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should we gut welfare reform?

Should we overturn Welfare Reform?

  • Yes - success notwithstanding it is mean to expect the poor to work

    Votes: 3 30.0%

  • No - leave it as it is

    Votes: 6 60.0%

  • I don't know / No Opinion

    Votes: 1 10.0%
  • Total voters
    10
cpwill

cpwill

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The welfare reform of the 90's was one of our few, recent, bi-partisan true success stories. Millions of people were lifted out of poverty. According to the Brookings institute, for example:

...Between 1994 and 2004, the caseload declined about 60 percent, a decline that is without precedent. The percentage of U.S. children on welfare is now lower than it has been since at least 1970.

But are the mothers who leave (oravoid) welfare able to find work? More than 40 studies conducted by states since 1996 show that about 60 percent of the adults leaving welfare are employed at any given moment and that, over a period of several months, about 80 percent hold at least one job. Even more impressive, national data from the Census Bureau show that between 1993 and 2000, the percentage of low-income, single mothers with a job grew from 58 percent to nearly 75 percent, an increase of almost 30 percent. Moreover, employment among never-married mothers, the most disadvantaged and least-educated subgroup of single mothers, grew from 44 percent to 66 percent, an increase of 50 percent, over the same period. Again, these sweeping changes are unprecedented...
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[later edit] HAH - I was going to fast and accidentally voted wrong in my own poll! :lol:
 
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Why would it be a good idea to "gut welfare reform" now???
 
cpwill said:
The welfare reform of the 90's was one of our few, recent, bi-partisan true success stories. Millions of people were lifted out of poverty. According to the Brookings institute, for example:




[later edit] HAH - I was going to fast and accidentally voted wrong in my own poll! :lol:
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No. But we need to "clean it up." When link cards can be used in casino's . . . when people are buying diapers and selling them to their neighbors off their link cards . . . and, I'm sure, a host of other fraudulent uses, too many people are getting aid.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Why would it be a good idea to "gut welfare reform" now???
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:shrug: beats me. but people want to take it back to how it used to be, when millions more were impoverished.
 
Regardless of one's views on the subject of welfare, we should all be alarmed at the administration's attempt to do so administratively instead of legislatively. The President is upsettling the democratic system of checks and balances. No one can approve such extra-constitutional actions.
 
Porchev said:
It would not be a good idea, but it is starting to happen apparently.

Republicans accuse HHS of gutting welfare reform with quiet policy change | Fox News
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Hyperbole and spin. From the article:

The latest department directive suggested alternative plans could "combine learning and work" to fulfill the work requirement, or let "vocational educational training or job search /readiness programs" count as well.
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This directive allows states to submit alternative plans to the work requirements -- for example, allowing schooling to satisfy such requirements. "Gutted," indeed. Must everything be met with apocalyptic caterwauling?
 
TheDemSocialist said:
How would that at all be a good thing?
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well, if I were a cynic, I would ask who would benefit from increasing the number of people dependent upon government handouts...
 
GhostlyJoe said:
This directive allows states to submit alternative plans to the work requirements -- for example, allowing schooling to satisfy such requirements.
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bed rest?

...Section 1115 allows HHS to “waive compliance” with specified parts of various laws. But this is not an open-ended authority: All provisions of law that can be overridden under section 1115 must be listed in section 1115 itself.

The work provisions of the TANF program are contained in section 407 (entitled, appropriately, “mandatory work requirements”). Critically, this section, as well as most other TANF requirements, is deliberately not listed in section 1115; its provisions cannot be waived. Obviously, if the Congress had wanted HHS to be able to waive the TANF work requirements laid out in section 407, it would have listed that section as waivable under section 1115. It did not do that.

In the past, state bureaucrats have attempted to define activities such as hula dancing, attending Weight Watchers, and bed rest as “work.” Welfare reform instituted work standards to block these dodges. Now that the Obama administration has abolished those standards, we can expect “work” in the TANF program to mean anything but work....
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weight watchers?
 
