Revisiting Shapiro: Welfare Magnets and State Residency Requirements in the 1990s

Scott W. Allard

Publius: The Journal of Federalism, vol. 28, issue 3, 45-65

Abstract: The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) generated renewed interest in welfare races to the bottom as states received greater discretion over eligibility standards for new residents. Despite U.S. Supreme Court decisions finding welfare-residency requirements unconstitutional and mounting empirical evidence that welfare benefits do not attract poor migrants, state policymakers have enacted welfare-reform plans that treat newcomers differently as authorized in PRWORA. This article reviews the existing research on welfare migration, current state-residency requirements, and central constitutional issues surrounding such requirements. With the likelihood that courts will have the final word on the current round of state welfare-residency requirements, it is essential that empirical research on welfare magnets examine the issues central to the cases currently moving through the judicial system. Copyright , Oxford University Press.

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