Bernie Sanders is right: Bill Clinton’s welfare law doubled extreme poverty
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The profound and enduring consequences of that law, and of the rest of Clinton's policies on poverty, are only just becoming clear. It is a complicated legacy. Economists credit Clinton's decisions with reducing poverty overall and helping many people find work. Yet recent evidence suggests that financial conditions have worsened for those who could not find work — the poorest of the poor.
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President Clinton's law required welfare recipients to participate in various work-related programs, such as vocational training, community service, and employment searches, in order to get financial help. States were free to determine the specific requirements, and they had broad authority over how the money dedicated to public assistance would be spent.
The reforms had broad public support, but the new system had cracks, and some people fell through them. Those who couldn't work for whatever reason were ineligible for any kind of assistance.
As a result, a certain kind of grave poverty has reappeared in the United States. Sanders said that the number of people living in extreme poverty has doubled under President Clinton's reforms. If anything, that was an understatement. Edin and Shaefer's research shows that the number of people living on $2 a day or less in cash has increased more than twofold, to 1.6 million households.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/27/bernie-sanders-is-right-bill-clintons-welfare-law-doubled-extreme-poverty/
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