There should be an "other" option, instead of "I don't know / No Opinion". The focus should be on helping people find employment. I have no problem giving people a necessary boost to keep them from losing the house, or so they can feed their kids. However, at the end of the day, if the system isn't "teaching them how to fish", then the system is effectively no different than a heroin dealer keeping people hooked.
 
I think the days of bi-partisan success stories have come to an end. This country is moving toward greater partisanship, not toward greater compromise.
 
First of all, let's clarify that there's no such thing as welfare. There are many different anti-poverty programs, including SNAP, SCHIP, TANF, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, Pell grants, the earned income tax credit, and housing vouchers. So it's hard to say if we should gut "welfare reform" without knowing specifically what you're talking about. If you're referring to Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the program no longer exists...so would gutting welfare reform entail bringing it back as it was in 1996?

Anyway, let's take a look at that Brookings article, and see if their evidence supports their conclusion in the headline that "it worked."

What has been the effect of these major changes? Welfare caseloads began declining in the spring of 1994 and picked up steam after the federal legislation was enacted in 1996. Between 1994 and 2004, the caseload declined about 60 percent, a decline that is without precedent. The percentage of U.S. children on welfare is now lower than it has been since at least 1970.
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This is not evidence that it worked. This is just a restatement of the policy that it became harder to use social programs.

But are the mothers who leave (oravoid) welfare able to find work? More than 40 studies conducted by states since 1996 show that about 60 percent of the adults leaving welfare are employed at any given moment and that, over a period of several months, about 80 percent hold at least one job.
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This is not evidence that it worked, unless there are also statistics showing the pre-reform situation.

Even more impressive, national data from the Census Bureau show that between 1993 and 2000, the percentage of low-income, single mothers with a job grew from 58 percent to nearly 75 percent, an increase of almost 30 percent. Moreover, employment among never-married mothers, the most disadvantaged and least-educated subgroup of single mothers, grew from 44 percent to 66 percent, an increase of 50 percent, over the same period. Again, these sweeping changes are unprecedented.
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This does seem like a positive, although I question what happens to the kids when their only parent is unable to care for them or afford childcare services.

What about income? Census Bureau data show that in 1993, earnings accounted forabout 30 percent of the income of low-income mother-headed families while welfare payments accounted for nearly 55 percent. By 2000, this pattern had reversed: earnings had leaped by an astounding 136 percent to constitute almost 57 percent of income while welfare income had plummeted by nearly half to constitute only about 23 percent of income.
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This is not evidence that it worked. This is just a restatement of the policy that it became harder to use social programs.

Equally important, with earnings leading the way, the total income of these low-income families increased by more than 25 percent over the period (in constant dollars).
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What this analysis overlooks is that the period the author cites (1993-2000) coincided with a booming economy. And 25% wasn't particularly impressive compared to the other income quintiles...in fact, the bottom quintile benefited the least from the boom.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/household/2010/H01AR_2010.xls

Not surprisingly, between 1994 and 2000, child poverty fell every year and reached levels not seen since 1978. In addition, by 2000, the poverty rate of black children was the lowest it had ever been.
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Again, this coincided with an economic boom. It's interesting that an article written in 2006 would stop measuring in 2000...did the subsequent years fail to bolster his case?

I'm not necessarily opposed to requiring work in exchange for poverty assistance, from those recipients who are able to work...but this article wholly fails to make the case that welfare reform worked. A better solution to eliminating poverty is to fix our schools, subsidize childcare for parents who want to work, make sure everyone has access to health insurance, and stop locking poor people in cages for years or decades at a time.
 
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I think the administrative action is limited to TANF. Discussion of other programs on this thread is a distraction from the subject at hand.
 
cpwill said:
The welfare reform of the 90's was one of our few, recent, bi-partisan true success stories. Millions of people were lifted out of poverty. According to the Brookings institute, for example:




[later edit] HAH - I was going to fast and accidentally voted wrong in my own poll! :lol:
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Just because someone has a job doesn't mean that job pays a livable wage, which is why they continue to get government assistance.
 
