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Committee on Ways and Means
Subcommittee on Human Resources
For Immediate Release
Contact: Press Office 202-225-8933
April 16, 2002
Columbia Teachers’ College Issues Report
Showing No Negative Impacts and Some Positive Impacts on Children
After Welfare Reform
Even liberal academics cannot find evidence that welfare reform
has had negative impacts on child well-being. On the contrary,
they have found consistently, in the New Lives study released
today and in others, that there are mostly no significant
differences and some positive impacts on child well-being after
welfare reform.
The New Lives study shows that employment and earnings have gone
up for families leaving welfare, but that mothers were no less
likely to read to their children, set regular meal times, or
be affectionate.
The New Lives study calls this a failure, because apparently
there was an expectation that two years after moving from welfare
to work, poor parenting behaviors that have been handed down from
one generation to the next would magically disappear. This is
hardly a realistic expectation.
Nearly three million children have left poverty since welfare
reform. That is a huge improvement in children’s lives.
Employment and earnings have increased significantly, and there
have been no negative impacts on child well-being and some
positive impacts.
The message of this study and similar studies - that certain
outcomes have not improved in the short time since welfare reform
or have improved only slightly -- is not the same as saying that
those situations have gotten worse. They haven’t. Especially
considering the gloom and doom predicted in 1996 for children’s
well-being, this not much of a story.
Over time, and with changes proposed by the President’s
welfare reauthorization plan that stress promoting child
well-being under the TANF program, we expect more improvements in
the future.
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