For Better and for Worse: Welfare Reform and the Well-Being of Children and Families

by Mrs Betty N Powell (Editor), Lindsay P Chase-Lansdale (Editor)

Overview

The 1996 welfare reform bill marked the beginning of a new era in public assistance. Although the new law has reduced welfare rolls, falling caseloads do not necessarily mean a better standard of living for families. In For Better and For Worse, editors Greg J. Duncan and P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale and a roster of distinguished experts examine the evidence and evaluate whether welfare reform has met one of its chief goals-improving the well-being of the nation's poor children.

For Better and For Worse opens with a lively political history of the welfare reform legislation, which demonstrates how conservative politicians capitalize on public concern over such social problems as single parenthood to win support for the radical reforms. Part I reviews how individual states redesigned, implemented, and are managing their welfare systems. These chapters show that most states appear to view maternal employment, rather that income enhancement and marriage, as key to improving child well-being. Part II focuses on national and multistate evaluations of the changes in welfare to examine how families and children are actually faring under the new system. These chapters suggest that work-focused reforms have not hurt children, and that reforms that provide financial support for working families can actually enhance children's development. Part III presents a variety of perspectives on policy options for the future. Remarkable here is the common ground for both liberals and conservatives on the need to support work and at the same time strengthen safety-net programs such as Food Stamps.

Although welfare reform-along with the Earned Income Tax Credit and the booming economy of the nineties-has helped bring mothers into the labor force and some children out of poverty, the nation still faces daunting challenges in helping single parents become permanent members of the workforce. For Better and For Worse gathers the most recent data on the effects of welfare reform in one timely volume focused on improving the life chances of poor children.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780871542632
Publisher:	Russell Sage Foundation
Publication date:	11/24/2004
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	6.60(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

GREG J. DUNCAN is professor of economics in the School of Education and Social Policy and a faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University.

P. LINDSAY CHASE-LANSDALE is professor of developmental psychology in the School of Education and Social Policy and a faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University.

CONTRIBUTORS: P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, Greg J. Duncan, David M. Casey, Danielle A. Crosby, Sandra K. Danziger, Kristina Daugirdas, Rachel E. Dunifon, Kathryn Edin, Paula England, Nancy Folbre, Thomas L. Gais, Ron Haskins, Ann E. Horvath-Rose, Aletha C. Huston, Cathy M. Johnson, Ariel Kalil, Andrew S. London, Joan Maya Mazelis, Rashmita S. Mistry, Kristin Anderson Moore, H. Elizabeth Peters, Wendell Primus, Marika N. Ripke, Jennifer L. Romich, Ellen K. Scott, Jack Tweedie, Morgan B. Ward Doran, Alan Weil, Thomas S. Weisner, and W. Jean Young.

Table of Contents

	Contributors	vii
Part I	Introduction and Policy Context
Chapter 1	For Better and for Worse: Welfare Reform and the Well-Being of Children and Families	3
Chapter 2	Liberal and Conservative Influences on the Welfare Reform Legislation of 1996	9
Part II	What States are Thinking and Doing
Chapter 3	Welfare Reform, Management Systems, and Policy Theories of Child Well-Being	37
Chapter 4	How Do State Policymakers Think About Family Processes and Child Development in Low-Income Families?	53
Chapter 5	Program Redesign by States in the Wake of Welfare Reform: Making Sense of the Effects of Devolution	63
Chapter 6	Sanctions and Exits: What States Know About Families that Leave Welfare Because of Sanctions and Time Limits	81
Part III	How Families and Children are Faring
Chapter 7	How Different are Welfare and Working Families? And Do These Differences Matter for Children's Achievement?	103
Chapter 8	My Children Come First: Welfare-Reliant Women's Post-Tanf Views of Work-Family Trade-Offs and Marriage	132
Chapter 9	Does Maternal Employment Mandated by Welfare Reform Affect Children's Behavior?	154
Chapter 10	Lessons from New Hope: The Impact on Children's Well-Being of a Work-Based Antipoverty Program for Parents	179
Chapter 11	How Families View and Use Lump-Sum Payments from the Earned Income Tax Credit	201
Chapter 12	Welfare Waivers and Nonmarital Childbearing	222
Part IV	Policy Approaches and Options for the Future
Chapter 13	Reducing Child Poverty by Improving the Work-Based Safety Net	247
Chapter 14	Effects of Welfare Reform at Four Years	264
Chapter 15	Reforming the Social Family Contract: Public Support for Child Rearing in the United States	290
Chapter 16	Lessons Learned	307
	Index	323