CriticalThought said:
I think the days of bi-partisan success stories have come to an end. This country is moving toward greater partisanship, not toward greater compromise.
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I think you are probably right. As our problems grow larger, each side will see the other as doing more damage.
 
samsmart said:
Just because someone has a job doesn't mean that job pays a livable wage, which is why they continue to get government assistance.
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Which presents a whole 'nother passel of problems:

Why a single mom is better off with a $29,000 job and welfare than taking a $69,000 job

...The U.S. welfare system sure creates some crazy disincentives to working your way up the ladder. Benefits stacked upon benefits can mean it is financially better, at least in the short term, to stay at a lower-paying jobs rather than taking a higher paying job and losing those benefits. This is called the “welfare cliff.”

Let’s take the example of a single mom with two kids, 1 and 4. She has a $29,000 a year job, putting the kids in daycare during the day while she works.

As the above chart – via Gary Alexander, Pennsylvania’s secretary of Public Welfare — shows, the single mom is better off earning gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income and benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income & benefits of $57,045....

071212welfare.jpg
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why would someone making $29K here want a raise to $32K that meant a net loss of income?






But the issue isn't welfare cliffs - it's whether or not we should get rid of the work requirement that was the heart of Welfare Reform in the 90's.



Wonder how ole Bill Clinton feels about this. It'd be interesting if we see another "gaffe" sometime in the not too distant future.
 
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samsmart said:
Just because someone has a job doesn't mean that job pays a livable wage, which is why they continue to get government assistance.
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What? That implies that ANY work is OK, as ANY WAGE will magically become a "living wage" if you simply fill out forms to make it so. Another elephant in the welfare room is the NEED to have a dependent, as that ALONE, makes you into a "family". So not only does your McJob not support YOU, it now qualifies YOU and your added dependent to get taxpayer funded assisance. One crucial part of Clinton's reform was preventing additional out of wedlock children from causing a "raise" in benefits and poof, like magic that behavior stopped (or slowed drastically), ONLY in states that actually enofrced it. Link: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d01924.pdf
 
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MaggieD said:
No. But we need to "clean it up." When link cards can be used in casino's . . . when people are buying diapers and selling them to their neighbors off their link cards . . . and, I'm sure, a host of other fraudulent uses, too many people are getting aid.
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Probably 0.1 %, but the conservative media/press assures that we know all about these incidents...
IMO, welfare has been constantly improved, but this should never stop...
 
earthworm said:
Probably 0.1 %, but the conservative media/press assures that we know all about these incidents...
IMO, welfare has been constantly improved, but this should never stop...
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So, in your opinion, allowing 12% to 15% of the population to be forever supported by tax money taken from those that work is a good thing? Welfare has not been improved, or has the out of wedlock childbirth rate, or the poverty rate. Welfare is simply a reward for failure, to "qualify" requires low/no income and a baby. That is insane.
 
Welfare should always exist as a safety net for those whom circumstances has truly dealt misfortune. And we must accept there will always be a small percentage that try and abuse it. The point would be to not allow anyone on Welfare to live at a comfort level equal to someone who works. That would mean corporate America should pay employees better and government should give less, there is a compromise without destroying Welfare or overtaxing businesses.
 
All "reform" did was undercut wages
Force people into crime to get by, (they are more profitable in prison)

When you cant even buy TP to wipe your behind. you know that "reform" is a total failure.

We need a safety net that includes.
Cash
Food
transportation
A home
retraining paid by employer that 100% leads to a job

Germany makes it work.......

Then of course there is the Corporate welfare that saved AIG for $180B........
The oil corps for more billions
$2B airplanes......
They can afford a bus ticket to go buy food with the welfare THEY get........
 
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Lokiate said:
Germany is also heading towards a third bankruptcy.
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Yes AND???

Germany does not have millions living in squalor.
Germany does not have massive copper theft.
 
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