Candidate Platform Preparation and Policy Position

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Public opinion was a major proponent toward welfare reform. A study conducted by Public Agenda in 1996 found that “Ninety-three percent of Americans, and 88% of those in households now receiving welfare, want the current welfare system changed” (Public Agenda, 1996, para.1). Public opinion plays a very large role in determining the actions of politicians, because they rely on their constituents for reelection, so public animosity toward the old welfare system must have played a role in getting welfare reformed.

Congress was working on legislation toward reform in the 1990s, possibly because of public opinion, and they got one passed by the president. “The new welfare law, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, ends the federal government’s 60-year open entitlement program that provides welfare benefits to all eligible low-income mothers and children” (New York State Education Department, n.d.). This legislation was signed by Bill Clinton in 1996. It marks a change from a welfare program operated by the federal government, to a temporary economic assistance welfare program run by individual states, but still funded in part by the federal government.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities “Under the TANF structure, the federal government provides a block grant to the states, which use these funds to operate their own programs” (Coven, 2005, para. 2). These programs, funded in part by federal government, are used to fulfill any given number of the four requirements stated in the law: “The purposes are: assisting needy families so that children can be cared for in their own homes; reducing dependency of needy parents by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage; preventing out-of-wedlock pregnancies, and encouraging the formation and maintenance of two-parent families“ (TANF Factsheet, 2004, para. 3). To clarify: any program that the states operate through TANF funds must perform at least one of the following:

(1) Ensure that poor kids can be properly cared for in ‘their own homes’.

(2) Encourage people to get job training, jobs, and get married.

(3) Sponsor abstinence.

(4) Strengthen marriage.

While these are the general requirements stated, the federal government does not provide all the money for these state operated programs—“…In order to receive TANF funds, state must spend some of their own dollars on programs for needy families. This is what is known as the ‘maintenance of effort’ (MOE) requirement” (Coven, 2005, para. 3). So TANF is, in some aspects, a joint effort between the federal government and local governments in that they both provide funding—but the states themselves operate the programs as they deem most appropriate, given that they fulfill federal guidelines.

The federal TANF regulations give a list of requirements for state recipients to meet. Highlights, according to the Administration for Children and Families, include: work requirements, “With few exceptions, recipients must work as soon as job ready, or no later than two years after coming on assistance” (TANF Factsheet, 2004, para. 8) and states must keep set percentages of work participation levels or face a penalty, which involves a loss of the state’s TANF funding.

Additionally there is a limit on how long individuals can be kept on welfare—the standard is a 5 year lifetime limit. “On time limits, the general rule is that no family may receive federally-funded assistance for longer than five years. States are allowed to use federal TANF dollars to extend time limits, but only so long as no more than 20 percent of the caseload has exhausted the five-year limit. Families receiving assistance funded entirely with state MOE funds are not subject to the federal time limit” (Coven, 2005, para. 8). There are extensions for families, but those families must meet specific criteria to qualify, as regulated by the states. If states go over 20% extensions, they get docked a percentage of their TANF allotment—generally all of the penalties involve a loss of a state’s federal funding, but “The total penalty assessed against a state in given year may not exceed 25 percent of a state’s block grant allotment” (TANF Factsheet, 2004, para. 15). Even if a state manages to get penalized for numerous infractions of federal TANF guidelines, there is a check on how much a state will get docked, so a state can not end up losing all of its funding.

In spite of these changes—or, more likely, because of these changes, many people were against welfare reform, as Bill Clinton states in an article, “At the time, I was widely criticized by liberals who thought the work requirements too harsh and conservatives who thought the work incentives too generous. Three members of my administration ultimately resigned in protest. Thankfully, a majority of both Democrats and Republicans voted for the bill because they thought we shouldn't be satisfied with a system that had led to intergenerational dependency.” (Clinton, 2006). During this time, there was an overt difference in opinion between “liberals who thought the work requirements too harsh and conservatives who thought the work incentives too generous” (Clinton, 2006) but they managed to congregate together and create a bipartisan bill that the president signed because both parties recognized that the system of welfare led to an intergenerational dependence on the government for economic assistance.

There have been several studies done that talk about the intergenerational repercussions of welfare dependency. In the statistical analysis section, we will look at one by John J. Antel, in which he studied 2430 young women, and concludes: “The empirical results of this paper suggest the operation of an unfortunate welfare system side effect. Mother’s welfare dependency appears to increase the welfare dependency of young women exposed to welfare at home” (Antel, 1992, p. 469). There appears to be a correlation between a mother’s welfare dependency and a daughter’s welfare dependency, according to Antel.

The bill for welfare reform expired in 2002, and was reauthorized in February of 2006 by George W. Bush in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, “As most states experienced dramatic caseload reductions, the credit had virtually eliminated the work participation requirements for most states. Today's reauthorization recalibrates the base year for calculating the caseload reduction credit and also closes a loophole to include separate state programs in the work calculation. These changes effectively re-implement a meaningful