The Poverty of Poverty Research

The welfare reform was a revolution, for academe as well as social policy. In the 1990s, work requirements in the main family aid program were sharply stiffened, and largely as a result, more than two-thirds of welfare mothers left the rolls, with most of those departing entering jobs. It was the most radical change in American domestic policy since civil rights. The results were overwhelmingly positive. The welfare rolls dropped from over fourteen million persons to barely four million. Work levels among poor single mothers soared, poverty fell, particularly among children and minorities, and hardship was rare. Some of the credit goes to the fine economy of the 1990s, which generated many jobs for mothers to take, and expanded child care and wage subsidies, which eased the transition to work. But the crucial change was demanding that recipients work in