Graduate Program

Political Science

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Semester of Degree Completion

2007

Thesis Director

Melinda Mueller

Thesis Committee Member

Jeff Ashley

Thesis Committee Member

Barbara Poole

Abstract

In 1996, the Republican-lead 104th Congress passed into law the most sweeping welfare reforms the United States had experienced in 60 years. The legislation, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, ended the decades-old Aid to Families with Dependent Children welfare and instituted the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families system. The new system ended entitlements, cut benefits to legal immigrants, set a two-year time limit for people to receive welfare benefits without working, and a five-year lifetime limit. In Illinois, the time limits for receiving cash benefits cut thousands of people off of the welfare rolls in the years following the passage of the new law, fulfilling politicians' promises of fewer people on government assistance.

However, now 11 years since the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, are Illinois families any better off than before? The idea of welfare reform has provided plenty of rhetoric for legislators to spout in reelection speeches, but it has failed the population it is intended to assist. Families living in poverty in Illinois have been pushed off the welfare rolls and shepherded into low-paying jobs that fail to lift them out of the depths of poverty.

This paper will consider how successful Illinois families have been in moving out of poverty after meeting their time limits for welfare benefits and being forced out of the system. Through interviews with Illinois Department of Health and Human Services agency caseworkers who oversee the dispersal of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits throughout the state, the author ascertains why the current system has failed to prepare welfare recipients for the job market and what barriers exist to their success in moving out of poverty. The author found through these interviews that TANF recipients still face significant barriers to self-sufficiency, including a lack of life skills and selfesteem, limited access to transportation, and unreliable child care during evening or weekend hours. One of the most pressing concerns with TANF the author found was that the TANF clients lacked the necessary education for a well-paying job, but the welfare program did not emphasize a need for the clients to receive that education, favoring instead a work-first approach.

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