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1 1 (September 2016)

handle is hein.amenin/aeiaajl0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Key Points * Implementation problems in welfare reform are not grounds to abandon work tests in cash welfare or allow recipients to enter education or training instead of actual work. * Rather, we should restore required work programs in cash welfare and extend such programs to food stamps and housing programs. * We should also develop work programs for poor men in connection with child support and criminal justice. * The Obama administration tried to weaken work tests in cash welfare and resisted developing better mandatory work programs. A major cause of poverty is simply that few poor adults, both men and women, work regularly. The welfare reform of the late 1990s caused millions of welfare mothers to leave welfare for work, reducing the rolls by two-thirds and making most of the leavers better off. As work levels among poor mothers soared, poverty among children and minorities plunged to the lowest levels in history. It was the nation's greatest victory over working- age poverty since poverty first became a national issue in the 1960s. Success came mainly because many more welfare mothers than formerly were required to work as a condition of aid. Equally important, work meant actual employment rather than going into education or training. Conditionality and work first, as these policies became known, were legislated by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996. They were embodied in the new Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Under the older Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, demands to work and take available jobs had been far weaker. But despite this success, criticism of TANF has recently mushroomed, and some have suggested that reform should be reversed. There is in fact no sound reason for doing that. The best way to raise work levels among the poor is to maintain and improve the reform we have-and extend it to poor men. To do that will require more, not less, commitment to good government. Controversy over Welfare Reform The new policies were largely the doing of conservative leaders and thinkers, and they have remained controversial on the left. Liberal experts and advocates also wanted more poor adults to work, but most preferred to promote employment without enforcing it, and they favored allowing recipients to enter training or education, the better to get higher-paying jobs later, rather making them take existing, lower-paid positions right away. Those policies had failed to raise work levels or reduce dependency in the past, which was why PRWORA rejected them. But most liberals stood by them. AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE

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