20 Years Since Pres. Clinton Shredded Welfare - 27:58
Twenty Years of Deepening Poverty Since Pres. Clinton Shredded Welfare
Safety Net
withFelicia
Kornbluh, Professor of History and Gender,
Sexuality,
and Women's Studies at the University of Vermont. Her books
include The Battle for Welfare Rights: Politics and Poverty in
Modern
America and Ensuring Poverty: Welfare Reform After
Twenty Years, (with
Gwendolyn Mink), forthcoming.
August 22 marks the beginning of "welfare
reform's" 20th year, signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996.
Kornbluh says: "Playing to a racist imagination and dealing in sexist double
standards, Republicans and Democrats came together 19 years ago to transform
income assistance for the poor into a system of regulation, deprivation and punishment. The legislation that established Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (“TANF”), made limiting women's choices and ending single
motherhood its goals. The nation's chief policy dedicated to impoverished
families with children did not include mitigating poverty, enhancing
opportunity, or attenuating inequality as its goals. As a result, while
welfare rolls have declined, poverty still stalks single mothers and their
children -- and extreme poverty is at crisis high levels. As we approach the
20th year of this disgraceful program, it is time to overhaul TANF
principles and practices to support the family work single mothers do and
open real pathways to economic security.
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