Final Term Paper: The Welfare Reform Act of 1996

For Tim Smith, History 405

By: Jakob Ostwald 20045931

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, more

commonly known as the PRWORA or the Welfare Reform Act, fulfilled President Bill Clinton’s

campaign promise to “end welfare as we know it” and helped him to win his second term in the

1996 presidential election.i This act limited the amount of time people could spend on welfare

to two years at once, and to a maximum of five years throughout their lives.ii This act was

motivated by years of dissatisfaction with the current welfare system across the United States,

as costs continued to rise without improving results. The main reason for this resistance to the

existing welfare system was that the system promoted, or at least enabled, dependency on

welfare. The Welfare Reform Act of 1996 attempted to address this by adding limits on the

length of time people could be on welfare, as well as granting states far more autonomy in

making their own welfare policies. The effectiveness of this program, however, remains

debated. At the time it was enacted and still today, the act remains controversial. Some see it

as a success that cut the costs of a failing program while others maintain that this act has done

more harm than good. Because of this, it is crucial to understand the goals of The Welfare

Reform Act in order to determine if it met or exceeded them. Placing this program into the

historical and political context of when it was made is important when evaluating its success.

Additionally, understanding and interpreting the results of the program must also be done in

the correct context, primarily by comparing the Welfare Reform Act to its preceding programs.

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The Welfare Reform Act of 1996 revolutionized welfare, and this paper will examine what it

sought to achieve as well as what it actually did.

Before the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, the majority of welfare and aid programs

directed towards the poor in the United States were created or expanded during President

Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty in the 1960s. The War on Poverty sought to eliminate

poverty in the United States through the expansion of education and health care as well as

more direct aid through welfare programs. The idea behind this was that if the poor were given

the opportunity, then they would be able to lift themselves out of poverty forevermore.iii By

giving people the opportunity to improve their lives, poverty and all the ills that accompanied it

could be resolved, or at least that was the theory. In the short term many of the programs

introduced by the War on Poverty did help people, as the poverty rate fell from 19% when

Lyndon Johnson made his first speech ‘declaring war on poverty’ in 1964 to 13% by 1969.iv The

War on Poverty worked in conjunction with the idea of ‘The Great Society’, which was Lyndon

B. Johnson’s vision of a society in which racial injustice and poverty would be no more.v When

seen in the light of fighting racial injustice, the expansion of welfare under the War on Poverty

was a way to try and combat one of the consequences of racism; namely the disproportionate

poverty of African Americans.vi The War on Poverty and its programs were designed to provide

poor Americans with the opportunity to rise out of poverty, and this was an important aspect of

the larger vision of The Great Society that Lyndon B. Johnson had.

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 The long-term effects and legacy of the War on Poverty were not as rosy as its first few

years were, as results began to stagnate, and costs increased. Despite the initial success in

reducing the poverty rate by 7% in five years, these programs were unable to affect any

reduction in the poverty rate below 12-13% throughout their lifetime.vii The diminishing

returns of this program were soon coupled with rapidly increasing costs, as the $75 billion

spent on it in 1965 ballooned into $185 billion by 1972.viii Seen another way, the percent of

GDP spent on welfare doubled in this time, and compared to 1950 costs rose by a factor of

twenty.ix Although the War on Poverty was unable to lift the remaining 12-13% of Americans

above the poverty line, its programs did help millions both above and below the poverty line, so

it was difficult to claim that most of the money was being wasted. The rising costs and lack of

improved results was caused by several different factors, one of which was the almost full

employment and booming economy in the 1960s.x Michael Katz describes rather harshly how

“through the magic of economic growth, they (Lyndon B. Johnson and his administration)

expected simultaneously to strengthen American capitalism, ameliorate suffering and injustice,

and reduce the impact of racism on black Americans.”xi As the good economy and full

employment of the 1960s gave way to the stagflation of the 1970s, the weaknesses of the

welfare system began to reveal themselves. One of these was the increasing administrative

costs of many programs, and in some cities more than half of the money available was being

syphoned away by ‘administration’.xii Another major factor inhibiting the success (or at least

expansion) of welfare was the Vietnam War, which was occupying more of both the budget and

the public’s attention.xiii One final factor reducing the effectiveness of welfare to lift people out

of poverty was the increase of single mothers who were poor, especially in African American

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communities.xiv While this issue was not within the scope of welfare to solve, welfare was

blamed for causing it, especially by the 1980s.xv As time marched onwards, the welfare

programs of the War on Poverty were seen more and more as wasteful and inefficient, despite

their initial successes.

