Evaluating Welfare Reform in an Era of Transition

Evaluating Welfare Reform in an Era of Transition
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2001-08-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0309171342

Reform of welfare is one of the nation's most contentious issues, with debate often driven more by politics than by facts and careful analysis. Evaluating Welfare Reform in an Era of Transition identifies the key policy questions for measuring whether our changing social welfare programs are working, reviews the available studies and research, and recommends the most effective ways to answer those questions. This book discusses the development of welfare policy, including the landmark 1996 federal law that devolved most of the responsibility for welfare policies and their implementation to the states. A thorough analysis of the available research leads to the identification of gaps in what is currently known about the effects of welfare reform. Evaluating Welfare Reform in an Era of Transition specifies what-and why-we need to know about the response of individual states to the federal overhaul of welfare and the effects of the many changes in the nation's welfare laws, policies, and practices. With a clear approach to a variety of issues, Evaluating Welfare Reform in an Era of Transition will be important to policy makers, welfare administrators, researchers, journalists, and advocates on all sides of the issue.

Welfare, the Family, and Reproductive Behavior

Welfare, the Family, and Reproductive Behavior
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 216
Release: 1998-06-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0309174015

The design of welfare programs in an era of reform and devolution to the states must take into account the likely effects of programs on demographic behavior. Most research on welfare in the past has examined labor market issues, although there have also been some important evaluations of the effects of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children Program on out-of-wedlock childbearing. Much less information is available on other issues equally central to the debate, including effects on abortion decisions, marriage and divorce, intrafamily relations, household formation, and living arrangements. This volume of papers contains reviews and syntheses of existing evidence bearing on the demographic impacts of welfare and ideas for how to evaluate new state-level reforms.

Changing Welfare

Changing Welfare
Author: Rachel A. Gordon
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2012-10-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781461348702

This book is concerned with the sweeping changes that took place in public assistance programs at the end of the 20th century and the way in which the original and reformed versions of these programs relate to the well-being of children and their families. It is a valuable reference for practitioners and policymakers who are concerned with children and child-related issues, psychologists, sociologists, social workers, social program administrators, and students in psychology, social work, sociology, political science, and education.

Family Caps, Abortion and Women of Color

Family Caps, Abortion and Women of Color
Author: Michael Camasso
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2007-08-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0190292504

Fifteen years ago, New Jersey became the first of over twenty states to introduce the family cap, a welfare reform policy that reduces or eliminates cash benefits for unmarried women on public assistance who become pregnant. The caps have lowered extra-marital birth rates, as intended but as Michael J. Camasso shows convincingly in this provocative book, they did so in a manner that few of the policys architects are willing to acknowledge publicly, namely by increasing the abortion rate disproportionately among black and Hispanic women. In Family Caps, Abortion, and Women of Color, Camasso (who headed up the evaluation of the nations first cap) presents the caps history from inception through implementation to his investigation and the dramatic attempts to squelch his unpleasant findings. The book is filled with devastatingly clear-cut evidence and hard-nosed data analyses, yet Camasso also pays close attention to the reactions his findings provoked in policymakers, both conservative and liberal, who were unprepared for the effects of their crude social engineering and did not want their success scrutinized too closely. Camasso argues that absent any successful rehabilitation or marriage strategies, abortion provides a viable third way for policymakers to help black and Hispanic women accumulate the social and human capital they need to escape welfare, while simultaneously appealing to liberals passion for reproductive freedom and the neoconservatives sense of social pragmatism. Camasso's conclusions will please no one along the political spectrum, making it all the more essential for them to be studied widely. A classic example of what can happen to research and the researcher when research findings become misaligned with political goals and strategies, Family Caps, Abortion and Women of Color is sure to foment a contentious but vital discussion among all who read it.

For Better and For Worse

For Better and For Worse
Author: Greg J. Duncan
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2002-01-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1610448286

