October 2004 • Volume 14, Issue 10
group, launched a study to examine welfare reform, its implementation and its effects in four major cities. MDRC has released reports on Cleveland, Philadelphia and Miami, and will publish a report on Los Angeles early next year. The results to date are telling.
“Many critics of welfare reform feared that restrictions on welfare benefits would devastate poor communities, but an analysis of social and economic indicators in Miami-Dade from 1992 through 2001 does not support this conclusion. Both countywide and in the poorest neighborhoods, there were substantial declines in the teen birthrate, infant deaths, child abuse and neglect, and violent crime. Property crime declined slightly.”
Living Liberty
a decrease in the number of new divorces. According to the research team: “Welfare reform may have increased the number of hours married women would have had to work had they divorced, thereby discouraging divorce.” Among single moms, the researchers concluded that welfare reform’s work requirements may have led to increased earnings and higher levels of economic independence.
According to the Miami report, MiamiDade County implemented and strictly enforced the most stringent reform program. What is clear from the research is that it also had the most dramatic results. The researchers’ key findings were, in part:
The MDRC study of welfare reform in Philadelphia found similar results.
• Florida’s welfare reform went well beyond federal law by imposing a strict time limit and by cutting off all cash assistance when recipients failed to
According to researchers, even with only modest reforms and “lenient” implementation, a survey of welfare mothers living in Philadelphia’s poorest
survey interviewed women in 1998 and again in 2001. By the second interviews, most respondents reported they had exited welfare, started working, and increased their income.
A team composed of researchers from the RAND Corporation, the University of Maryland, University of California-Davis, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta used national statistics data for marriages and divorces between 1989 and 2000 to examine the impact of various national and state welfare reforms.
The importance of ending government dependency seems to have been lost on political parties, but not on the American people. As the research has shown, welfare reform is an issue that touches the dayto-day lives of many families, and successful reforms are making a positive difference.
While there was little change in the number of new marriages, researchers did find that welfare reform is associated with
Booker Stallworth is the communications director and a welfare policy analyst for the EFF.
CONCLUSION Welfare reform is making a difference in people’s lives, giving many a feeling of selfworth and achievement that has been absent in some families for generations.
Prior to the welfare reform achieved in 1996, states suc“Welfare reform is making a difference in people’s lives, giving measured cess by the nummany a feeling of self-worth and achievement that has been absent ber of people on welfare they in some families for generations.” could “assist.” Now, success is measured in the number of people working and comply with work requirements or neighborhoods suggested that “over time, learning new skills, and who are lifted out more worked and fewer received welfare, of poverty and dependence. other rules. while household incomes increased.” • “After 1996, there was a sudden and Welfare reform was one of the major significant increase both in the Researchers concluded their key findings accomplishments of the 1990s, but the percentage of welfare recipients who by stating: “This study’s findings are historic 1996 law expired in 2002 and is became employed and in the duration consistent with an earlier Urban Change now operating under a temporary of their employment.” The report report on Cleveland, and they counter the extension. The Personal Responsibility credits the county’s heavy reliance on notion that welfare reform leads to service and Individual Development for financial penalties to enforce work retrenchment and a worsening of Everyone (PRIDE) Act would extend for families and these life changing reforms. However, rules, along with the state’s policy to allow conditions welfare recipients to keep more of their neighborhoods.” politics-as-usual has taken root in the benefits when they went to work. IMPACTS OF REFORMS ON Senate, causing the bill to stall. As of this • Over time, welfare recipients’ DIVORCE AND SELF-WORTH newsletter printing, it appears Congress will not take any permanent action until employment and economic AMONG SINGLE MOMS after the fall elections. circumstances generally improved. One
• Despite numerous difficulties, “women often felt that even a bad job was better than a welfare system that they felt was punitive and disorganized.” • Neighborhood conditions remained stable or improved. The report states:
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