IPR
Research on Welfare Programs
and Reform
Ten years have passed since the passage of the Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA)
of 1996, the law supposedly set to end “welfare as we
knew it,” according to then-President Bill Clinton.
In shifting the program from federal to state block grants,
the nation launched one of the most significant overhauls
of a social program in our nation’s history.
Numerous IPR faculty have conducted research on families
on welfare and in poverty before and after passage of PRWORA.
Their studies encompass a multitude of subjects, including
labor market conditions, wage-supplement programs, health
and child development, crime, regional impacts, and quantitative
methods to name but a few. In particular, IPR faculty have
led three initiatives that have made important contributions
to our understanding of the effects of welfare reform on poor
families. These include (1) Welfare,
Children, and Families: A Three City Study, of which P.
Lindsay Chase-Lansdale is a co-principal investigator;
(2) the Joint Center for Poverty
Research, which was funded by the Department of Health
and Human Services and directed by IPR faculty including Greg
Duncan; and (3) the Illinois Families
Study, a research consortium mandated by the Illinois
state legislature and led by Dan
A. Lewis.
Recent IPR faculty research has investigated various aspects
of how the poor have fared since the dramatic decline in welfare
caseloads starting in 1996. In the Three City Study, Chase-Lansdale
and her colleagues found that welfare reform had neither hurt
nor harmed the children of mothers who return to work. Duncan’s
research has shown that children entering school are helped
by increased income from mothers who work, while teens have
more troublesome outcomes. In the Illinois Families Study,
Lewis and his colleagues found that wages increased, but more
insecurity and job churning occurred among those families
who left welfare.
PRWORA officially expired after five years in September 2002.
Since then, Congress has propped up TANF with a series of
extensions. With a reauthorization plan still in the works—and
perhaps a major legislative push of the next Congress—evidence-based
research on these and other related topics can continue to
play a role in guiding policymakers as they set out to define
the next phase of welfare in the United States.
IPR related Research
Books
Journal Articles
and Chapters
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