Brookings Papers on Economic Activity Publish date:September 22, 2010 Author:Bitler, Marianne P.
; Hoynes, Hilary W. The 1996 welfare reform led to sweeping changes to the central cash safety net program for families with children. Along with other changes, the reform imposed lifetime time limits for receipt of cash welfare, effectively ending its entitlement nature for these families. Despite dire predictions, previous research has shown that program caseloads declined and employment increased, with no detectible increase in poverty or worsening of child well-being.We reevaluate these results in light of the severe 2007-09 recession.
In particular, we examine how welfare reform has altered the cyclicality of the response of caseloads and family well-being. We find that use of food stamps and non cash safety net program participation have become significantly more responsive to the economic cycle after welfare reform, rising more when unemployment increases. By contrast, we find no evidence that cash welfare for families with children is more responsive, and some evidence that it might be less so.We find some evidence that poverty increases more with increases in the unemployment rate after reform, and none that it increases less. We find no significant effects of reform on the cyclical responsiveness of food consumption, food insecurity, health insurance, household crowding, or health.
Murray, Michael L. “And Economic Justice for All": Welfare Reform for the 21st Century. Armonk, New York: (Murray 1997) ME Sharpe, Inc. This book focuses on issues facing our welfare system.
Murray emphasizes the difficulty in deciding who is truly in need of assistance and who is trying to manipulate the system.His political views are summed up by his “less is more” governmental philosophy. His years as a professor of insurance provided him ample opportunity to research this subject matter. This book may appeal to anyone who is interested in a simple explanation of the problems that face our current welfare system. Murray’s book would be more helpful if it included more facts and fewer opinions. Morse, Jodie.
"A Bleak Verdict on Welfare Reform. " Time Magazine, 22 April 2002: Web. 15 Nov 2010.This article includes data that was taken directly from a report compiled by researchers at Berkeley, Columbia, Stanford and Yale to show mostly negative effects of the Welfare Reform Act. The report goes on to reveal how the government budget would suffer when childcare bills introduced by Senate and House democrats would boost child-care subsidies by up to $11. 25 billion.
While somewhat bleak, one positive outcome of the report found that struggling mothers were forced to put their children in childcare resulting in toddlers in day-care centers cognitively outpaced their peers in home settings by three months or more.I found the report to be well written even though I did feel more positive aspects of the report could have been addressed. Froomkin, Dan. "Welfare's Changing Face. " Washington Post (1998): n.
pag. Web. 11 Nov 2010 “Welfare’s Changing Face. ” This article discusses the Welfare Reform Bill passed by President Bill Clinton which relinquished the governing power from federal to state government. This article refers to the many ways the bill was criticized by both politicians as well as high ranking officials.
This report helps to make sense of the many changes that took place with this transition. The reporter shows the frustration of the American people and specifically the Republican Party by referring to presidential nominee Robert Dole. This article also has many informative links to help further your knowledge of this issue. Haskins, Ron. "The 2010 Reauthorization of Welfare Reform Could Result in Important Changes. " Brookings.
The Brookings Institute. 15 November 2009. Web. 15 Nov 2010.This article lays out the issues that are likely to arise prior to the reauthorization of the Welfare Reform Bill scheduled to occur in 2010. Concerns that led to the reformation of the former welfare system are included along with a brief list of different governmental programs and how each was directly affected by the reformation.
The information used was primarily based on interviews with officials, advocates, and scholars who were well acquainted with the politics of welfare reform. The data was compiled in an academic format that could be used for various research projects."US Welfare System-Help for US Citizens. " Welfare Information.
Welfare Information Page, 2010. This website is a highly informative and is aimed at informing and educating US citizens on welfare procedures while being extremely easy to maneuver due to the well labeled page headings. This informative history of the welfare system includes a brief explanation of important changes that occurred due to the Welfare Reform Bill enactment. The site turned out to be mainly directed toward potential welfare recipients and may not be very useful for research purposes.Before discussing our regression results, we step back and provide some more background on welfare and welfare reform.
Cash welfare is not the only government assistance program for low-income families with children. In our analysis of the impact of the cycle on disadvantaged families, we seek to understand how both cash welfare and the other elements of the safety net may have affected family well-being. Therefore, here we describe not only cash welfare and welfare reform but also, briefly, the other safety net programs and their recent reforms.
