#prwora

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The Wreckage of Reform: How Clinton’s 1996 Welfare Law Deepened American Poverty

🧾😞 #Triangulation In the summer of 1996, President Bill Clinton signed into law one of the most consequential — and controversial — pieces of social policy in modern U.S. history: the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). Backed by a Republican-controlled Congress and Clinton’s now-infamous strategy of triangulation, the law was celebrated at the time as a…

The Wreckage of Reform: How Clinton’s 1996 Welfare Law Deepened American Poverty

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Welfare Reform Syllabus - Anna Julia Cooper Center

What actually happened to US families in the 20 years since welfare reform? The syllabus highlights materials that aid in a more informed public debate.

Download the Annotated Welfare Reform Syllabus here and read the full syllabus below.

Welfare reform is twenty years old.  Signed on August 22, 1996, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) realized then-President Bill Clinton’s promise to “end welfare as we know it.”  This historic legislation dismantled the United States’ safety net for poor single mothers and children, replacing it with a system of state-run “temporary” cash assistance. Under federal law, states must show a percentage of their caseload working and cut off recipients at a maximum of five years, though many states impose a two-year lifetime limit.

In just two decades, 10 million people have disappeared from the welfare rolls. Democrats, Republicans, and the mainstream press cite this figure to celebrate welfare reform’s success.  They assert that the policy was effective simply because far fewer people receive public assistance – yet they do not substantively examine what dropping caseloads actually mean.

Evidence-based research tells a different story. Soon after PRWORA’s implementation—and even before the Great Recession thrust even more Americans deeper into poverty— many researchers warned that poverty was rising, former recipients were being pushed into low-wage, part-time jobs with limited childcare supports, most states diverted recipients from attending college, and many families had no income from work or welfare. They reported dramatically higher levels of hunger, malnutrition and homelessness. In 2014, a record 47 million Americans—nearly one in six—lived below the poverty line. Extreme poverty rose sharply under welfare reform, with nearly 1.5 million households with children surviving on less than $2 per day in 2011.

Yet this research has been underreported by the press and ignored by lawmakers who continue to cut already skeletal welfare programs, and impose time limits and work requirements on food stamps.

In January 2016, a group of poverty scholars from across the nation convened in New York to discuss how to return evidence to the public conversation on PRWORA’s 20th anniversary.  The #WelfareReformSyllabus (modeled on the #FergusonSyllabus and Trump 2.0 syllabus) grew out of that conversation.  Seeing the need to have a more informed public debate about welfare reform, the group assembled a broad set of readings to enable that.

The #WelfareReformSyllabus covers key themes: the history of welfare as a New Deal program designed to keep women out of the labor force to raise their children, which largely excluded women of color until the 1960s, when the welfare rights movement broke open access to public assistance;  the racial politics of the backlash against welfare where it was framed as program that coddled ‘lazy’ and ‘dependent’ women of color; the realities of pre-1996 welfare use (most recipients were white, had worked or were working, used welfare to escape domestic violence or economic crisis, and got off welfare in less than 2 years); and the context of the legislation within the rise of neoliberal austerity policies and the criminalization of poor people.

[sociologicallyinsignificant]

Welfare and the Politics of Poverty

Bill Clinton’s 1996 welfare reform was supposed to move needy families off government handouts and onto a path out of poverty. Twenty years later, how has it turned out?

This is such a good video to talk about the reality and outcomes of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (aka Welfare Reform). 

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Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders

Issued February 19, 2025.

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:

Section 1. Purpose. The plain text of Federal law, including the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-193) (PRWORA), generally prohibits illegal aliens from obtaining most taxpayer-funded benefits. Title IV of the PRWORA states that it is national policy that "aliens within the Nation's borders not depend on public resources to meet their needs," and that "[i]t is a compelling government interest to remove the incentive for illegal immigration provided by the availability of public benefits." But in the decades since the passage of the PRWORA, numerous administrations have acted to undermine the principles and limitations directed by the Congress through that law. Over the last 4 years, in particular, the prior administration repeatedly undercut the goals of that law, resulting in the improper expenditure of significant taxpayer resources.

