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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