After years of
languishing in a limbo of bureaucratic inertia, the original
momentum of the tremendously successful 1996 welfare reform has now
been revived. With last week's passage of the budget reconciliation
act, states will once again be held responsible for reducing
welfare dependency and moving able-bodied recipients toward
self-sufficiency through work-related activity. Even more
importantly, the legislation includes a crucial first step to
address poverty and dependency at its root by promoting healthy
marriage. This continues the revolution in welfare policy that
began in 1996.
Welfare reform has
been one of the key legislative triumphs of the last quarter
century. The 1996 law replaced the failed Aid to Families with
Dependent Children (AFDC) program with a new program called
Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). The new TANF program
changed the moral foundations of welfare; able-bodied recipients
would no longer receive handouts but would be required to work or
prepare for work in exchange for aid.
At the core of
reform were federal work rules that required the state welfare
bureaucracies charged with spending federal TANF funds to move
welfare recipients into work activities. Because vigorous work
programs cause welfare caseloads to drop, states were also given
credit for any future caseload decline. Overall, states were
required to engage some 45 percent of their TANF caseload in work
activities, to reduce caseload by a similar percentage, or to
achieve some combination of the two.
The 1996 TANF
reform proved more successful than even its strongest proponents
expected. Welfare caseloads (which had not significantly declined,
even briefly, for almost a half century) dropped by 60 percent
throughout the nation in a few years. States with the strongest
work programs experienced caseload declines of up to 80 percent.
Although welfare advocates had predicted that such reforms would
result in disaster, employment rates of single mothers surged, and
the poverty rates of black children and children of single mothers
(which had remained unchanged for a quarter century) plummeted. By
2001, the black child poverty rate reached its lowest level in U.S.
history.
In one sense, the
TANF reform was too successful. Welfare caseloads dropped far more
rapidly than expected. By the late 1990s, most states had fully met
the federal goals for caseload reduction. As a consequence, they
were no longer required to reduce welfare dependency or to place
recipients in work activities. In the absence of federal pressure,
most welfare bureaucracies drifted back toward their old habit of
simply mailing welfare checks. Efforts to reduce dependence and
increase employment came to a standstill, and the rapid drop in
TANF caseloads reached an end. For the last four years, the
national TANF caseload has remained virtually unchanged.
Since 2002,
Congress has attempted to reauthorize TANF and reactivate the
federal work standards, but liberals in Congress (most of whom had
also opposed the original welfare reform) blocked these efforts,
year after year. Last week, however, Congress finally passed a
renewal of welfare reform as part of the budget reconciliation
act.
Though far from
perfect, this new welfare law is a substantial step forward. It
essentially restarts the 1996 reform over again. States are once
again required to place 45 percent of their TANF recipients into
work activities or to reduce future caseloads by an equivalent
amount, although the base against which future caseload reduction
will be measured will now be the low caseload levels of 2005 (as
opposed to the high 1995 levels under the original law). For the
first time in many years, state welfare bureaucracies will be
pushed to engage recipients in work and to reduce dependence.
Even more
important, for the first time, the new law will promote healthy
marriage. Tragically, over one-third of children are now born out
of wedlock; among blacks, the figure is 68 percent. Children born
and raised outside marriage are seven times more likely to live in
poverty than are children raised by married couples. Growing up without a
father in the home has other harmful long-term effects on children.
Compared with similar children from intact families, children
raised in single-parent homes are more likely to become involved in
crime, to have emotional and behavioral problems, to fail in
school, to abuse drugs, and to end up on welfare as
adults
Despite the fact
that single parenthood is the principal cause of child poverty and
welfare dependence, the welfare system, for decades, has undermined
marriage in low-income communities, treating fathers as irrelevant
and creating disincentives to marry. Although the original welfare
reform law set symbolic goals for increasing marriage and reducing
out-of-wedlock childbearing, most state welfare bureaucracies
ignored these objectives.
The new law will
change that. For the first time, the Department of Health and Human
Services will reallocate a small portion of TANF funds, $100
million per year, directly to local groups working to strengthen
marriages. While this funding amounts to only one penny to
strengthen marriage for every fifteen dollars government spends
subsidizing single parenthood, the new marriage program is still a
bold departure from old-style welfare policy. Through this
initiative, government finally acknowledges that children are
better off if they are raised by two parents united in a stable
marriage. This constitutes a real revolution in welfare policy, one
which bodes well for the future. While restoring and strengthening
marriages in low-income communities, where family dissolution has
taken its greatest toll, will be a long and difficult task, the
vital first step has now been taken.
Robert
Rector is Senior Research Fellow in Domestic Policy Studies at
The Heritage Foundation.