The Evolution of the Work Issue in Welfare Reform

Abstract

Concern with the work effort of low-income families — and the effect on that work effort of public cash assistance — has been a dominant force in shaping the existing welfare system and thirty years of efforts to reform and improve that system. In the past ten years, this concern has led to a radical change in the policy approach to welfare reform: from an emphasis on raising and extending cash welfare benefits while attempting to minimize work disincentives, to an emphasis on an integrated approach that would actively facilitate the employment of low-income family heads through job-search assistance and creation (on a very large scale) of public service employment opportunities, while providing a “safety net” of cash assistance for all families. In this paper, we describe the (initially independent) historical streams of policy development in cash assistance and employment and training programs that have now come together to produce this shift in welfare policy; analyze the difficult policy trade-offs that underlie the new approach; and discuss the still-unresolved questions and issues that will determine whether the new approach will succeed or fail.