Political resistance to these programs began quickly, yet many of them remained in

place. Elected in 1969 President Richard Nixon attacked welfare, declaring “from the first days

of my administration I wanted to get rid of the costly failures of the Great Society”.xvi Nixon’s

main critique of the current state of welfare was that it discouraged work, as welfare benefits

could pay more than working minimum wage jobs in some states.xvii This would become a

common criticism of welfare policy in America, and one that resonated particularly well with

blue collar workers, many of whom began to see their standards of living stagnate or fall in the

1970s and 1980s.xviii Despite his criticism of the costs and effects of welfare, Nixon and his

administration decided to expand the scope of welfare to include the working poor as well. He

described that “we decided to provide federal financial aid not just to the unemployed poor,

but to the working poor”xix He achieved this though expanding the eligibility of food stamps,

which began to be relied upon heavily by the poorest fifth of the American people.xx Another

major policy of the Nixon administration was the expansion of welfare spending on public

housing and housing subsidies.xxi Despite his anti-welfare rhetoric, public spending on welfare

increased under Nixon’s administration.

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 The next major political attack on welfare came under the presidency of Ronald Reagan,

beginning in 1981. Reagan’s rhetoric centered around concerns about freeloaders and ‘welfare

queens’ who were living off the hard work of others.xxii Welfare queens in particular were

imagined and described by Reagan as single African American mothers living in the inner cities

and collecting welfare benefits (sometimes fraudulently) for their dependent children, who

would later grow up and learn to depend on welfare.xxiii This image struck a chord with many

Americans as it focused on the loss of the core American value of hard work as well as

confirming existing negative stereotypes about African Americans in the inner cities.xxiv This

image of African Americans in the inner cities soon became associated with welfare in general

though media coverage, which disproportionately showed African Americans when discussing

welfare.xxv Martin Gilens and Micheal Katz both attribute this association of African Americans

and welfare in the imagination of Americans to reduced support for welfare programs.xxvi This

loss of support was most noticeable among leftward-leaning voters who, in most other

countries, would be ardent supporters of more generous welfare policies.xxvii Altogether, the

political rhetoric and media portrayals of welfare served to sour public opinion on it across

most groups in America.xxviii Reagan’s claim that “we fought a war on poverty, and poverty

won” exemplified this shift in public opinion about welfare, especially as fewer and fewer

people were willing to defend it.xxix

Beyond the rhetoric, Reagan did constrict many welfare programs in his first year of

office, most noticeably food stamps and the AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children).xxx

While both of these programs did not see more than a 13% reduction on paper, when this was

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combined with inflation and Reagan’s tax policy – which favoured the rich at the expense of the

poor – the impact was much larger.xxxi More specifically, this meant that 300,000 people lost

their AFDC benefits entirely and those who retained them lost an average of $1,500 dollars per

year for each household, most of which were headed by single mothers.xxxii Far from ending

dependency on welfare this served to make welfare even more critical to those living under the

poverty line.xxxiii Reagan’s attack on welfare was concentrated to his first year in office, and

throughout the rest of his presidency welfare expenditures continued to grow after his initial

cuts.xxxiv John Ferejohn explains that this was because after the 1982 elections, “the

Democratic leadership was generally able to insulate welfare programs from further

presidential assault.”xxxv For those who were discontent with the state of welfare in America,

this meant that they still had much to gripe about even after Reagan left office. Reagan’s

justification for his attack upon welfare was that welfare and social assistance should only be

for those who absolutely needed it, and any who were using these programs otherwise were,

to some extent, freeloading off of the work of others. The re-introduction of the principle of

less eligibility into poor relief marked a distinct change from the ideals of the War on Poverty,

yet at the time there was little intellectual resistance to it (Katz was a notable exception).xxxvi

Ronald Reagan was able to change the face of welfare in America more through his ability to

reframe the political debate around welfare than through his direct policies, especially because

of the influence this would have on future policies such as the Welfare Reform Act of 1996.

