Welfare Reform: Time Limits

Estela Hernandez

American Political Ideals: The Constitution

During Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, he promised to "end welfare as we know it" and to move people from income assistance to work. In August of 1996, President Clinton signed a bill eliminating the guarantee of federal cash assistance - known as welfare reform. This bill was made in attempts to have people work instead of collecting money from the state. It puts limits on the amount of time a welfare recipient could receive foodstamps and other kinds of assistance. Eligibility for welfare will also be harder to prove. Welfare is currently available to all people residing in the United States; with proper legal status and need of assistance. The United State's constitution allows citizens and non-citizens this right. At the time Clinton's plan has no real time limits, or work requirements. Recipients are not even required to find work until the year 2004. Clinton's plan also continues to let people who are not citizens of the United State's to collect welfare benefits at the expense of taxpayers.

Source(s): URL:http://www.citynet.net/personal/knopp/clintonfacts/welfare.html

David

Political Institutions: The Bureaucracy

A system that has lasted for thirty years and cost five trillion dollars would seem very easy to scrutinize in congress. The fact that it is a very complex system brings up many strong issues for different welfare reform plans. This is an area where people see an opportunity to eliminate government waste. United States Senator Alfonse D'Amato called welfare "A narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit which is in violation of traditions of America."

He along with other conservatives feel a great need for a strict welfare reform with strict time limits. There has been reform in some places and compromises are being reached which have shown to be successful in saving government spending. Conservatives have made criticizing time limits of welfare a part of their political office campaigns. Bob Dole, who was one of them, lost the '96 presidential race to President Clinton. Clinton said he wanted to "end welfare as we know it" but presidential Candidate Bob Dole brought up how he was reluctant to pass reform proposal in the past. One of the points that Bob Dole and many other conservatives have made concerning welfare without time limits is that it discourages work. Before AFDC was eliminated, 1 out of 20 welfare families has a parent who works. A family with three members in it received an average of three hundred and seventy eight dollars in AFDC benefits in this country. Some people could only work in jobs that pay less than their benefits. Welfare was originally intended to help unfortunate people who could not find good work. Benefits were also thought as temporary. Today they are perceived to be permanent. In 1995 there were 14.1 million welfare recipients. Conservative politicians see the welfare system as outdated and want to make time limits on benefits. They thought that this would motivate more recipients to find work. Liberals saw that as "unfair " and didn't want strict time limitations. There was a reform bill that was passed by the 104th Congress which made benefits temporary through the penalization of states for the neglect to motivate recipients to find jobs. In August 1996 President Clinton signed a bill into law in which eliminated AFDC benefits. It ordered that Individual adults who receive benefits must find a job in two years. Families could not receive a limit of five years of benefits in a lifetime. It also gave states more power to set time limits even lower than that. Clinton made vouchers which extended the time limits beyond the five year limit. Although this compromise was effective, it was still criticized because there was no federal restriction from people hopping around from state to state receiving different time limits and amounts. In some states there has been successful welfare reform. In Wisconsin there was a 25% reduction in AFDC caseload between January 1987 and December 1994 due to programs like workfare and the implementation of time limits. There were 24,581 fewer cases. It saved sixteen point one million dollars by having a good stable economy with many new jobs and successful welfare reform programs. Since the government rewarded Wisconsin for the money that they saved on welfare many people have felt that there should be more incentives to other states, with high welfare caseloads, to drop the number of their recipients. In the reform Bill passed by the 104th Congress it rewarded states which had recipients working by the end of the year 2002. The welfare system is seen to some as a waste of money that can be used for other problems ain the country. Political influence on this issues seems to be shifting to the conservative's side with the proposing of new bills. Whether the issue is setting up time limits or work incentives, reform will probably start from the states little by little rather than the whole government at once. The only way this will be achieved is through creation of policy to encourage states to reform the welfare system.

Source(s): http://ftp.senate.gov/member/ny/damato/general/welfare.htm

Deborah Lopez

American Political Ideals: Federalism

National time limits was created by the federal welfare legislation. Time limits ends recipients benefits, but there are other policies under time limits. There is a program created by the federal legislation called the TANF, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. This allows states to extend the benefits of the recipients after the time limits. This is if the recipient has made an effort to find employment, and could not obtain a good job, or if the recipient does public service or other activties. There are three main types of time limits. Benefit Termination Limits, in which benefits are terminated after a time limit. The states can enforce this time limit without the federal approval. Work Trigger Limits allows recipients to work in public services in order to receive benefits. The federal legislation has a work trigger limit that is after two years, that provibes recipients public jobs. Conditional Extension Limits is when a recipient has participated in job search activities but could not obtain a job. Their benefits are extended after the time limit. The federal legislation has established time limits in which recipients who have receive benefits for two years to participate in working activities, in order to continue cash assistance. The states don't need the federal approval in order to make shorter time limits. The federal will not use their funds for paying cash assistance after the time limit, the states can use their's. States no longer need the federal wavier for the approval of their time limits on benefit termination time limits.

