How Women in the USA Are Affected by Today's Welfare Reform
With much fanfare, President Bill Clinton signed a welfare reform act in August 1996 that ended the federal government's 60-year commitment to the provision of financial assistance to the nation's citizens in need. Essentially, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) handed responsibility over to the state governments, abolished Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and set new requirements and time limits for welfare recipients.
According to Clinton and proponents of the new welfare law, the elimination of certain welfare programs and the creation of rigid requirements would provide an incentive for the poor to work, instead of relying upon the government's financial assistance (Disconsiglio, 1997, p. 2). However, advocates for welfare recipients believed that the welfare reform rules would undermine the welfare recipients' ability to survive by eliminating important welfare programs. Furthermore, these advocates asserted that under the new regulations, no supports would be given to the welfare recipients to enable them to make the transition from welfare to work (Lawton, Leiter, Todd, & Smith, 1999, p. 540).
Four years after the passage of the welfare reform legislation, national and state political leaders cite the reduced number of caseloads and the increase in employment as the indicator of the success of the welfare reform. Although these statistical figures provide an easy way to quantify the effects of welfare reform, they may be insufficient in depicting in detail the actual situation (Lawton et al., 1999, p. 540).
In this study, the focus of the effects of welfare reform is on women. Many women on welfare are uneducated single parents who bear the responsibility of raising their children and making a living. AFDC had provided a safety net for these welfare mothers. Nonetheless, even with the additional i...