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Author: R. Kent Weaver Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 9780815798354 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 502
Book Description
Bill Clinton's first presidential term was a period of extraordinary change in policy toward low-income families. In 1993 Congress enacted a major expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income working families. In 1996 Congress passed and the president signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. This legislation abolished the sixty-year-old Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program and replaced it with a block grant program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. It contained stiff new work requirements and limits on the length of time people could receive welfare benefits.Dramatic change in AFDC was also occurring piecemeal in the states during these years. States used waivers granted by the federal Department of Health and Human Services to experiment with a variety of welfare strategies, including denial of additional benefits for children born or conceived while a mother received AFDC, work requirements, and time limits on receipt of cash benefits. The pace of change at the state level accelerated after the 1996 federal welfare reform legislation gave states increased leeway to design their programs. Ending Welfare as We Know It analyzes how these changes in the AFDC program came about. In fourteen chapters, R. Kent Weaver addresses three sets of questions about the politics of welfare reform: the dismal history of comprehensive AFDC reform initiatives; the dramatic changes in the welfare reform agenda over the past thirty years; and the reasons why comprehensive welfare reform at the national level succeeded in 1996 after failing in 1995, in 1993–94, and on many previous occasions. Welfare reform raises issues of race, class, and sex that are as difficult and divisive as any in American politics. While broad social and political trends helped to create a historic opening for welfare reform in the late 1990s, dramatic legislation was not inevitable. The interaction of contextual factors with short
Author: R. Kent Weaver Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 9780815798354 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 502
Book Description
Bill Clinton's first presidential term was a period of extraordinary change in policy toward low-income families. In 1993 Congress enacted a major expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income working families. In 1996 Congress passed and the president signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. This legislation abolished the sixty-year-old Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program and replaced it with a block grant program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. It contained stiff new work requirements and limits on the length of time people could receive welfare benefits.Dramatic change in AFDC was also occurring piecemeal in the states during these years. States used waivers granted by the federal Department of Health and Human Services to experiment with a variety of welfare strategies, including denial of additional benefits for children born or conceived while a mother received AFDC, work requirements, and time limits on receipt of cash benefits. The pace of change at the state level accelerated after the 1996 federal welfare reform legislation gave states increased leeway to design their programs. Ending Welfare as We Know It analyzes how these changes in the AFDC program came about. In fourteen chapters, R. Kent Weaver addresses three sets of questions about the politics of welfare reform: the dismal history of comprehensive AFDC reform initiatives; the dramatic changes in the welfare reform agenda over the past thirty years; and the reasons why comprehensive welfare reform at the national level succeeded in 1996 after failing in 1995, in 1993–94, and on many previous occasions. Welfare reform raises issues of race, class, and sex that are as difficult and divisive as any in American politics. While broad social and political trends helped to create a historic opening for welfare reform in the late 1990s, dramatic legislation was not inevitable. The interaction of contextual factors with short
Author: Gene Falk Publisher: ISBN: Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 90
Book Description
The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant provides federal grants to states for a wide range of benefits, services, and activities. It is best known for helping states pay for cash welfare for needy families with children, but it funds a wide array of additional activities. TANF was created in the 1996 welfare reform law (P.L. 104-193). TANF funding and program authority were extended through FY2010 by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA, P.L. 109-171). TANF provides a basic block grant of $16.5 billion to the 50 states and District of Columbia, and $0.1 billion to U.S. territories. Additionally, 17 states qualify for supplemental grants that total $319 million. TANF also requires states to contribute from their own funds at least $10.4 billion for benefits and services to needy families with children -- this is known as the maintenance-of-effort (MOE) requirement. States may use TANF and MOE funds in any manner "reasonably calculated" to achieve TANF's statutory purpose. This purpose is to increase state flexibility to achieve four goals: (1) provide assistance to needy families with children so that they can live in their own homes or the homes of relatives; (2) end dependence of needy parents on government benefits through work, job preparation, and marriage; (3) reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies; and (4) promote the formation and maintenance of two-parent families. Though TANF is a block grant, there are some strings attached to states' use of funds, particularly for families receiving "assistance" (essentially cash welfare). States must meet TANF work participation standards or be penalised by a reduction in their block grant. The law sets standards stipulating that at least 50% of all families and 90% of two-parent families must be participating, but these statutory standards are reduced for declines in the cash welfare caseload. (Some families are excluded from the participation rate calculation.) Activities creditable toward meeting these standards are focused on work or are intended to rapidly attach welfare recipients to the workforce; education and training is limited. Federal TANF funds may not be used for a family with an adult that has received assistance for 60 months. This is the five-year time limit on welfare receipt. However, up to 20% of the caseload may be extended beyond the five years for reason of "hardship", with hardship defined by the states. Additionally, states may use funds that they must spend to meet the TANF MOE to aid families beyond five years. TANF work participation rules and time limits do not apply to families receiving benefits and services not considered "assistance". Child care, transportation aid, state earned income tax credits for working families, activities to reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies, activities to promote marriage and two-parent families, and activities to help families that have experienced or are "at risk" of child abuse and neglect are examples of such "nonassistance".