In the four years between the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, very little

changed about how welfare was seen in America. When most people were asked about their

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opinions on welfare their responses would be positive, yet this apparent support could not be

translated into the political realm successfully.xxxvii There were three main areas in which

welfare consistently took a beating, and each of which could be mobilized politically against

those who wanted to reform welfare. The first of which was the constantly rising costs of

existing welfare programs.xxxviii This problem would need to be addressed, if not resolved, by

any future welfare reforms in order to be politically feasible. Secondly there was the problem

of welfare promoting dependency or reducing the desire of recipients to work.xxxix This criticism

was particularly challenging to overcome because it attacked the basis of welfare rather than

the execution of existing welfare programs. If all welfare promoted dependency, then any

successful reform needed to limit the ability of people to live off of welfare. This type of

thinking was both prevalent and also quite unsupported at the time, yet by the 1990s evidence

began to support it to some degree. In his study on welfare recidivism, Tyrone Cheng found

that the average period of time that people received welfare was just under three years, whilst

also finding that 82% of those who were on welfare and got back on their feet did not return to

it.xl This suggests that there was a small number of welfare recipients who were very

dependent on welfare, otherwise the average length of time spent on welfare could not be so

high with such a low ‘recidivism’ or returning rate.xli Unfortunately another major aspect of the

argument that welfare reduces desire to work was racism. Although not often explicit, the

racial association with welfare that was established in the minds of many Americans through

media coverage could be quickly linked to the idea of a reduced work ethic, as Martin Gilens

explains that “white Americans believe that blacks are less committed to the American value of

hard work.”xlii This may explain why, despite a lack of evidence at the time, it was commonly

7
believed that welfare reduced an individual’s desire to work. The third and final challenge that

future welfare reforms had to overcome was that of State control.xliii A simple yet fundamental

challenge to welfare reform was many State’s desires for more autonomy over their welfare

systems. Some states wanted to tailor welfare policies to their specific situations, such as

Vermont, while most wanted the ability to restrict their own welfare policies to score political

points with those who were most opposed to welfare.xliv These three political obstacles to

welfare reform: increasing costs, welfare promoting dependency, and State control would all

need to be overcome in some way by the Welfare Reform Act of 1996.

The more specific political circumstances of the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 involved

the Democrats of Clinton’s administration trying to negotiate with the Republicans, who made

significant gains in the 1994 elections. Bill Clinton had been elected President in 1992 in part

because of his promise to “end welfare as we know it”, and so in his first term in office he

began to work towards this goal.xlv One of the aspects of ‘welfare’ that Clinton sought to

reform was healthcare, as he wanted to make people more comfortable with leaving welfare

knowing that they would not lose coverage once they started working.xlvi After the 1994 mid-

term elections the Democrats lost control of the House, and Clinton began to work more

urgently towards implementing his full welfare reform agenda so that it could have a successful

impact before the 1996 Presidential Election. The importance of the 1994 elections upon the

outcome of the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 is difficult to understate. The Republicans won 54

seats that had previously belonged to the Democrats.xlvii Not only was it the first time in 42

years that the Republicans had control of the House, but it also gave them control over most of

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the welfare committees that could help them influence the act.xlviii These gains unnerved many

of the Democrats, particularly in the southern United States, who began to fear that they too

would lose their seats.xlix This caused them to be much more conservative in their approach to

the specifics of the eventual Welfare Reform Act in an effort to appease their voters in this

shifting political climate.l This political uncertainty, combined with the desire to enact the

legislation in time for it to have an impact on the 1996 election placed the Democrats in a

precarious position.

Despite this difficult position, Clinton was still confident that his welfare reforms would

check all the right political boxes, most notably those of reduced costs, discouraging

dependency and reducing the number of people on welfare. His reform had four self-declared

goals, which were: to make work pay, to add two-year limits to welfare benefits, to enforce the

payment of child support regardless of marriage, and finally to fight teen pregnancy.li The first

goal of ‘making work pay’ was focused on incentivising work to make it a more viable option

than welfare, and one part of this was healthcare reform that would not punish those exiting

welfare by leaving them without coverage.lii Although Clinton had originally intended to include

provisions such as subsidized child care and a guaranteed living wage to help achieve this goal,

he could not justify the cost increases that would accompany it to the Republican House.liii The

inclusion of these provisions in his initial draft of the legislation is therefore somewhat odd, as

Clinton surely would have known that it would not pass. The second goal of the act was adding

two-year limits to the amount of time people could receive welfare at once, and five-year

lifetime limits to welfare.liv This addition was very successful politically, as it promised to both

