Has Welfare Reform Worked?

Copyright © 2007 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

FARAI CHIDEYA, host:

From NPR News, this is NEWS & NOTES. I'm Farai Chideya.

During the Clinton administration, Congress passed and the president signed off on welfare reform. There was plenty of fanfare. And since the law changed in 1996, the number of families receiving cash benefits has dropped by at least 60 percent.

Millions have moved from welfare to work, according to an analysis by the Associated Press. Now fans of welfare reform say this is absolute proof that the change worked. But critics say not so fast. A lot less people are getting cash benefits, but a lot more have signed up for other programs, including Medicaid, food stamps and disability benefits.

In fact, the Census Bureau reports about 44 million people relied on federal anti-poverty programs in 2003. That's five million more than a decade ago and the largest the U.S. welfare state has ever grown. So has welfare reform really worked? Two leading experts weigh in.

We've got Vivyan Adair, a former welfare recipient. She's now an associate professor of Women Studies at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. She's also author of the book "From Good Ma to Welfare Queen," a genealogy of the poor women in American literature. She joins us by phone.

And also on the line is Robert Rector, senior research fellow of domestic policy at the Heritage Foundation. Robert played a major role in crafting the Federal Welfare Reform legislation passed in '96. He's also author of the book, "America's Failed $5.4 Trillion War on Poverty."

So good to have you both on the program.

Professor VIVYAN ADAIR (Women Studies, Hamilton College): Thank you.

CHIDEYA: So Vivyan, let me start with you. As we mentioned, the AP analysis suggests that in spite of the fact that welfare per se has plummeted, entitlement, enrollment in other programs has really grown. Does that surprise you?

Prof. ADAIR: No, it really doesn't surprise me at all. It seems clear that although a large number of welfare recipients were ushered in to work, which may have had some advantages to them, clearly they're working at low wages and are still dependent upon social services in order to survive and care for their families.

And this is a problem that I think we need to address and recognize in order to really move people into stability, and the security, and the self-sufficiency that welfare reform was intended to complete.

CHIDEYA: So we've seen a number of Americans living in poverty or lacking health insurance increase over the last 10 years. Now is it fair to say that the law plays a significant role in this growth?

Prof. ADAIR: I think it does. I think that the fact that welfare reform law doesn't allow for the possibility, for example, of low-income workers earning educational degrees or recipients of trainings with which that they might be able to have better jobs and more secure income. I think that part of the law has increased the need for women on our welfare particularly to depend upon these services.

Mr. ROBERT RECTOR (Senior Fellow, The Heritage Foundation): I think that it's not accurate. In fact, over the last 10 years we've seen a dramatic decline in child poverty and in single-mother poverty, which were the only two groups affected by the reform. For a quarter century prior to welfare reform in 1996, for example, the black child poverty rate was frozen in the low 40 percentiles.

As welfare reform kicks in, we have an unprecedented decline, rapid decline in black-child poverty, and in the poverty of single mothers and their children down dropping to around 30 percent - the lowest point ever in the U.S. history. It was a dramatic success. The problem with welfare reform is that the federal government runs over 70 means tested aid programs. Those are aid programs that provide cash, food, housing, medical care to poor people.

Only one small program was partially reformed. None of the other programs such as food stamps or public housing or Medicaid were actually touched. And therefore, those programs have continued to grow. And as the number of people on cash welfare - what used to be called aid to families with dependent children - shrink, the capacity of welfare reform to have any effect on behavior has diminished.

But the reform was extremely successful in moving single mothers off of prolonged welfare dependence and into the labor market. And what we need to do is not to go back and say what we want to do is send all single mothers to college. We did that for 25 years; it didn't work.

What we want to do is take the core ideas of the reform, which are moving people to work. And even more importantly, trying to reduce out-of-wedlock child bearing, and apply those to the other programs that are completely unreformed.

CHIDEYA: But when you talk about this, Robert, you talk about changing behavior. It sounds to me that's one of the keystones of how you see this. And if in fact you're talking about changing behavior and people have shifted their need for cash onto other programs, has the behavioral change really affected government?

Mr. RECTOR: Yes. Well, it didn't save that much money, but it wasn't really intended primarily to save money. It was intended to shift behavior to say, let's rather than have a system where we have one-way handouts and we give out cash, let's have a system where we demand something back from the recipient in exchange for the aid that's given, and that's going to be good for the recipient.

And it will also sort of slow the growth of spending. Again, the problem was that even in the program that was reformed, half of the caseload was always exempt from federal work requirements. And the other programs were completely unaffected. We did see, however, unprecedented surges in the employment of single mothers during the first five years of the reform before it got weakened.

