and work requirements. He also points out that welfare reform has not been able to reduce out-of-wedlock births to young women and has not been successful in breeding a new culture of independence and self-sufficiency among welfare recipients.
In terms of its success, Tanner points out that results show that poverty rates declined every year between 1996 and 2001 and by 2000 child poverty rates had declined to 16.2 percent from a high of 20 percent in 1996. He also points out that by 2003 there had been a drastic decline in poverty among female-headed households compared to other demographic groups though women and children still remained more likely to be in poverty than two-parent families with children.

Tanner also points out that welfare caseloads have been declining since the enactment of the new welfare policies. He points out to statistics that show that in the year 1995 more than 5 million Americans were receiving welfare benefits and nearly one of every seven children lived in a family receiving welfare. After the passage of welfare reform in 1996 caseloads decline increased rapidly and nearly every state saw a significant drop in the number of people seeking benefits. Of course others have seen this decline as having come as a result of a combination of many factors and not just welfare reform. According to those observers, a fall in welfare caseloads coincided with a period of substantial economic and job growth thus leading to the conclusion that former welfare recipients were taking advantage of the good economy and therefore getting jobs. However, this conclusion was subject to debate.

According to Tanner others point out that a fall in welfare caseloads was a result of stringent sanction policies that were put in place by many states to move people out of welfare. Many other welfare recipients were “strongly” encouraged to find work and many did eventually find work and stayed completely off welfare. Many other states also introduced “work first” programs that helped former welfare recipients to ease into work environment and also provided many work support programs like child care and transportation to assist clients retain their jobs once they were employed. However, in the recent years caseloads have either leveled off in many states or have inched up a little bit in some states as a result of weak state economies and loss of jobs. On the whole, Tanner and other policy observers acknowledges that there will be many people who will always dependent on welfare because of a variety of reasons including those who lack education, job skills and employment history and many others who battle with substance abuse, domestic violence, lack health insurance, those who have disabilities, lack transportation, and other problems.

Tanner also points out that success of welfare policies should not be judged by declining case loads alone but also by the well-being of those who have left the welfare rolls. According to a study done in South Carolina and Wisconsin among former recipients, many believed that their quality of life had improved since leaving welfare.

In terms of discouraging out-of-wedlock births, post-1996 welfare reforms have shown encouraging results. Researchers at the Brookings Institution have pointed out that the slowing down of out-of-wedlock births during the first part of the 1990’s was as a result of a decline in second out-of-wedlock births to women who had already had one child out of wedlock.

Implication for governance values

As has been noted above, welfare reforms since the mid 1990’s have exhibited mixed results that include both successes and failures. However, on the whole there have been more successes that have contributed to the betterment of the lives of millions of Americans. The calls for welfare reforms in the 1990 were partly a call for limiting government and especially in its role in the lives of the citizens. It was also occasioned by the cries of those who saw government as huge bureaucratic machine that had become mired by waste and fraud. Many observers today therefore see the 1990’s welfare reforms as positive changes that were long overdue. As more studies are done to ascertain the success or failures of the new welfare system, what is of importance to keep in mind is that the quality of lives of million of Americans is at stake and therefore any policy changes that are made should be done in a spirit of fairness and justice and not just out of expediency and partisanship.



REFERENCE

Tanner, M. (2003). Welfare reform: Less that meets the eye. Cato Institute Policy Analysis No. 473. Cato Institute. Retrieved February 20, 2006 from the World Wide Web: htt://www.cato.org