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reduce costs as well as increase the incentive for welfare recipients to work, as they could no

longer expect to live off of welfare benefits indefinitely. Additionally, during the two years of

welfare recipients were given the opportunity to train for a new occupation, making welfare

more than just a stop-gap between previous employment and poverty.lv The third goal of the

act, the enforcement of child support payments was less politically impactful but would do

much to help the most desperate people on welfare: single mothers. In fact later studies would

almost unanimously recommend greater enforcement of child support as one of the best ways

to reduce the number of people on welfare, making the inclusion of this as a policy goal rather

insightful.lvi Finally, the fourth goal of the act was to ‘fight teenage pregnancy’, yet there were

almost no provisions within the act that would help achieve this goal, so it was most likely

included to score easy political points.lvii This was a missed opportunity because this was also

identified as a way to reduce the number of people on welfare, however it is a much more

complicated issue than enforcement of child support, so perhaps it was not realistic to include

it in this legislation. Overall, the goals of the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 were politically

successful because of their focus on costs and dependency, both of which were important

concerns to Republican representatives and voters overall.

Beyond the political objectives of the Welfare Reform Act, at the time it was made there

was remarkably little research or statistical data to indicate what the real-world impact of the

legislation would be. Diana Zuckerman, a Democrat who was part of the Clinton administration

at the time described that “research should have provided essential information to help

determine how the welfare system should have been changed, but instead research was used

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as an ideological weapon to support conflicting points of view.”lviii This criticism is particularly

damning coming from someone within the administration, and helps to demonstrate the extent

to which political goals dominated research in the creation of this policy. Not only was there a

lack of information influencing the creation of this policy, but Zuckerman also claims that there

was a lack of helpful research on the issue of welfare overall at this time (something that I can

confirm, most of the quality research found on welfare either focused on the War on Poverty or

on the act of 1996).lix One example of the extent to which politics dominated the creation of

this act was that the three main findings of the welfare reform committees – which after 1994

were all headed by Republicans – all had to do with the importance of marriage and responsible

parenthood.lx While these were undeniably important issues about what may have lead people

to seek welfare in the first place, they were decidedly unhelpful to welfare policy as well as

being classic political talking points for the Republicans. The prioritization of these

recommendations above more practical policy suggestions shows the politicization of the

Republicans on the issue of welfare reform, while the willingness to compromise in order to

come up with any policy on welfare demonstrates the politicization of this issue among

Democrats as well. Another example of how little was known about the effects that these

reforms might have had was the doomsday reporting – typically in leftwards-leaning media –

about the catastrophic consequences that this reform would entail.lxi Claims that millions

would starve after they were kicked off of welfare were clearly overblown, again showing the

detachment from the facts on this issue. Michael Katz commented in his book The Undeserving

Poor in 1989 that “empirical evidence has remarkably little effect on what people think (about

welfare)”.lxii This interpretation may help explain why the issue of welfare reform became so

11
focused on political outcomes, because if it is true then including evidence in the crafting of the

act would not have effectively placated those who may have had concerns with it. Regardless,

the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 was not heavily influenced by research and data, primarily

because of the precarious political situation in which it was crafted.

The result of the political influences on the creation of the Welfare Reform Act of 1996

was that it muddied the waters on what the act was really trying to achieve. While the act was

successful in political terms because it helped Clinton fulfil his campaign promise and win his

second term as President, many of the parameters of the act have failed to have a positive

impact on those most affected by it. The introduction of time limits to welfare ensured that

any exceptionally negative effects of this act would not be clear for several years, while the

immediate reduction in the number of people on welfare was a political success. Studies since

have shown that an individual’s history of welfare use has no significant correlation to their

chances of returning to welfare, meaning that over the long-term limits on welfare will not

make those individuals better off or less likely to return to welfare.lxiii The addition of time

limits to welfare exchanged long term stability for those who may have needed it for short term

political success. While this may appear to be a policy failure, this trade-off was intended.

