7.18.2006
How Welfare Reform Changed America (USATODAY.com)
By Richard Wolf, USA TODAY
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Michelle Gordon was 30, a poor, single mother with four kids between 5 and 13, when the federal government decided in 1996 that parents on welfare should go to work.
Since then, Gordon's life has been "a little bit of a roller coaster." She has held about 10 jobs — at a call center, as a nurse's aide, as a janitorial supervisor, most recently at a grocery store. She lost that job on April 19, her 40th birthday. It took her two months to find another. For 25 hours a week, she cleans bathrooms and vacuums floors at a drug rehabilitation center.
Mary Bradford was 45 in 1996, with three children between 11 and 25, when she traded welfare for a job filling orders at Victorian Trading Co. Ten years later, her office has moved from Missouri to Kansas, and she's still with the company. She's a production supervisor, and her earnings have more than doubled from the $7 an hour she made in 1996. "Most likely, I'll retire from here," Bradford says.
"She's reliable as the sun coming up," says Randy Rolston, the company's co-founder. "I can't think of a day she's missed."
The paths that Gordon and Bradford have traveled illustrate the successes and frustrations in the decade since the nation's welfare system was overhauled to require work and limit benefits.
The law signed by President Clinton on Aug. 22, 1996, has transformed the way the nation helps its neediest citizens. Gone is the promise of a government check for parents raising children in poverty. In its place are 50 state programs to help those parents get jobs.
In the 12 years since caseloads peaked at 5.1 million families in 1994, millions have left the welfare rolls for low-paying jobs. Nearly 1 million more have been kicked off for not following states' rules or have used up all the benefits they're allowed under time limits. Today, 1.9 million families get cash benefits; in one-third of them, only the children qualify for aid. About 38% of those still on welfare are black, 33% white and 24% Hispanic.
(More ... USATODAY.com - How welfare reform changed America) ¶ 19:54
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Michelle Gordon was 30, a poor, single mother with four kids between 5 and 13, when the federal government decided in 1996 that parents on welfare should go to work.
Since then, Gordon's life has been "a little bit of a roller coaster." She has held about 10 jobs — at a call center, as a nurse's aide, as a janitorial supervisor, most recently at a grocery store. She lost that job on April 19, her 40th birthday. It took her two months to find another. For 25 hours a week, she cleans bathrooms and vacuums floors at a drug rehabilitation center.
Mary Bradford was 45 in 1996, with three children between 11 and 25, when she traded welfare for a job filling orders at Victorian Trading Co. Ten years later, her office has moved from Missouri to Kansas, and she's still with the company. She's a production supervisor, and her earnings have more than doubled from the $7 an hour she made in 1996. "Most likely, I'll retire from here," Bradford says.
"She's reliable as the sun coming up," says Randy Rolston, the company's co-founder. "I can't think of a day she's missed."
The paths that Gordon and Bradford have traveled illustrate the successes and frustrations in the decade since the nation's welfare system was overhauled to require work and limit benefits.
The law signed by President Clinton on Aug. 22, 1996, has transformed the way the nation helps its neediest citizens. Gone is the promise of a government check for parents raising children in poverty. In its place are 50 state programs to help those parents get jobs.
In the 12 years since caseloads peaked at 5.1 million families in 1994, millions have left the welfare rolls for low-paying jobs. Nearly 1 million more have been kicked off for not following states' rules or have used up all the benefits they're allowed under time limits. Today, 1.9 million families get cash benefits; in one-third of them, only the children qualify for aid. About 38% of those still on welfare are black, 33% white and 24% Hispanic.
(More ... USATODAY.com - How welfare reform changed America) ¶ 19:54