Author: Steven Michael Teles Publisher: ISBN: Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 248
Book Description
Few American social programs have been more unpopular, controversial, or costly than Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). Its budget, now in the tens of billions of dollars, has become a prominent target for welfare reformers and outraged citizens. Indeed, if public opinion ruled, AFDC would be discarded entirely and replaced with employment. Yet it persists. Steven Teles's provocative study reveals why and tells us what we should do about it. Teles argues that, over the last thirty years, political debate on AFDC has been dominated by an impasse created by what he calls "ideological dissensus"—an enduring conflict between opposing cultural elites that have largely disregarded public opinion. Thus, he contends, one must examine the origins and persistence of elite conflict in order to fully comprehend AFDC's immunity to the reform it truly needs-the kind that unites the elements of order, equality, and individualism central to the American creed. One of the first studies to analyze AFDC from a "New Democrat" position, Whose Welfare? sheds new light on the controversial role of the courts in AFDC, the rise of welfare waivers in the mid 1980s, the failure of the Clinton welfare plan, and the victory of block-granting over policy-oriented welfare reform. Teles, however, goes beyond mere critical analysis to advocate specific approaches to reform. His thoughtful call for compromise built around the centrality of work, individual responsibility, and opportunity offers a means for dissolving dissensus and genuine hope for changing an outdated and ineffectual welfare system. Based on interviews with participants in the AFDC policymaking process as well as an unparalleled synthesis of the voluminous AFDC literature, Whose Welfare? will appeal to a wide array of welfare scholars, policymakers, and citizens eager to better understand the tumultuous history of this problematic program and how it might fare in the wake of the fall elections.
Author: National Bureau of Economic Research Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 9780226533568 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 224
Book Description
Few United States government programs are as controversial as those designed to aid the poor. From tax credits to medical assistance, aid to needy families is surrounded by debate—on what benefits should be offered, what forms they should take, and how they should be administered. The past few decades, in fact, have seen this debate lead to broad transformations of aid programs themselves, with Aid to Families with Dependent Children replaced by Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, the Earned Income Tax Credit growing from a minor program to one of the most important for low-income families, and Medicaid greatly expanding its eligibility. This volume provides a remarkable overview of how such programs actually work, offering an impressive wealth of information on the nation's nine largest "means-tested" programs—that is, those in which some test of income forms the basis for participation. For each program, contributors describe origins and goals, summarize policy histories and current rules, and discuss the recipient's characteristics as well as the different types of benefits they receive. Each chapter then provides an overview of scholarly research on each program, bringing together the results of the field's most rigorous statistical examinations. The result is a fascinating portrayal of the evolution and current state of means-tested programs, one that charts a number of shifts in emphasis—the decline of cash assistance, for instance, and the increasing emphasis on work. This exemplary portrait of the nation's safety net will be an invaluable reference for anyone interested in American social policy.
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Publisher: National Academies Press ISBN: 0309483980 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 619
Book Description
The strengths and abilities children develop from infancy through adolescence are crucial for their physical, emotional, and cognitive growth, which in turn help them to achieve success in school and to become responsible, economically self-sufficient, and healthy adults. Capable, responsible, and healthy adults are clearly the foundation of a well-functioning and prosperous society, yet America's future is not as secure as it could be because millions of American children live in families with incomes below the poverty line. A wealth of evidence suggests that a lack of adequate economic resources for families with children compromises these children's ability to grow and achieve adult success, hurting them and the broader society. A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty reviews the research on linkages between child poverty and child well-being, and analyzes the poverty-reducing effects of major assistance programs directed at children and families. This report also provides policy and program recommendations for reducing the number of children living in poverty in the United States by half within 10 years.
Author: Edward D. Berkowitz Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 022669223X Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 354
Book Description
American social welfare policy has produced a health system with skyrocketing costs, a disability insurance program that consigns many otherwise productive people to lives of inactivity, and a welfare program that attracts wide criticism. Making Social Welfare Policy in America explains how this happened by examining the historical development of three key programs—Social Security Disability Insurance, Medicare, and Temporary Aid to Needy Families. Edward D. Berkowitz traces the developments that led to each program’s creation. Policy makers often find it difficult to dislodge a program’s administrative structure, even as political, economic, and cultural circumstances change. Faced with this situation, they therefore solve contemporary problems with outdated programs and must improvise politically acceptable solutions. The results vary according to the political popularity of the program and the changes in the conventional wisdom. Some programs, such as Social Security Disability Insurance, remain in place over time. Policy makers have added new parts to Medicare to reflect modern developments. Congress has abolished Aid to Families of Dependent Children and replaced with a new program intended to encourage work among adult welfare recipients raising young children. Written in an accessible style and using a minimum of academic jargon, this book illuminates how three of our most important social welfare programs have come into existence and how they have fared over time.
Author: Kathryn Edin Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ISBN: 0544303180 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 239
Book Description
The story of a kind of poverty in America so deep that we, as a country, don't even think exists--from a leading national poverty expert who "defies convention" (New York Times)
Author: R. Kent Weaver
Author: R. Kent Weaver
Author: 
Author: United States
Author: Gene Falk
Author: Steven Michael Teles
Author: National Bureau of Economic Research
Author: Martha Derthick
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Author: Edward D. Berkowitz
Author: Kathryn Edin