When outlining his 2003 study on welfare, Tyrone Cheng described that “the achievement of

financial independence within those five years is not part of the TANF’s (Temporary Assistance

to Needy Families, the welfare program that was introduced by the 1996 reforms) agenda.”lxiv

This demonstrates that the reforms did not fail to help people become self-sufficient, instead it

was a deliberate choice. Another example of a similar policy was the autonomy given to

12
individual States to add restrictions to welfare eligibility. Tyrone Cheng outlines how additional

restrictive TANF policies reduce the odds that someone on welfare will be able to move into the

‘working non-poor’ category of his study. For those in States with one restrictive TANF policy,

they were half as likely to become non-poor as those leaving welfare in states with no such

policy, and for those in States with five or more restrictive TANF polices, they were 96% less

likely to become non-poor.lxv This shows that restrictive TANF polices made it significantly more

difficult for those on welfare to exit poverty, and most people simply became working poor in

states with such policies.lxvi The decision to allow such autonomy for states to enact policies

that make it more difficult for individuals to rise out of poverty from welfare also represented a

short term political victory at the expense of the poor and of any future reforms. State

autonomy, in addition to being popular with many of the Republican politicians that Clinton had

to appease to get the Welfare Reform Act passed, also allowed congress to absolve itself of

guilt because it could claim that these restrictive policies were entirely within state control.lxvii

It also drastically increased the difficulty of reforming welfare in the future, as control would

need to be wrested away from State governments and because, as more people would be

pleased with the welfare systems in their states, there would be less support for welfare

reforms in the future.

The direct and immediate impacts of the Welfare Reform Act primarily involved many

people formerly on welfare transitioning into the working poor. This transition was primarily

the result of people fearing ‘using up’ their total lifetime welfare benefits when they were able

to work, so the act was having the desired immediate effect. This success was limited,

13
however, as 30% of former welfare recipients who started working returned to at least some

welfare by 1997.lxviii To make matters worse, a full 20% of former recipients were not found to

be working or receiving welfare and Cheng outlined that “what they are living on is not

known”.lxix The theory that all of these people were receiving welfare fraudulently, and that is

why they were not able to track their transition to work is blatantly false, as there is no

evidence to suggest that more than a few cases were fraudulent.lxx Without the possibility of

these cases being fraudulent, it is clear to see that the Welfare Reform Act made poverty worse

for those who were already the most vulnerable.lxxi This overwhelmingly affected single

mothers, who made up the vast majority of those who were most dependent on welfare. In his

2003 study, Tyrone Cheng noted that of welfare recipients who had become autonomous

(working non-poor) 2.2% of them returned to welfare dependency and of that group over 90%

were single mothers.lxxii Additionally, when compared with their near-poor or low-income

counterparts, former welfare recipients were twice as likely to be single, with two out of three

being never married.lxxiii The significance of this enormous, as it demonstrates the priorities of

the Welfare Reform Act. It was more important for both the Republicans and the Democrats to

reduce the costs and scope of welfare than it was to ensure that those who needed it most

would not be left behind. The act did transition many people who were on welfare off of it,

however most of the impact of the act was in transitioning welfare recipients into the working

poor. Before the Welfare Reform Act up to 60% of former recipients retuned to welfare within

five years (potentially as low as 33%, depending on the study and the parameters of what

qualified as a return), with only 20% of those who left becoming working non-poor.lxxiv When

compared to studies up to ten years after the Welfare Reform Act, 57% of former recipients

14
who got a job became working non-poor, clearly demonstrating that the act did help people put

their lives back together.lxxv This success largely came at the expense of single mothers, who

were 63% less likely to become non-poor.lxxvi Additionally, those who had not completed a high

school education were nearly six times less likely to become non-poor, and instead remained

working poor.lxxvii The ability of the Welfare Reform Act to help people leave welfare and

rebuild their lives was chiefly dependent upon the situation of the individual, and those who

were in the worst shape were made worse off by the act.

Interestingly, the impacts of the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 do not seem to be strongly

correlated with race. Despite the media association between welfare and African Americans

that began in the 1970s and persisted into the 1990s, the consequences of reducing the scope

of welfare did not disproportionately affect the African American community. Cheng found

that African Americans were two and a half times more likely to become non-poor than their

white counterparts, and that Hispanic Americans were nearly three times more likely.lxxviii In

addition to this, other studies that were seeking to better understand the impact of the act

upon minority groups could find few disproportionate impacts overall.lxxix This discrepancy

between the expectations of researchers and the results of their studies may be because of the

overrepresentation of minorities in media when discussing welfare, however Cheng proposes

another hypothesis in his 2003 study on welfare recidivism. Cheng suggests that, when viewed

over the longer term, the status of an individual as an ethnic minority increased the odds of

former welfare recipients who had become working non-poor to later become working poor by

8-13 times.lxxx This means that despite minorities being more likely to exit welfare as working

15
non-poor, after enough time these people became astronomically more likely to be worse off

than whites who exited welfare as working non-poor. While significant, it is difficult to

attribute this to the Welfare Reform Act because of a lack of longitudinal studies of welfare

recipients from before 1996. Whether the Welfare Reform Act made things worse for minority

welfare recipients or not, the additional hardships that they faced were still very much present

seven years after the act was passed.

