Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel: On the 20th Anniversary of Welfare Reform: Changes to the Social Safety Net and Their Consequences

(Poverty and Income Policy)

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), commonly known as welfare reform. The PRWORA transformed the former Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program into the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, converting a cash entitlement program for low-income families into a time-limited and work-dependent program that was block granted to states. Since 1996, welfare assistance has become a much smaller component of the overall safety net; other programs aimed at low-income families have grown in its place, such as refundable tax credits like the EITC and the Child Tax Credit, and in-kind programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as the Food Stamp Program. This panel examines the ways in which the safety net has changed during the 20 years following welfare reform, and how these changes have impacted the economic wellbeing of low-income Americans. The panel consists of three papers. The first uses data from the Current Population Survey to estimate a historical version of the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). The authors use these data to examine state-level variation in the effectiveness of antipoverty policies and programs in the wake of welfare reform. Particular attention is paid to variation in state-level policies that make access to programs easier and/or benefit levels more generous. The second paper estimates changes in the intergenerational transmission of welfare receipt since PRWORA was passed in 1996. Using quasi-experimental methods based on state-level differences in the implementation of welfare reforms, the authors find that these reforms significantly attenuated the causal transmission of cash welfare participation from mothers to daughters. While the authors focus on the transmission of participation in cash welfare, they also investigate the transmission of program participation more broadly, finding higher levels of intergenerational transmission of food stamps and disability assistance. The third and final paper examines the way in which welfare reform affected the receipt of child support payments. Prior to 1996, families who were due child support and also received cash welfare only received a small share of the child support payment; a large proportion was redirected to the state to repay the government for AFDC outlays. After welfare reform, however, a greater proportion of families who no longer receive TANF assistance receive child support payments. The paper examines changes in the interaction between public and private safety nets following welfare reform, with particular attention to the recent Great Recession. Taken together, the three papers in the proposed panel will help advance our understanding of how poverty relief has evolved in the 20 years following one of the biggest changes in antipoverty policy of our time.