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.7 differ from thosein Tables 1.2 and 1.5 both because the samples differ and because Table 1.7presents means across individuals rather than means across periods of time.SeeChapters 2 and 3.17.In the discussion here,  total or  cumulative earnings on a job refers to the sumof earnings for as long as the job lasts, up to eight quarters.Fewer than 1 in 10jobs last longer than eight quarters.Earnings are adjusted for inflation and arereported in 1999:4 dollars.18.Estimated total earnings on a job reported in Figure 1.1 are based on wage re-cords from a subset of major industries.Relative earnings for all major industriesare presented in Table 5.7 in Chapter 5.2State and City Welfare andEmployment Policies in the 1990sInteraction between state and federal initiatives characterized thewelfare reforms of the 1990s.In one sense, the states were the centerfor reform, since they took on responsibility for designing new welfareprograms under federal waivers and then for implementing comprehen-sive federal legislation.Yet, to view each state program in terms of itsspecific provisions fails to recognize the extent to which they reflectedsimilar underlying goals and conceptions.Every state program explic-itly focused efforts on moving recipients into employment, requiringtraining or some form of labor market participation, and providing sup-port services such as transportation and child care.Cash payments wereviewed as providing only a temporary and explicitly inferior alternativeto employment.In each case, the state programs represented substantialdepartures from the structures the policies, programs, and servicesthat had characterized AFDC for nearly six decades.Of course, the reform structures ultimately adopted by states wereresponsive to federal requirements under PRWORA, which specifiedcaseload reduction and employment goals, as well as clear time limitsfor receiving cash assistance.But this alone cannot explain the simi-larity in programs, since on most dimensions PRWORA s constraintswere not binding.The reformed state programs almost universally re-flected a belief that a new employment-based approach to providing aidto single parents was necessary.The ideas that drove welfare reformwere in large part developed as part of a discussion that swept acrossthe country in the late 1980s and early 1990s.We begin by considering welfare reform at the national level, focus-ing on the growing debate and the role of the Clinton administration insetting the agenda.We discuss the principal federal legislative bench-marks during the 1990s, tracing their effects in state policies.We thenprovide a selective overview of the literature on the impacts of welfarereform, considering both studies that trace state policy and those focus-ing on impacts on individuals and families.2324 King and MueserWe then turn to the six sites that are the focus of our study.Weexamine welfare policies at these sites, showing how states chose dis-parate paths in attempts to achieve quite similar goals.Next, we turn toan examination of program participation and employment data at eachof the sites, identifying the effects of welfare reform in the patterns weobserve.Building on the previous chapter, which focused on nationaltrends, we provide more detailed analysis of each site, in part under-scoring the similarities across sites, but also showing how patterns dif-fer as a function of local reforms.WELFARE REFORM: SETTING THE AGENDA AT THENATIONAL LEVELWhen policymakers and others talk of  welfare reform, they gen-erally are referring to the much-touted Personal Responsibility andWork Opportunity Reconciliation Act that was signed into law by Pres-ident Bill Clinton in August 1996.But, PRWORA was not the onlynational action taken in the continuing effort to reform welfare.De-spite the administration s failure to effectively package and sell an in-tegrated welfare reform package to Congress, reform legislation thatultimately passed together with related program expansions in thisperiod largely embodied the four principles that the Clinton admin-istration had established: 1) make work pay, 2) establish time limits forcash assistance, 3) strengthen child support enforcement, and 4) fightteen pregnancy (see Ellwood 1996).Federal legislation throughout the1990s lent support to the act and its goal of reducing dependence onwelfare.These actions are highlighted in Table 2.1.Making Work PayKey steps taken to  make work pay included an increase in thefederal minimum wage in 1996, as well as major expansions of Medic-aid coverage, federal funding for child care, and the federal EITC.Con-gress enacted an increase in the federal minimum wage from $4.35 to$5.15 per hour in no small part to ensure that low-skilled single mothersleaving welfare would be able to earn an amount that would put themcloser to self-sufficiency.1 Corbett (2001, p.3) points out that the realState and City Welfare and Employment Policies in the 1990s 25Table 2.1 Decade of Welfare Reforms: A Chronology1990 States are required to enact JOBS employment trainingprograms in response to federal legislation passed in 1988(phase-in continues for several years).Child Care and Development Block Grant created.Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act expands Medicaidcoverage to include pregnant women, infants to age one, andchildren to age six [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]