Hoover Institution - Policy Review - Wisconsin's Welfare Miracle

Hoover Institution - Policy Review - Wisconsin's Welfare Miracle: "Everyone wants -- or professes to want -- to 'end welfare as we know it.' Despite such lofty proclamations, welfare is still thriving. Last year, federal and state governments spent $411 billion on means-tested welfare programs that provide cash, food, housing, medical care, and social services to poor and low-income Americans. This greatly exceeded the $324 billion spent in 1993, the first year of the Clinton presidency.

At the core of America's vast, dysfunctional welfare system is Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). At present, nearly one out of seven children in the United States receives AFDC, residing with a mother married to a welfare check rather than a working husband. The typical family now on AFDC will spend nearly 13 years in the program.

'Ending welfare' must begin with reform of AFDC. Congress enacted major new legislation last summer that will start this process. The new law promises three major changes. First, it eliminates the entitlement system of AFDC funding, under which states that increased their AFDC caseloads received automatic increases in federal funding, while states that reduced dependence faced a fiscal penalty.

Second, the new law establishes performance standards that will require each state to reduce its AFDC caseload, or at least, if the caseload does not decline, require some recipients to work in return for their benefits.

Third, the law sets a new goal of reducing illegitimacy and will reward states that reduce out-of-wedlock births without increasing the number of abortions."