welfare reform
lborkowski | December 27, 2016The Pump Handle is on a holiday break. The following, which was originally published on August 29, is one of our favorite posts from 2016.
by Liz Borkowski, MPH
Two decades ago, President Bill Clinton signed the “Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act” (PRWORA) and heralded the end of “welfare as we know it.” The law lived up to that promise, but the outcomes for families who depend on it have been problematic. "If the goal of welfare reform was to get rid of welfare, we succeeded," the University of Wisconsin’s Timothy Smeeding told Vox’s Dylan Matthews. "If the goal…
lborkowski | August 29, 2016Two decades ago, President Bill Clinton signed the “Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act” (PRWORA) and heralded the end of “welfare as we know it.” The law lived up to that promise, but the outcomes for families who depend on it have been problematic. "If the goal of welfare reform was to get rid of welfare, we succeeded," the University of Wisconsin’s Timothy Smeeding told Vox’s Dylan Matthews. "If the goal was to get rid of poverty, we failed."
(A bit of background: PRWORA replaced the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children, or AFDC, with Temporary…