Mead 1
Introduction
In the last decade, the United States carried out the most radical reform of welfare in the
history of the program. “Welfare” here means Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the
controversial family aid program that defied fundamental change for decades. But in 1996, the
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) renamed AFDC
Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), ended entitlement (the legal right of all eligibles
to receive aid), limited families to five years on the rolls, sharply raised work requirements, and
devolved more control of the program to localities. Starting in 1994, the rolls fell by over 60
percent, driven by the new work tests, as well as a good economy and new wage and child care
subsidies. Work levels among poor single mothers soared and poverty rates fell, albeit less sharply.
Reauthorization of TANF is currently stalemated in Congress, but little change in current policy
appears likely.
This study offers the first in-depth analysis of the Congressional politics behind the welfare
revolution. I show over three decades and in detail the shifts in the welfare controversy that shaped
the outcome. To my knowledge, this also is the first research to trace the intellectual basis of any
dispute in Congress over time.
Past Research
Past studies of the politics of PRWORA are journalistic. They attribute the reform mostly to
Bill Clinton’s promise to “end welfare as we know it” when he ran for president in 1992 and to the
Republican takeover of Congress in 1994. In PRWORA, the GOP proposed to cut access to family
aid and devolve greater control to the states, and Clinton reluctantly agreed.
Such accounts are true
1
Lawrence Mead, “Welfare Reform: Meaning and Effects,” Policy Currents 11, no. 2 (Summer 2001):
7-13; Rebecca M. Blank and Ron Haskins, eds., The New World of Welfare: An Agenda for Reauthorization
and Beyond (Washington, DC: Brookings, 2001).
2
R. Kent Weaver, Ending Welfare as We Know It (Washington, DC: Brookings, 2000); Jason DeParle,
American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and the Nation’s Drive to End Welfare (New York: Viking,
2004).
Convention