My Administration will uphold the rule of law, defend against the waste of hard-earned taxpayer resources, and protect benefits for American citizens in need, including individuals with disabilities and veterans.

Sec. 2. Preserving Federal Public Benefits. (a) To prevent taxpayer resources from acting as a magnet and fueling illegal immigration to the United States, and to ensure, to the maximum extent permitted by law, that no taxpayer-funded benefits go to unqualified aliens, the head of each executive department or agency (agency) shall:

(i) identify all federally funded programs administered by the agency that currently permit illegal aliens to obtain any cash or non-cash public benefit, and, consistent with applicable law, take all appropriate actions to align such programs with the purposes of this order and the requirements of applicable Federal law, including the PRWORA;

(ii) ensure, consistent with applicable law, that Federal payments to States and localities do not, by design or effect, facilitate the subsidization or promotion of illegal immigration, or abet so-called "sanctuary" policies that seek to shield illegal aliens from deportation; and

(iii) enhance eligibility verification systems, to the maximum extent possible, to ensure that taxpayer-funded benefits exclude any ineligible alien who entered the United States illegally or is otherwise unlawfully present in the United States.

(b) Within 30 days of the date of this order, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget and the Administrator of the United States DOGE Service, in coordination with the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, shall further:

(i) identify all other sources of Federal funding for illegal aliens; and

(ii) recommend additional agency actions to align Federal spending with the purposes of this order, and, where relevant, enhance eligibility verification systems.

(c) Agencies shall refer any improper receipt or use of Federal benefits to the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security for appropriate action.

Sec. 3. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

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Welfare reform has been successful by one measure alone: it has reduced government spending. In 1995, about 14 million Americans were on welfare; today, that number is down to 4.2 million. 

In 2014, the median family of three on welfare received a monthly check of just $428, and other government assistance programs have seen their budgets slashed even further. For every hundred families with children that are living in poverty, sixty-eight were able to access cash assistance before Bill Clinton’s welfare reform. By 2013, that number had fallen to twenty-six. 

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That’s a 60% drop in the number of families who could qualify but are denied access to financial assistance. THOSE KIDS ARE STILL LIVING IN POVERTY and they get to see their parents work hard and not succeed in getting them out of poverty. That’s a lesson in despair. 

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Read more: Getting Jobbed: The real face of welfare reform By Virginia Sole-Smith

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The PRWORA generalizes a trend that had been growing in welfare programs in the United States and elsewhere since the mid-1980s. With only a few exceptions, it makes working at a job, or engaging in what the welfare program considers a ‘work activity,’ a condition of public assistance receipt. Most states do not allow enhancing one’s skills by attending college or some other post–high school vocational training to count as such a work activity. They follow a ‘work first’ philosophy: the problem with the people who need public assistance is that they are not motivated to work outside the home, do not understand the expectations of the work world, and lack work experience. Once public assistance programs get them into jobs, these impediments to self-sufficiency will fall away as long as the recipients get to their jobs. They will accumulate experience, skill, and discipline and will be able to climb the job ladder. Many critics have pointed out many flaws in this theory: it does not account for lack of child care, especially at nonstandard hours, or for the difficulties recipients have dealing with sick children or unreliable transportation. Public assistance rules are generally punitive about missed appointments, including a failure to show up for work, and the threat of losing benefits along with jobs is real. Even if recipients do manage to get to and keep their jobs, those jobs usually pay so poorly that these people cannot maintain anything close to a decent standard of living for themselves and their children. For the most part, finally, the service and clerical jobs recipients do manage to keep fail to open any opportunities for significant increases in wages or skill development.

Iris Marion-Young, Responsibility for Justice pg. 7