Social Welfare Policy (Public Policy)

SW809, Section 001

In 1996, Congress passed and President Clinton signed a welfare reform bill that represents a sharp break with the past. This course analyzes the origins of the new law and its likely aftermath. The course will review social science and legal thinking about welfare programs and policies, emphasizing how they are influenced by and how they affect trends in the labor market and family structure.

The first half of the course focuses primarily on the period from 1936-1996. It analyzes the pre-1996 evolution of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program and other social welfare programs and policies that shaped the social safety net. Particular attention will be given to understanding trends in poverty and inequality, the origins and consequences of the War on Poverty, the Great Society, and a range of successful and unsuccessful welfare reform proposals--Nixon's Family Assistance Plan, Carter's Program for Better Jobs and Income, Reagan's workfare demonstration projects, and the Family Support Act of 1988. It concludes with President Clinton's 1992 promise to "End welfare as we know it" and the transformation of that promise into the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996.
The second half of the course considers the legacy of the new law. Particular attention is given to how the new law is being implemented and to its consequences for recipients. Are employers willing to hire welfare recipients? Are recipients finding and holding on to jobs? What are the consequences of the new law for welfare recipients, their children, the policy analysts and poverty lawyers performing in this new policy environment? Students will take an exam and prepare a policy research and analysis paper.

Course Codes