Childfare: A New Direction for Welfare Reform

Morton S. Baratz and Sammis B. White
Additional contact information
Morton S. Baratz: Allied Capital Asset Management, Inc., Box 488, 1680 Wellesley Knoll, Keswick, Virginia 22947, USA
Sammis B. White: Urban Research Center, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, PO Box 413, Milwaukee, WI53201-0413, USA, sbwhite@csd.uwm,edu

Urban Studies, 1996, vol. 33, issue 10, 1935-1944

Abstract: In August 1996, President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, fulfilling his campaign promise to "end welfare as we know it". The legislation replaces the six-decade-old Aid To Families With Dependent Children programme (AFDC) with so-called workfare under which recipient parents may no longer receive financial assistance indefinitely. Instead, they must obtain employment or other means of support within two years, after which benefits are reduced or cease entirely. There is broad consensus that workfare is a step in the right direction. This paper challenges that consensus. The programme will intensify the plight of welfare children and deepen the economic problems of America in future years. We propose instead a programme that also promotes the work ethic as a basic premise of reform, but that seeks to reduce welfare rolls by making the education and development of assisted children the central obligation of AFDC parents.

Date: 1996
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/0042098966475 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:33:y:1996:i:10:p:1935-1944

DOI: 10.1080/0042098966475

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Urban Studies from Urban Studies Journal Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().