The Problems that faced The Old AFDC Welfare Program - Essay Example

The Problems that faced The Old AFDC Welfare Program Welfare reforms in the United States were first seen to be implemented by Congress and signed by President Clinton back in 1996. The reforms which were meant to instigate a number of key changes including the abolishment of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program whose critics argued was not effective and had a number of key innate problems affecting it. The Negative Aspects of the AFDC The AFDC was seen to have a number such the promotion and advocacy of a number of negative. It was primarily as a result of these negative aspects of the welfare program that there arose the need for the country to implement a raft of welfare reforms. Some of the challenges seen to have been facing the AFDC variously include. I. Breaking up Families: As opposed to the loss of tax payer money that was seen to commonly be associated with the AFDC, the welfare program’s design that seemed to greatly encourage the breaking up of families was as widely perceived to be the biggest tragedy of the AFDC welfare system. One of the main goals of the 1996 legislation was seen to be the general reduction of out-of-wedlock births and increasing marriage (Blank 1153). By offering larger amounts of benefits to single mothers who happen to have children outside of wedlock, the AFDC welfare program was seen to generally encourage single women to largely remain unmarried (Blank 1153). Under the PRWORA welfare reforms, states were now being actively encouraged to try and reduce non-marital births while advocating for marriage. Under the new welfare program, states that were able to successfully reduce out-of-wedlock child bearing without in anyway causing and increase in the abortion rates were subsequently qualified to receive special bonuses(Blank 1106) . II. Disincentives to Work: The question of families opting to choose welfare over work is often perceived to be a rational decision that is essentially based on the available economic incentives. The exact meaning attributed to the term welfare-to-work is seen to substantially vary from state to state. According to Blank (1113), under the old AFDC welfare program, most states during the early 1990s used to engage in a variety of job training and placement programs, however, the new welfare reforms caused most states to shift the focus of their programs to work-first. This change in focus was primarily aimed at attempting to get recipients into a job as soon as was possible. It is thus sen that most programs now tend to emphasize more on a number of narrow job preparation skills such as getting along with colleagues on the job, performing well at interviews, arranging and organizing for child care as well as job search assistance (Blank 1113). One of the more controversial aspects of this shift is that relatively very little money is now being spent on beneficial long-term training for the trainees. It has been argued that these work programs should be designed in a manner that will cause them to increase work incentives by improving the trainees’ employment related skills as well as the establishment of job search as one of the expected activities that should be engaged in by welfare recipients. It should be noted that a number of states have now implemented programs that have seen them change the existing culture of their public assistance offices and undertaking t reorganize and retrain their staff members such that primary goal is now seen to shift towards encouraging work as opposed to merely providing monthly assistance (Blank 113). Virtually nearly all the different States in the country have now undertaken to engaging in a number of Welfare-to-Work Programs. Since PRWORA was passed, states are now engaged in mandating participation in work preparation and job search assistance among a larger share of their caseloads. These concerted efforts by the different states resulted in most states reporting an estimated 38.3 percent increase of the caseloads that were now engaged in various job or work activities as of 1999. This figure is seen to be rather impressive increase from the 20.4 percent reported in 1994 (Blank 1111). III. The Poverty Gap Affecting Persons on AFDC Welfare Program: Under the AFDC Program, women having relatively very little education as well as other disadvantaged women were normally found to go on welfare as compared to other women. It was also seen that such women would also tend to stay on welfare for longer periods of time. In an attempt to try and curtail this development the new PRWORA welfare system undertake to set maximum time limit restrictions for persons on the program so as to encourage them to not stay on the welfare program perpetually (Blank 1106). The new time limit set by PRWORA on the receipt of its TANF-funded aid is seen to currently stand at a total maximum life time limit of sixty month which is equivalent to five years. Under the new legislation, it is possible for states to exempt up to about 20 percent of their entire caseloads from this time limit restriction in addition to also being able to set shorter time limits for individuals in the event that the state happens to choose to do this. Of note is that under PRWORA, states are now seen to be able to continue providing financial assistance out of their state funds to families after the elapse of the sixty months, time-limit (Blank 1106). PRWORA imposed a number of additional measures designed to limit the eligibility of the country’s population to Supplemental Security Income and Food Stamps. Under these new measures, most of the immigrants who happened to me into the United States after 1996 were seen to largely be denied any access to TANF and other programs (Blank 1106). Research conducted by Jencks, Swingle, and Winship (2001) indicates that under PRWORA between 1995 and 1999 there was a net decline in food related problems as most single mothers in the country managed to gain some considerable ground in the 1990s. On the contrast, of note is that there happens to be a group of single mothers who are categorized among the poorest and have only been able to make minimal gains over the 1990s period and there are some who are at the very bottom and might actually have happened to lose some ground (Blank 1119). IV. Increased Labor Force Participation: While during the time that the AFDC program was in place there happened to be little initiative by persons on welfare to actively participate in the workforce as a result of the assurance that they would always be able to obtain financial aid, according to Blank (1139), the prime thrust of the reforms undertaken in the 1990s was to attempt to increase work. A number of important studies have been undertaken to establish if these policies have resulted in causing more women to eventually leave welfare and successfully enter the labor force after managing to replace their public assistance income with wages and salaries. These studies that are commonly referred to as leaver studies are seen to suggest that an estimated close to two-thirds of all welfare leavers happen to be actively engaged in working at some future point. The results also show that an even larger share have been able to hold at least one job since their leaving the welfare program. Blank uses research by Karin Martinson (2000) to denote the fact that only about 20 percent of leavers are seen to appear as having never worked in a follow-up of work programs across six different sites over a time period spanning over four years. It is thus seen that most leavers eventually end up finding jobs although these jobs and their jobholding may at times be perceived to be quite unstable resulting in most leavers not working continuously (Blank 1140). V. Caseload Changes: While the number of caseloads under the AFDC was seen to be relatively high, with the implementation of the welfare reforms, the remarkable changes in caseloads experienced between 1994 and 2000 were seen to quickly emerge as the most widely discussed aspect of the reforms. According to Blank (1115), caseloads during this period were seen to decline by an amazing 56.6 percent. Blank also notes that these declines were not localized to particular states or regions but were seen to occur everywhere across the country with all the states experiencing significantly strong reductions in their welfare rolls. One of the principal driving forces in the desire for most governors to try and implement a raft of more radical welfare reforms is seen to be the 27 percent increase in caseloads that was experienced between 1990 and 1994 (Blank 1115). In respect to this Blank argues that ideally, any proposed theory that attempts to try and explain the decline in caseloads as experienced in the late 1990s should also undertake to try and explain the increase in caseloads that was seen in the early 1990s. Blanks points out that as opposed to doing this, most researchers often tend to focus on the declining caseloads without any attempt to try and pay any attention to the earlier rise in caseloads. Works Cited Rebecca Blank, "Evaluating Welfare Reform in the United States," Journal of Economic Literature 40 (December 2002), 1105-66. Read More