What Is the Welfare Reform Act?
“Hi, this is Bill Scher will LiberalOasis.com. What is the Welfare Reform Act? Well, that that is the colloquial name for the 1996 bill that changed the anti-poverty program aid for families with dependent children and turned it into temporary assistance for needy families. The key change was that aid for families with dependent children was what is known as an entitlement program. If you met certain criteria, you had a low enough income and you had dependent children, you were entitled to certain benefits to ensure that you would not fall below the poverty line, would be able to take care of your family. The change in the program stripped away the entitlement nature of the program and made it a temporary program, temporary assistance for needy families put a time limit on how long you could access anti-poverty assistance when you had dependent children and that was a finite number regardless of when you accessed it. I believe it was a five year period. If you did it one year here and
