PHOENIX - Perhaps no law in the past generation has drawn more praise than the drive to “end welfare as we know it,’’ which joined the late-’90s economic boom to send caseloads plunging, employment rates rising, and officials of both parties hailing the virtues of tough love.
But the distress of the past four years has added a cautionary postscript: Much as overlooked critics of the restrictions once warned, a program that built its reputation when times were good offered little help when jobs disappeared. Despite the worst economy in decades, the cash welfare rolls have barely budged.
Faced with flat federal financing and rising need, Arizona is one of 16 states that have cut their welfare caseloads further since the start of the recession - in its case, by half. Even as it turned away the needy, Arizona spent most of its federal welfare dollars on other programs, using permissive rules to plug state budget gaps.
The poor people who were dropped from cash assistance here, mostly single mothers, talk with surprising openness about the desperate, and sometimes illegal, ways they make ends meet. They have sold food stamps and blood, skipped meals, shoplifted, doubled up with friends, scavenged trash bins for bottles and cans, and returned to relationships with violent partners - all with children in tow.
Esmeralda Murillo, a 21-year-old mother of two, lost her welfare check, landed in a shelter, and then returned to a boyfriend whose violent temper had driven her away. “You don’t know who to turn to,’’ she said.
Maria Thomas, 29, with four daughters, helps friends sell piles of brand-name clothes, taking pains not to ask whether they are stolen. “I don’t know where they come from,’’ she said. “I’m just helping get rid of them.’’
To keep her lights on, Rosa Pena, 24, sold the groceries she bought with food stamps and then kept her children fed with school lunches and help from neighbors. Her post-welfare credo is widely shared: “I’ll do what I have to do.’’
Critics of the stringent system say stories like these vindicate warnings they made in 1996 when President Clinton fulfilled his pledge to “end welfare as we know it’’: The revamped law encourages states to withhold aid, especially when the economy turns bad.
The old program Aid to Families with Dependent Children dates from the New Deal; it gave states unlimited matching funds and offered poor families extensive rights, with few requirements and no time limits. The new program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, created time limits and work rules, capped federal spending, and allowed states to turn poor families away.
“My take on it was the states would push people off and not let them back on, and that’s just what they did,’’ said Peter B. Edelman, a law professor at Georgetown University who resigned from the Clinton administration to protest the law. “It’s been even worse than I thought it would be.’’
But supporters of the current system often say lower caseloads are evidence of decreased dependency. Many leading Republicans are pushing for similar changes to much larger programs, like Medicaid and food stamps.
Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the top House Republican on budget issues, calls the current welfare program “an unprecedented success.’’ Mitt Romney, who leads the race for the Republican presidential nomination, has said he would place similar restrictions on “all these federal programs.’’ One of his rivals, Rick Santorum, calls the welfare law a source of spiritual rejuvenation.
“It didn’t just cut the rolls, but it saved lives,’’ Santorum said, giving the poor “something dependency doesn’t give: hope.’’
President Obama spoke favorably of the program in his 2008 campaign - promoting his role as a state legislator in cutting the Illinois welfare rolls. But he has said little about it as president.
Even in the 1996 program’s early days, when jobs were plentiful, a subset of families appeared disconnected - left with neither welfare nor work. Their numbers were growing before the recession and seem to have surged since then.