Temporary Assistance For Needy Families - Background

Background

Fueled in part by the increased number of welfare caseloads and rate of non-marital births, conservatives critiqued programs that provided assistance to the poor, particularly AFDC. They argued that such programs were ineffective, promoted dependency on the government, and encouraged behaviors detrimental to escaping from poverty. Beginning with President Ronald Reagan’s administration and continuing through the first few years of the Clinton administration, growing dissatisfaction with AFDC, particularly the rise in welfare caseloads, led an increasing number of states to seek waivers from AFDC rules to allow states to more stringently enforce work requirements for welfare recipients. The 27 percent increase in caseloads between 1990 and 1994 accelerated the push by states to implement more radical welfare reform.

States that were granted waivers from AFDC program rules to run mandatory welfare-to-work programs were also required to rigorously evaluate the success of their programs. As a result, many types of mandatory welfare-to-work programs were evaluated in the early 1990s. While reviews of such programs found that almost all programs led to significant increases in employment and reductions in welfare rolls, there was little evidence that income among former welfare recipients had increased. In effect, increases in earnings from jobs were offset by losses in public income, leading many to conclude that these programs had no anti-poverty effects. However, the findings that welfare-to-work programs did have some effect in reducing dependence on government increased support among policymakers for moving welfare recipients into employment.

While liberals and conservatives agreed on the importance of transitioning families from government assistance to jobs, they disagreed on how to accomplish this goal. Liberals thought that welfare reform should expand opportunities for welfare mothers to receive training and work experience that would help them raise their families' living standards by working more and at higher wages. Conservatives emphasized work requirements and time limits, paying little attention to whether or not families' incomes increased. More specifically, conservatives wanted to impose a five-year lifetime limit on welfare benefits and provide block grants for states to fund programs for poor families. Conservatives argued that welfare to work reform would be beneficial by creating role models out of mothers, promoting maternal self-esteem and sense of control, and introducing productive daily routines into family life. Furthermore, they argued that reforms would eliminate welfare dependence by sending a powerful message to teens and young women to postpone childbearing. Liberals responded that the reform sought by conservatives would overwhelm severely stressed parents, deepen the poverty of many families, and force young children into unsafe and unstimulating child care situations. In addition, they asserted that welfare reform would reduce parents' ability to monitor the behaviors of their children, leading to problems in child and adolescent functioning.

In 1992, as a presidential candidate, Bill Clinton pledged to “end welfare as we know it” by requiring families receiving welfare to work after two years. As president, Clinton was attracted to welfare expert and Harvard University Professor David Ellwood’s proposal on welfare reform and thus Clinton eventually appointed Ellwood to co-chair his welfare task force. Ellwood supported converting welfare into a transitional system. He advocated providing assistance to families for a limited time, after which recipients would be required to earn wages from a regular job or a work opportunity program. Low wages would be supplemented by expanded tax credits, access to subsidized children care and health insurance, and guaranteed child support.

In 1994, Clinton introduced a welfare reform proposal that would provide job training coupled with time limits and subsidized jobs for those having difficulty finding work, but it was defeated. Later that year, when Republicans attained a Congressional majority in November 1994, the focus shifted toward the Republican proposal to end entitlements to assistance, repeal AFDC and instead provide state with blocks grants. The debates in Congress about welfare reform centered around five themes:

• Reforming Welfare to Promote Work and Time Limits: The welfare reform discussions were dominated by the perception that the then-existing cash assistance program, AFDC, did not do enough to encourage and require employment, and instead incentivized non-work. Supporters of welfare reform also argued that AFDC fostered divorce and out-of-wedlock birth, and created a culture of dependency on government assistance. Both President Clinton and Congressional Republicans emphasized the need to transform the cash assistance system into a work-focused, time-limited program.
• Reducing Projected Spending: Republicans argued that projected federal spending for low-income families needed to be reduced because it was too high and that this reduction was necessary to reduce federal spending.

• Promoting Parental Responsibility: There was broad agreement among politicians that both parents should support their children. For custodial parents, this meant an emphasis on work and cooperation with child support enforcement. For non-custodial parents, it meant a set of initiatives to strengthen the effectiveness of the child support enforment.
• Addressing Out-of-Wedlock Birth: Republicans argued that out of wedlock birth was presenting an increasingly serious social problem and that the federal government should work to reduce out-of-wedlock births.
• Promoting Devolution: A common theme in the debates was that the federal government had failed and that states were more successful in providing for the needy, and thus reform needed to provide more power and authority to states to shape such policy.

After the Senate voted 74-24 and the House voted 256-170 in favor of welfare reform legislation, formally known as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), Clinton signed the bill into law on August 22, 1996. PRWORA replaced AFDC with TANF and dramatically changed the way the federal government and states determine eligibility and provide aid for needy families.

Prior to 1997, the federal government designed the overall program requirements and guidelines, while states administered the program and determined eligibility for benefits. Since 1997, states have been given block grants and both design and administer their own programs. Access to welfare and amount of assistance varied quite a bit by state and locality under AFDC, both because of the differences in state standards of need and considerable subjectivity in caseworker evaluation of qualifying "suitable homes." However, welfare recipients under TANF are actually in completely different programs depending on their state of residence, with different social services available to them and different requirements for maintaining aid.