Future reform of welfare that seeks to bring as many welfare recipients into the working

non-poor category should focus on the first six months of welfare. This is because this is the

most critical time in which individuals are attempting to get a job and also the jobs that they

find will often require a probationary period where these individuals will earn less.lxxxi Cheng

suggests that emphasis on ensuring stable housing or improving human capital in this period

would have the largest effect, while also emphasizing the importance of child support

payments for those on welfare.lxxxii The enforcement of child support payments as well as

reducing additional restrictive TANF policies were two of the largest and easiest factors to

change that Cheng identified in his study, and so reforms on these two areas would likely

produce the greatest results with the least amount of effort.lxxxiii

Overall, the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 traded long-term human capital for short-term

political gain. This was because of the emphasis on getting those who were on welfare to work

for their livelihoods, however this resulted in many former welfare recipients becoming

working poor or working non-poor while still relying heavily on food stamps to get by. Instead

16
of using welfare reform as an opportunity to educate and improve the human capital of those

receiving welfare, thereby improving the lives of these people and likely the lives of their

children, the political climate in the United States made it nearly impossible to do this. Decades

of anti-welfare rhetoric coupled with clear failures and inefficiencies of previous programs

predisposed Americans to view government welfare negatively. Additionally, the stagnation

and decline of the living standards of near-poor and low-income Americans made these groups

particularly susceptible to the rhetoric of ‘welfare queens’ and to be reluctant to vote for

programs that would improve the lives of those on welfare, perhaps because they did not see

their own lives improving. Finally, the combination of these long-term political pressures in

welfare collided with the short-term pressures of the Republican gains of the 1994 election that

forced President Clinton to quickly complete legislation that would help him stay in office. The

political circumstances of the creation of the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 limited the Clinton

administration, however it does not excuse the lack of research that was used in the creation of

the act. Instead of attempting to create a non-partisan reform of welfare that was based upon

research, Bill Clinton used the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 to improve his political stock. This

largely harmed both those who were most dependent upon welfare and any future reforms, as

the partisan issues that had made it difficult to reform welfare before 1996 were made

significantly worse, as well as the increase in state autonomy making uniform policy nearly

impossible. The Welfare Reform Act of 1996 should largely be remembered as a warning of the

dangers of prioritizing political goals above objective research in government policy.

