Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) and Teen Parents

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Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) and Tenn Parents

The American Public never loved social welfare programs, but it did not necessarily want them dismantled. In fact, by the early 1990s, nearly 50 percent of all households drew on government benefits from Food stamps to social security to mortgage interest tax deductions.

To convince the public that it stood to gain from smaller government and weaker social programs, the reformers had to undermine the longstanding belief that government should play a large role in society. Abramovitz (1996) suggest that Civil rights gains were called reverse discrimination and the victories of the women’s and gay rights movement were seen as a threat to “family values.”

Having set the stage, the welfare reformers began the attack on the welfare state by targeting AFDC, the most vulnerable and least popular welfare program. Drawing on social science theories that blamed poverty on the values and behavior of the poor, the reformers put forward the belief that social problems stemmed from a “culture of poverty” that promoted “defective” values and “deviant” behavior.

In 1996, Congress passed and the President signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (P.L. 104-93). It combined AFDC (Aid to Families w/Dependent Children) JOBS, and Emergency Assistance into block grants of single capped entitlement to states and placed federal childcare funding into a separate block grant for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). The new federal law known as TANF was implemented in most states within the year.

Reflecting the “work first” approach, TANF placed a lifetime limit of five years on welfare eligibility. The new approach to welfare...

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...Philadelphia, PA-

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