The 1996 welfare reform bill marked the beginning of a new era in public assistance. Although the new law has reduced welfare rolls, falling caseloads do not necessarily mean a better standard of living for families. In For Better and For Worse, editors Greg J. Duncan and P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale and a roster of distinguished experts examine the evidence and evaluate whether welfare reform has met one of its chief goals-improving the well-being of the nation's poor children. For Better and For Worse opens with a lively political history of the welfare reform legislation, which demonstrates how conservative politicians capitalize on public concern over such social problems as single parenthood to win support for the radical reforms. Part I reviews how individual states redesigned, implemented, and are managing their welfare systems. These chapters show that most states appear to view maternal employment, rather that income enhancement and marriage, as key to improving child well-being. Part II focuses on national and multistate evaluations of the changes in welfare to examine how families and children are actually faring under the new system. These chapters suggest that work-focused reforms have not hurt children, and that reforms that provide financial support for working families can actually enhance children's development. Part III presents a variety of perspectives on policy options for the future. Remarkable here is the common ground for both liberals and conservatives on the need to support work and at the same time strengthen safety-net programs such as Food Stamps. Although welfare reform-along with the Earned Income Tax Credit and the booming economy of the nineties-has helped bring mothers into the labor force and some children out of poverty, the nation still faces daunting challenges in helping single parents become permanent members of the workforce. For Better and For Worse gathers the most recent data on the effects of welfare reform in one timely volume focused on improving the life chances of poor children.

The Boat Captain’S Conundrum

The Boat Captain’S Conundrum
Author: Tom Corbett, PhD
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2016-10-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1524548200

In The Boat Captains Conundrum, author Tom Corbett completes an intellectual journey that reflects on his four-plus decades as a scholar and doer of social policy. That journey starts with Ouch, Now I Remember in which he recounts his early days growing up in a closed, working class, ethnic community from which he underwent several transformative experiences that broadened his worldview. In Browsing Through My Candy Store, the author shared his struggles while confronting many of the most vexing poverty and welfare battles of the last half century. This final volume, the Boat Captains Conundrum, completes the trilogy. This work takes the reader on quite a different journey, a path that goes deeper into how to think about the big policy issues and social challenges of our times. In the end, Corbett makes a number of compelling points. Becoming a successful policy wonk is more than conquering the technical skills of doing quantitative analysis. It demands that we do more than merely dissect issues with analytical acumen. Rather, doing good policy work requires creativity, imagination, breadth of interests, a nimble and acquisitive mind, historical depth, and just a little rebellious risk-taking. But if you can conjure up such traits, there is no better way to spend your professional life. Follow the author as he shares his take on how to do policy work well and even make a contribution to the public good. Get inside his head as he struggled to make sense out of the more daunting social challenges of the late twentieth century. Above all, enjoy his wistful and sometimes witty wanderings as seen through a policy wonks eye where he touches upon mind-numbing conundrums with deft insight. It is a great journey to be enjoyed both by students of policy and all those concerned with public life.

$2.00 a Day

$2.00 a Day
Author: Kathryn Edin
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2015
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0544303180

The story of a kind of poverty in America so deep that we, as a country, don't even think exists--from a leading national poverty expert who "defies convention" (New York Times)

Browsing Through My Candy Store

Browsing Through My Candy Store
Author: Tom Corbett, Ph.D.
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2014
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1499078188

Tom Corbett takes us on a wild ride over the past four decades of welfare reform and antipoverty policy making. Drawing on his personal experiences in both academia and government, he exposes the raw realities of doing policy. Tom celebrates his policy life as an adventure, both challenging yet totally rewarding. He tells this story with a deft and light touch, bringing the characters and events to life with wit, wisdom, and sensitivity. It is a journey accessible to all who care about our nation and about our most vulnerable citizens.

The New World of Welfare

The New World of Welfare
Author: Rebecca M. Blank
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 546
Release: 2004-05-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780815798378

Congress must reauthorize the sweeping 1996 welfare reform legislation by October 1, 2002. A number of issues that were prominent in the 1995-96 battle over welfare reform are likely to resurface in the debate over reauthorization. Among those issues are the five-year time limit, provisions to reduce out-of-wedlock births, the adequacy of child care funding, problems with Medicaid and food stamp receipt by working families, and work requirements. Funding levels are also certain to be controversial. Fiscal conservatives will try to lower grant spending levels, while states will seek to maintain them and gain additional discretion in the use of funds. Finally, a movement to encourage states to promote marriage among low-income families is already taking shape. The need for reauthorization presents an opportunity to assess what welfare reform has accomplished and what remains to be done. The New World of Welfare is an attempt to frame the policy debate for reauthorization, and to inform the policy discussion among the states and at the federal level, especially by drawing lessons from research on the effects of welfare reform. In the book, a diverse set of welfare experts—liberal and conservative, academic and nonacademic—engage in rigorous debate on topics ranging from work experience programs, to job availability, to child well-being, to family formation. In order to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of research on welfare reform, the contributors cover subjects including work and wages, effects of reform on family income and poverty, the politics of conservative welfare reform, sanctions and time limits, financial work incentives for low-wage earners, the use of medicaid and food stamps, welfare-to-work, child support, child care, and welfare reform and immigration. Preparation of the volume was supported by funds from the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.