And we also saw a plateauing in the number of births that occurred outside of marriage, which is the principal cause of child poverty. Those things seemed to be going back in a negative direction now, which means that we really need to renew our efforts, and the efforts really do have to be focused on behavioral change.

For the first 30 years of the war on poverty we essentially said, let's give people cash, let's give them food, let's give them housing. Let's not expect any positive behaviors in exchange. That was a failure and we certainly don't want to go back to that.

CHIDEYA: All right, Robert, I want to come back to that point in a second. But, Vivyan, you actually were a welfare recipient. Now you are a founder and director of the Access Project; it's a pilot program that assists parents in getting college degrees.

When you hear the talk about behavior and that the goal of welfare was not to try to send women to college, it's now the goal of welfare reformists to really get people onto the payrolls, how do you react to that personally?

Prof. ADAIR: Oh, I want to first of all point out that I don't think - I have not and I don't think anyone has ever suggest that that all poor mothers should be encouraged or supported in their efforts to go to school. But I do maintain that to prohibit those poor single parents who are willing and able to work part-time care for their families and college degrees, to prohibit them from doing so is shortsighted (unintelligible) but most importantly ineffectual public policy. As a former welfare recipient who escaped childhood poverty and adult welfare - as often adult welfare recipient - and I did so through of a pathway of higher education - but more importantly as a researcher and educator of other welfare recipients, I can tell you that this is a pathway that leads for specific populations to true self-efficiency. I was raised by a poor, divorced single mother who worked her entire life.

But she simply couldn't provide for us with a minimum wage salary. And like most all of our students, she certainly couldn't afford the training or education or childcare support to secure employment with which she could have provided us with a stable home, health insurance, adequate food or even emotional security.

So our students in the Access Project - and we've had over 100 of them, this is a demonstration project - they work, they go to school, they care for their families, and they earn degrees. We've had this for over six years, and our first year's cohort, a third of them are now enrolled in graduate schools. We have one in medical school, three in law school, and several in other graduate programs.

But the other two thirds are all working full-time. None of them, not one of them is receiving any kind of social service support.

CHIDEYA: Well, let me go back to Robert with this. Now Robert, you just mentioned at the end of your last set of comments that the social indicators that you looked at are rising again. We have been in a Republican administration for nearly two terms and only recently have the Democrats come into control in Congress. To what do you attribute the change in behavior?

Mr. RECTOR: Well, I think in part you have to understand that welfare reform essentially ended in 2001. And we went five years without a federal welfare reform law that needed to be reauthorized. And unfortunately, Democrats in Congress would not reauthorize it, in particular did not want the federal work requirements.

It's also not true to say that the federal welfare law prohibits states from providing college education to welfare mothers. It only affects half of the caseload in one small program. States are free to send, you know, up to half of their (unintelligible) caseload into college. Most don't choose to do that because it's very expensive and it's not particularly effective.

It's also somewhat unfair: Considering that about 70 percent of Americans don't have a college degree, to ask them to pay taxes to support a never-married mother and her family for years while she goes through college has some equity concerns. It's also not particularly effective.

Education is very good if you do it before you start a family. Trying to do it as a catch-up after you've had a couple of children out of wedlock is not very effective.

So there really are three strategies, but we have to employ them all. And those are try to get, try to finish your education before you have a family. You're going to need to work. Everybody has to contribute. And also again, the underlying issue here, the big enchilada, is the 38 percent of all children are born out of wedlock…

CHIDEYA: Well, Robert, I'm going to have to give Vivyan her last minute. We're almost out of time. What would you pair with Robert's saying? What would be the key things to you to move people off of welfare?

Prof. ADAIR: I feel strongly - I disagree with Mr. Rector. I feel strongly that allowing those welfare recipients, former welfare recipients who are willing and able to work, to go to school, to care for their families and to lift themselves out of poverty on a permanent and fulfilling basis is important for our culture. I think we have statistics show that this can be done.

I think it's interesting that he continually harp on this question of whether or not we should support and reward women who have children out of wedlock. That is really not the issue here. And I think that to not do so, pay short shrift to the potential of a population that is being judged as unworthy and incapable but in fact is not.

CHIDEYA: All right, we're going to have to leave it right there. Vivyan and Robert, thank you so much.

Prof. ADAIR: Thank you.

Mr. RECTOR: Thank you.

CHIDEYA: Vivyan Adair is associate professor of women studies at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. And Robert Rector is senior research fellow of domestic policy at the Heritage Foundation. He also helped craft the '96 welfare reform law.

And just ahead, the top man at the NAACP resigns after clashes with board members, and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton take their campaign battle to Selma, Alabama.

Copyright © 2007 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.