logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

The 20th Anniversary of “Ending Welfare As We Know It”

Jim Schaffer
August 24, 2016
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print

August 22, 2016, Atlantic and New York Times

Twenty years ago, on August 22, 1996, President Bill Clinton, after promising to “end welfare as we know it,” signed into law legislation that replaced Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC) with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). This “welfare reform” was intended to encourage self-sufficiency by imposing work requirements and limiting lifetime government benefits.

Authors Kathryn Edin and H. Luke Shaefer for the Atlantic, and Governor John Kasich (who supported the legislation while in Congress) for the New York Times, both agree that it is deeply flawed. But they offer opposing views as to why welfare in America today is broken.

Edin is a poverty expert at Johns Hopkins University. Shaefer is an associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Social Work and the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. Their book, $2.00 a Day: Living On Almost Nothing in America, is often compared to Michael Harrington’s The Other America in the 1960s. Here are the latest statistics and their analysis.

As of 2012, according to the most reliable government data available on the subject, roughly 3 million American children spend at least three months in a calendar year living on virtually no money. Numerous other sources of data confirm these findings. According to the most recent data available (2014), TANF rolls are now down to about 850,000 adults with their 2.5 million children—a whopping decline of 75 percent from 1996. TANF was meant to “replace” AFDC. What it did in reality was essentially kill the U.S. cash welfare system.

Mr. Kasich blames the system’s methodology for TANF’s failure.

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

At the root of the challenge is a fundamental disconnect between our worker-training and welfare systems. For example, caseworkers are pushed to focus on finding jobs for those who are easiest to return back to work and to avoid those who need the most help. Those left behind often end up in “make-work” jobs that may count for federal work requirements but do absolutely nothing to help people get ahead by giving them the skills they need for meaningful employment.

Mr. Kasich asserts that by 2005, Congress reduced the ability of the states to be innovative in the effort to help people escape poverty. Kasich holds that the federal government imposed “a one-size-fits-all approach that sets arbitrary time limits on education and training for people seeking sustainable employment.” Edin and Shaefer counter that what the country got was a new kind of “welfare queen.”

States, not people, are using TANF to close the holes in their budgets. It is states, not people, who are falling prey to the “perverse disincentives” of welfare.

Whatever one’s view may be of the nation’s progress in welfare reform, Edin and Shaefer offer two figures that are particularly chilling. The number of families dependent on food pantries is the highest ever recorded, and the number of people giving blood plasma in exchange for cash has tripled in the last decade. If President Johnson were alive today, he would have to concede that we lost his “war on poverty,” with no victory in sight worth celebrating.

NPQ has written many times on this subject, with perhaps the most comprehensive review being this lengthy discussion in late 2015. The 20th anniversary of this legislation at minimum reminds us all of the need to keep trying to do the best we can as a country and in our respective communities to help meet the needs of the poor. As Mr. Kasich stated by way of concluding his New York Times op-ed, “Improving welfare shouldn’t be something that happens once in a lifetime.”—James Schaffer

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
About the author
Jim Schaffer

The founders of Covenant House, AmeriCares, TechnoServe and the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp were my mentors who entrusted me with much. What I can offer the readers of NPQ is carried out in gratitude to them and to the many causes I’ve had the privilege to serve through the years.

More about: Nonprofit NewsPolicy

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

Spring-2023-sidebar-subscribe
You might also like
Cancelling Student Debt Is Necessary for Racial Justice
Kitana Ananda
To Save Legal Aid, Expand Public Service Loan Forgiveness
Zoë Polk
No Justice, No Peace of Mind and Body: The Health Impacts of Housing Insecurity for Black Women
Jhumpa Bhattacharya, Maile Chand and Andrea Flynn
The Human Impact of the Global Refugee Crisis Must Be Understood—And Acted Upon
Anmol Irfan
Black Americans Need Reparations: The Fight for the CTC Highlights the Roadblocks
Jhumpa Bhattacharya and Trevor Smith
Edgar Cahn’s Second Act: Time Banking and the Return of Mutual Aid
Steve Dubb

NPQ Webinars

April 27th, 2 pm ET

Liberatory Decision-Making

How to Facilitate and Engage in Healthy Decision-making Processes

Register Now
You might also like
Cancelling Student Debt Is Necessary for Racial Justice
Kitana Ananda
To Save Legal Aid, Expand Public Service Loan Forgiveness
Zoë Polk
No Justice, No Peace of Mind and Body: The Health Impacts of...
Jhumpa Bhattacharya, Maile Chand and Andrea Flynn

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

NPQ-Spring-2023-cover

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.