Policy Process of Welfare Reform

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In response to the great depression, President Roosevelt signed into law the Social Security Act of 1935 as part of his New Deal. The act allowed for the Department of Health and Human Services to introduce the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program. Under the AFDC, welfare benefits were more of an entitlement targeted towards impoverished widows, allowing them to stay at home and raise their children. However as the number of women in the work place increased, the entitlements being handed out were criticized for encouraging a dependency on federal assistance by single mothers.

Critics, such as the author Charles Murray claimed that the AFDC created a system which contributed to the problem because while it did assist the unemployed economically, It discouraged the people receiving benefits from attempting to obtain employment. As the cost of the welfare program rose, so did the general animosity from the American taxpayers. The federal government noticed the increasing dissent within the states, and begun to allow the experimentation of attaching restrictions to their welfare programs.

Following his inauguration in 1992, Bill Clinton fulfilled his promise to “end welfare as we know it” by signing the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act into law. Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act was praised for replacing AFDC with Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). TANF functioned to end the entitlement status of welfare benefits which encouraged the formation of two parent families.

On September 28th, 1996, the bill was brought to the house where it was sent to the committee on Ways and Means (thomas.loc.gov). In October of the same year, the Senate made ...

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...shown in the years after the reform was passed were due to the booming economy and we have to look at the impacts of the reforms now during bad times in the economy to see if the reform actually did what it set out to accomplish. (heritage.org)

Works Cited

Welfare reform act

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?r104:4:./temp/~r104MLF97o

http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/abbrev/prwora96.htm

http://clinton5.nara.gov/WH/Accomplishments/eightyears-02.html

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query

http://www.welfareinfo.org/

http://www.hhs.gov/recovery/programs/tanf/index.html

http://ebooks.abc-clio.com/reader.aspx?isbn=9780585000435&id=WELFAE-h2-10

http://www.heritage.org/research/testimony/the-impact-of-welfare-reform

http://hudson-consulting.org/Documents/PRWORA%20through%20the%20Lens%20of%20Brewer.pdf

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