The Issue of Welfare Reform

Excerpts from the Paper

The Issue of Welfare Reform
Over the last half-century, the issue of welfare reform has been one of the most contentious areas of public policy in the United States. It is a difficult, divisive topic that brings together matters of race, ethnicity, gender as well as moral issues like poverty and its relation to a willingness to work. The passage in 1996 of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act was a watershed moment for government and the women and children who have been traditionally caught up in the welfare system. It carried with it the hope that millions of women and their dependent children could transition to lives of self-sufficiency. In the years since its passage however, questions have arisen as to...

.....ut of Courage:" Persistent Deep Poverty among Former Welfare-Reliant Women." Family Relations 53.2 (2004): 127-37.
Hao, Lingxin and Andrew J. Cherlin. "Welfare Reform and Teenage Pregnancy, Childbirth and School Dropout." Journal of Marriage and Family 66.1 (2004): 179-94.
London, Andrew S., et al. "Welfare Reform, Work-Family Tradeoffs, and Child Well-Being." Family Relations Vol. 53.No. 2 (2004): 148-58.
McDonald, Katrina Bell, and Elizabeth M. Armstrong. "De-Romanticizing Black Intergenerational Support: The Questionable Expectations of Welfare Reform." Journal of Marriage and Family 63.1 (2001): 213-23.
Newman, Katherine S. "Hard Times on 125th Street: Harlem's Poor Confront Welfare Reform." American Anthropologist 102.3 (2001): 762-78.