Work Requirements and the Lost Lessons of 1996

The left fought to stop welfare reform and failed. Now they want us to forget the law’s success. But Robert Doar remembers.

By Kate Bachelder Odell of The WSJ. She interviews Robert Doar of the American Enterprise Institute. Excerpts:

"In New York City, around the time of welfare reform in 1996, Mr. Doar says, “the number of men, women and children on cash welfare was 1.1 million, in a city of less than eight million.” Yet “over a long period of time, in multiple administrations,” that figure plummeted to about 360,000, even as the city’s population grew. How? By “applying a consistent policy focused on work.”

New York “transformed a system that was entirely focused on signing people up for benefits and enrolling them, and helping them become dependent on government aid and not work, to a system that wanted to help them get into work.” Offices called “income maintenance centers” were recast as “job centers,” and “eligibility workers” restyled as “job opportunity specialists.”

“We sent notices to people who didn’t comply with certain requirements that their benefits were at risk, and they complied by going to work,” Mr. Doar says. This wasn’t a harsh order to report to the salt mines. Government provided daycare for families with preschool children.

“The labor-force participation rate in New York City and around the country went from roughly 50% or less for never-married single mothers to roughly 65% or 70%,” Mr. Doar says. “That is enormous change in behavior. That was good. It gave them the dignity of work. It gave them structure and a schedule. It gave them earnings.”

Some of his AEI colleagues have found in research that, since the 1996 welfare reform, poverty in single-parent households has dropped by more than 60%. Yet the “focus on work has been eroded,” Mr. Doar says. The current debate in Washington doesn’t even involve parents, notwithstanding the evidence that they and their children are better off when someone in the house is working.

Take food stamps, whose work rules were adjusted by Congress’s debt-ceiling bill. In theory, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program already requires adults without kids at home to work or train for 20 hours a week: Hold down a part-time job or benefits expire in three months. It doesn’t apply to those with disabilities, among other exemptions.

Yet these requirements are nonexistent in practice. States can exempt a percentage of beneficiaries right off the bat. They can then apply for waivers based on dubious data suggesting that jobs are hard to find—and these waivers are in effect even as a labor shortage leaves employers desperate for more workers."

"States have little incentive to behave differently. SNAP “is 100% federal money,” Mr. Doar notes. States are enrolling residents, “sucking down the federal money” and funneling it to local grocery stores."

"One rejoinder from the left is that those on food stamps are working. “Many, many people do have earnings and receive these benefits,” Mr. Doar acknowledges. But then why fight a requirement? “Whenever anybody says, ‘These individuals you’re trying to impose this work requirement on—they’re working two jobs,’ I want to say, ‘Well, if they’re working two jobs, then they’re not going to be affected by these changes.’ ”"

"AEI research published last month looked at able-bodied adults 18 to 49 without children at home. Only about one-quarter worked while receiving food stamps, and the low figure couldn’t be explained away by caring for relatives or other such obligations."

"Mr. Doar argues that work requirements aren’t about “savings” anyway, but “helping people get to a healthier, stronger, more positive life” even if they still need government benefits while they work."

"new carve-outs from work for veterans and the homeless. “That was a mistake,” Mr. Doar says."

"As for veterans, they are often caricatured as traumatized or incapacitated—a stereotype perpetrated by endless movies about deranged Vietnam vets. Most veterans are more capable, not less, for their years in uniform."

"Even the bill’s limited work provisions were a tough sell for President Biden, although he voted for welfare reform as a senator in 1996."

"unconditional money can leave children stuck in suffering far beyond what a check can heal—such as a parent with untreated mental illness or addiction. “Sending a check from Washington with no human connection” allows struggling families “to remain in the shadows,” Mr. Doar says, or in “houses with the curtains drawn.”"

"progressive resistance to work reflects a dim view of low-income Americans: “They’re saying that those seeking assistance aren’t capable of working, aren’t capable of stepping up and fulfilling some form of responsibility and moving toward self-sufficiency. And what we found in welfare reform is—actually, they are capable. And when you ask these families to make some commitment to employment,” then “they’ll do it. And they can do it.”"

"“The sad part of the popular impression is that the official poverty measure doesn’t count all the benefits we provide,” Mr. Doar says. A 2019 paper by economist Bruce Meyer of AEI and the University of Chicago and James Sullivan of Notre Dame found that taking better account of benefits and increased consumption power reduced poverty from the official rate of about 12%—barely changed since the 1970s—to less than 3%."