Recent Changes to Welfare
Recent Changes to WelfareWhen President Bill Clinton reluctantly signed the Personal Responsibility and
Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, he had an idea of what the
critical responses would be. The hope was to induce a program that would
bring significant benefits to the needy and hungery people of our country.
However, the response and criticisms are equivalent to what our president
expected, very negative.
Mary Jo Bane believes the new welfare law poses serious dangers to poor
children and families. As assistant secretary for children and families in
the Department of Health and Human services, she supported the
administration's efforts to refocus the welfare system on work and to increase
state flexibility through the waiver process. But in the course of reviewing
state welfare reform proposals, she became concerned that politics and
financial pressures were pushing states into a "race to the bottom"(Bane). As
long as the old law was in place the federal government could insist on
guaranteed assistance and protections for recipients. Her fears about what
would happen to poor children when states were no longer required to provide
the modest assurances and protections we insisted on in waiver demonstrations
led her to resign after President Clinton signed the welfare bill (Bane).
The reform takes away national level responsibilities and puts the money and
responsibility into the individual states. A good amount of flexibility is
provided, which may or may not result in a positive manner. For instance,
they money could be used on the work reform and job preparation, while others
could find loopholes in the laws, and while their purposes may not be
malicious, the money would not truly be carrying out the role intended.
"No longer will cash assistance to dependent children be guaranteed by the
federal government. Instead it will be provided, or not, by states using
block grants." (Bane) This is the basic premise of the new bill.
Specifically, there are nine titles addressing separate issues involved. The
bulk of the 54 billion dollar savings appears in Numbers XV and XIII. They
offer the most serious impact, according to Mrs. Smith and they were also
considered the most flawed by President Clinton. Title IV bans most legal
immigrants from receiving most federal benefits. Title XIII cuts food stamp
benefits across the board and restricts food stamp benefits to unemployed
adults without disabilities or dependents to 3 months out of 36 (Bane). Most
of the 54 billion in savings come from these two titles alone. Mary Jo feels
the greatest weakness of the reform is the lack of response to the children,
who are in turn, not supported anymore after the parent has failed to win a
job and has used up their five year limit on assistance. What would happen to
them we ask? There is no data to tell us.
Another reporter is more concerned with the unrealistic ideals of the job
program. Although in some states it has...
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