Recent Changes To Welfare Essay

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When President Bill Clinton reluctantly signed the Personal Responsibility and

Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, he had an idea of what the

critical responses would be. The hope was to induce a program that would

bring significant benefits to the needy and hungery people of our country.

However, the response and criticisms are equivalent to what our president

expected, very negative.

Mary Jo Bane believes the new welfare law poses serious dangers to poor

children and families. As assistant secretary for children and families in

the Department of Health and Human services, she supported the

administration's efforts to refocus the welfare system on work and to increase

state flexibility through the waiver process. But in the course of reviewing

state welfare reform proposals, she became concerned that politics and

financial pressures were pushing states into a "race to the bottom"(Bane). As

long as the old law was in place the federal government could insist on

guaranteed assistance and protections for recipients. Her fears about what

would happen to poor children when states were no longer required to provide

the modest assurances and protections we insisted on in waiver demonstrations

led her to resign after President Clinton signed the welfare bill (Bane).

The reform takes away national level responsibilities and puts the money and

responsibility into the individual states. A good amount of flexibility is

provided, which may or may not result in a positive manner. For instance,

they money could be used on the work reform and job preparation, while others

could find loopholes in the laws, and while their purposes may not be

malicious, the money would not truly be carrying out the role intended.

"No longer will cash assistance to dependent children be guaranteed by the

federal government. Instead it will be provided, or not, by states using

block grants." (Bane) This is the basic premise of the new bill.

Specifically, there are nine titles addressing separate issues involved. The

bulk of the 54 billion dollar savings appears in Numbers XV and XIII. They

offer the most serious impact, according to Mrs. Smith and they were also

considered the most flawed by President Clinton. Title IV bans most legal

immigrants from receiving most federal benefits. Title XIII cuts food stamp

benefits across the board and restricts food stamp benefits to unemployed

adults without disabilities or dependents to 3 months out of 36 (Bane). Most

of the 54 billion in savings come from these two titles alone. Mary Jo feels

the greatest weakness of the reform is the lack of response to the children,

who are in turn, not supported anymore after the parent has failed to win a

job and has used up their five year limit on assistance. What would happen to

them we ask? There is...

Bane, Mary Jo. "Welfare as We Might Know It". Copyright 1997.
Political Science Quarterly. 40 par. 11 June, 1999
.

"The Issues, Welfare Reform"
CQ Researcher, December 6, 1996

Edelman, Peter. "The Worst Thing Bill Clinton Has Done" March 1997
The Atlantic Montly. 109 par. June 13, 1999
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97mar/edelman/edelman.htm You should cite this paper as follows:

MLA Style
. EssayMania.com. Retrieved on 26 May, 2012 from
    <http://essaymania.com/56034/recent-changes-to-welfare>

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