The Failure Of Welfare Reform Hits New Records

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http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/02/21/3316531/welfare-reform-failure-record/



The percentage of poor families with children, those meant to be the primary beneficiaries of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF, or welfare), who don’t receive benefits has reached a record high, according to a report from Legal Momentum.

In 1996, just 28 percent of poor families with children missed out on the benefits. But that share has since soared, and in 2012 it hit a record of 74 percent.

1996 is the year President Clinton signed welfare reform into law, dramatically transforming the program. It changed from cost-sharing model, where the federal government’s contribution to fund state welfare programs increased as need increased, to a block grant, in which the government now gives states a fixed amount and they have wider discretion over how to design their programs. That amount hasn’t changed since the reforms took place, losing 30 percent of its value to inflation. Meanwhile, states have used their latitude to redirect much of the funding and took actions to shrink welfare rolls in the face of budget shortfalls.

The 1990s reforms have hampered the program from rising to meet Americans’ needs. While the number of poor families initially declined, it started increasing again in 2000 and has been growing, yet fewer and fewer families can rely on welfare to help them get by when they fall into poverty. “Over the last 16 years, the national TANF caseload has declined by 60 percent, even as poverty and deep poverty have worsened,” notes the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

It also failed to keep up with the spike in need from the recession. The number of unemployed people doubled between 2007 and 2009, but TANF’s rolls only rose by 13 percent, and in some states they actually fell. That’s in contrast to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps), which is not a block grant. It grew by 45 percent during that time period to help the larger number of struggling families get by.