Monday, October 04, 2004
Welfare Reform: Off the Rolls and Still Poor
A recent article in the WP spotlights the central truth of welfare reform. It worked to move people off of welfare but failed to move former recipients out of poverty. The WP notes:
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Though the number of welfare recipients continues to decline, poverty rates -- particularly for single mothers and children -- have surged in recent years. Just last month, the government reported that the number of people on welfare had declined by 149,000 at the end of 2003 compared with 2002, while the number in poverty rose by 1.3 million. Those divergent trends offer fresh ammunition to both sides in the debate over whether, eight years after the fact, welfare reform is working.
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