Source(s): http://www.ncsl.org/statefed/welfare/timlim.htm

Darrell Warren

Political Process: Media

The media is a very large industry that connects men and women of all socioeconomic strata to an quasi-organic information source. It's very powerful audio-visual/data transfer capacities can manipulate(1) public opinion on any given issue. Most people take the information disseminated by the media outlets -- TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines -- as true without further investigation. So, it is not a stretch to see that an opinion on a given issue, disseminated through one or all of the various media outlets, seemingly constitutes a public consensus, thereby giving this opinion instant credibility and widespread acceptance, regardless of its validity.

One of the issues that has ignited a large-scale media debate is the issue of welfare and time limits on aid. Well, time limits, at first glance seem to be a welcome solution to a growing problem. The recipients of government aid would work towards becoming self-sufficient, lest their aid expire and the government would save money by substantially reducing the time that people are on welfare. In the long run, more working citizens make for a better economy. But this is not always the case - far from it. Some people have legitimate needs for help, but the media has portrayed and continues to portray or place a negative spin on the welfare industry, causing undue negative focus on otherwise needy candidates.

Many of the notions of welfare that the general public may ascribe to are nothing more than myths(2) that have been generated via the media by a select group(3) of biased politicians and media elite. Usually these ideas are age-old or unfounded. And if the general public does not investigate deeper than the "film at eleven" (which they hardly do) then they are left to believe a canned often inaccurate portrait of the welfare system.

Source(s):

(1) http://jcomm.uoregon.edu/~robinson/j201/Ch1.html

(2) http://userpages.aug.com/djewell/myths.html

(3) http://www.fair.org/extra/9505/welfare-poor-women.html

Jimmy Vasquez

Political Process: Public Opinion

Since the beginning of our government, public opinion has taken it? toll on many issues ranging from civil rights, to abortion, to welfare reform. Our given definition of public opinion is the collective attitude of the citizens on a given issue or question. This definition seems to hold validity in our United States because of the fact that public opinion can only be addressed in a democracy. Due to the latest political decisions, with the help of public opinion, welfare reform has given its dependants an acute time limit for receiving assistance. The history of public thinking reveals several characteristics of public opinion. First, the public's attitudes toward a given government policy may vary over time, often dramatically. Second, public opinion places boundaries on allowable types of public policy. Third, if asked by pollsters, citizens are willing to register opinions on matters outside their expertise. Fourth, governments tend to respond to public opinion. Lastly, the government sometimes does not do what the people want.

One of the latest provisions of our nation's new welfare law will deny tens of thousands of unemployed adults their access to food stamps and other forms of public assistance. By this year's end, as estimated one million people will have felt the effects of this measure. Able-bodied adults without jobs or children will only be allowed to receive food stamps for three months in any three-year period. Statistics show that 40% of those affected are women and one -third of that tally correspond to women forty years of age or over. Due to certain guidelines, adults above the age of fifty are not affected, regardless of sex. As a form of aid for those who can not find work, President Clinton proposed that those who can demonstrate that they are looking for work may continue to receive benefits. Because of the shortage of jobs for low-income workers, some areas contend that they should be excluded from the requirement. The public assistance program has long been viewed as the nation's most basic safety net. Clinton proposed that $280 million in federal funds, which would normally be disbursed through public assistance would now be used to help states create work programs, also known as work fare. In exchange for work and hard labor, food stamps would be used as a stipend. The necessity for such cutbacks in the public assistance program are due to the fact that an estimated 20% of recipients are abusing their right for help. Personally, I feel that this is a very good proposal for reducing the number of individuals abusing the system. I also feel that this plan is going to hinder the ability for many Americans to survive. My personal fear is that welfare reform, though great in many aspects, will in the end prove to be unfortunate for the many people who are dependant on its existence.

Source(s):1. Goldman, Berry & Janda, Challenge of Democracy, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, MA. 1997 2. Vobedja, Havemann, Jeter & Loose, Cutoffs Start Today For Food Stamps, Washington Post, February 22, 1997 3.http://www.handsnet.org/handsnet2/welfare.reform/Articles/art.882832909.html