While enrollment in government safety-net programs like food stamps and unemployment compensation has soared in the United States since the start of the recession, participation in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families has remained relatively flat, Emily Badger reports at Miller-McCune. In 13 states, including Connecticut, enrollment in TANF–commonly referred to as welfare–actually declined between 2007 and 2010.
In past economic downturns, welfare enrollment increased along with unemployment, Badger says, citing a recent report by the Urban League. That’s changed since welfare reform was implemented in the mid-1990s: While unemployment nationally rose by 88 percent between 2007 and 2010, enrollment in TANF increased only 14 percent. (In Connecticut, according to the Urban League report, TANF caseload fell by 14 percent while unemployment climbed by 84 percent.)
In part, according to the Urban League report, that’s because single parents who went to work in the years after welfare reform now qualify for unemployment compensation if they lose their jobs. But it’s also because low benefits and tougher eligibility requirements in some states discourage participation in TANF: The proportion of families eligible for welfare benefits who enroll in the program has dropped from 80 percent in 1996, before the reforms were passed, to 40 percent in 2005.
Welfare reform’s focus was on getting people back employed, emphasizing that “work was the real way these families were going to be able to integrate into society and take care of themselves in the long term,” said Pamela Loprest, director of the Income and Benefits Policy Center with the Urban Institute. “But we lost sight of this other goal — being the last-resort income support program for those without money — and we couldn’t figure out how to make them coexist.”