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Endnotes:
i
“Bill Clinton in 1992 Ad.”
ii
“The Welfare Reform Act of 1996.”
iii
Katz, In the Shadow Of the Poorhouse. Pg. 263
iv
Bureau, English.
v
“The Fierce Urgency of Now : Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society - Queen’s
University.”
vi
Katz, In the Shadow Of the Poorhouse. Pg. 260
vii
Bureau, English.
viii
Katz, In the Shadow Of the Poorhouse. Pg. 266
ix
Murray, Losing Ground--American Social Policy, 1950-1980 / Pg. 14; Katz, In the Shadow Of the Poorhouse. Pg.
266
x
Murray, Losing Ground--American Social Policy, 1950-1980 /. Pg. 6
xi
Katz, In the Shadow Of the Poorhouse.
xii
Katz. Pg. 271
xiii
Katz. Pg. 266
xiv
Katz, The Undeserving Poor Pg. 24; Gilens, Why Americans Hate Welfare. Pg. 5
xv
Arndt, “An Appraisal of What the Critics Are Saying about Public Assistance.” Pg. 468
xvi
Barber, “Welfare Reform Begins with Nixon Administration ».”
xvii
Barber.
xviii
Murray, Losing Ground--American Social Policy, 1950-1980 /. Pg. 18
xix
Barber, “Welfare Reform Begins with Nixon Administration ».”
xx
Katz, In the Shadow Of the Poorhouse. Pg. 273
xxi
Katz. Pg. 269
xxii
Gilliam, “The ‘Welfare Queen’ Experiment.”
xxiii
Gilliam.
xxiv
Gilens, Why Americans Hate Welfare. Pg. 3
xxv
Gilliam, “The ‘Welfare Queen’ Experiment”; Gilens, Why Americans Hate Welfare. Pg. 4
xxvi
Katz, The Undeserving Poor Pg. 24; Gilens, Why Americans Hate Welfare. Pg. 4
xxvii
Katz, The Undeserving Poor. Pg. 24
xxviii
Gilliam, “The ‘Welfare Queen’ Experiment”; Gilens, Why Americans Hate Welfare. Pg. 4
xxix
“Ronald Reagan Quotes About Welfare.”
xxx
Katz, In the Shadow Of the Poorhouse. Pg. 297
xxxi
Katz. Pg. 297
xxxii
Katz. Pg. 296
xxxiii
Cheng, “Financial Self-Sufficiency or Return to Welfare?”
xxxiv
Alesina and Carliner, Politics and Economics in the Eighties. Pg. 123
xxxv
Alesina and Carliner. Pg. 139
xxxvi
Skocpol, The Missing Middle Pg. 19; Katz, The Undeserving Poor. Pg. 23
xxxvii
Gilens, Why Americans Hate Welfare. Pg. 2
xxxviii
Arndt, “An Appraisal of What the Critics Are Saying about Public Assistance.” Pg. 465
xxxix
Gilens, Why Americans Hate Welfare. Pg. 3
xl
Cheng, “Welfare ‘Recidivism’ among Former Welfare Recipients.” Pg. 68
xli
Cheng. Pg. 68
xlii
Gilens, Why Americans Hate Welfare. Pg. 3
xliii
Arndt, “An Appraisal of What the Critics Are Saying about Public Assistance.” Pg. 465
xliv
Katz, In the Shadow Of the Poorhouse Pg. 271; Arndt, “An Appraisal of What the Critics Are Saying about Public
Assistance.” Pg. 465
xlv
“Bill Clinton in 1992 Ad.”
xlvi
Zuckerman, “Welfare Reform in America.” Pg. 589
xlvii
Matté, A Map Based on the 1994 US Gubernatorial Elections.

20
xlviii
Zuckerman, “Welfare Reform in America.” Pg. 591
xlix
Zuckerman. Pg. 593
l
Zuckerman. Pg. 591
li
Zuckerman. Pg. 589-590
lii
Zuckerman. Pg. 589
liii
Zuckerman. Pg. 589
liv
Zuckerman. Pg. 590
lv
Zuckerman. Pg. 590
lvi
Cheng, “Welfare ‘Recidivism’ among Former Welfare Recipients.” Pg. 73
lvii
Zuckerman, “Welfare Reform in America.” Pg. 590
lviii
Zuckerman. Pg. 588
lix
Zuckerman. Pg. 593
lx
Zuckerman. Pg. 594
lxi
Zuckerman.
lxii
Katz, The Undeserving Poor. Pg. 10
lxiii
Cheng, “Financial Self-Sufficiency or Return to Welfare?” Pg. 169, 171
lxiv
Cheng, “Welfare ‘Recidivism’ among Former Welfare Recipients.” Pg. 63
lxv
Cheng, “Financial Self-Sufficiency or Return to Welfare?” Pg. 168
lxvi
Cheng. Pg. 168
lxvii
Zuckerman, “Welfare Reform in America.” Pg. 592
lxviii
Loprest, “How Families That Left Welfare Are Doing.” Pg. 1
lxix
Loprest. Pg. 2
lxx
Cheng, “Welfare ‘Recidivism’ among Former Welfare Recipients.”
lxxi
Loprest, “How Families That Left Welfare Are Doing.” Pg. 5
lxxii
Cheng, “Welfare ‘Recidivism’ among Former Welfare Recipients.” Pg. 68
lxxiii
Loprest, “How Families That Left Welfare Are Doing.” Pg. 2
lxxiv
Cheng, “Welfare ‘Recidivism’ among Former Welfare Recipients.” Pg. 64
lxxv
Cheng, “Financial Self-Sufficiency or Return to Welfare?” Pg. 167
lxxvi
Cheng. Pg. 168
lxxvii
Cheng. Pg. 167
lxxviii
Cheng. Pg. 168, 169
lxxix
Loprest, “How Families That Left Welfare Are Doing” Pg. 3; Gilliam, “The ‘Welfare Queen’ Experiment.”
lxxx
Cheng, “Financial Self-Sufficiency or Return to Welfare?”
lxxxi
Cheng. Pg. 171
lxxxii
Cheng.
lxxxiii
Cheng.

21