Miriam, yes that is the article I was talking about. As you can see the 96 law
added a work component. It did not eliminate the benefits. As I said before my
ex fulfilled her requirement with two days of volunteer work.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Miriam Vieni
Sent: Wednesday, June 1, 2016 9:24 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act
Frank,
This is just a superficial look at the welfare legislation that we were
discussing. It comes from Wikipedia where you can find more details.
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act From Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of
1996
Long title An Act To provide for reconciliation pursuant to section
201(a)(1) of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 1997
Acronyms (colloquial) PRWORA
Nicknames Welfare Reform
Enacted by the 104th United States Congress Citations
Public law Pub.L. 104-193 Statutes at Large
110 Stat. 2105 Legislative history . Introduced in the House as H.R. 3734
by John Kasich (R-OH) on June 27, 1996
. Committee consideration by House Budget, Senate Budget
. Passed the House on July 18, 1996 (256-170)
. Passed the Senate on July 23, 1996 (74-24, in lieu of S. 1956)
. Reported by the joint conference committee on July 30, 1996; agreed
to by the House on July 31, 1996 (328-101) and by the Senate on August 1,
1996 (78-21)
. Signed into law by President Bill Clinton on August 22, 1996 The
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996
(PRWORA) is a United States federal law considered to be a major welfare
reform. The bill was a cornerstone of the Republican Contract with America and
was introduced by Rep. E. Clay Shaw, Jr. (R-FL-22). President Bill Clinton
signed PRWORA into law on August 22, 1996, fulfilling his 1992 campaign promise
to "end welfare as we have come to know it".[1] PRWORA instituted Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which became effective July 1, 1997. TANF
replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program-which had
been in effect since 1935-and supplanted the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills
Training program (JOBS) of 1988. The law was heralded as a "reassertion of
America's work ethic" by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, largely in response to
the bill's workfare component. TANF was reauthorized in the Deficit Reduction
Act of 2005.
Provisions[edit]
This section possibly contains original research. Please improve it by
verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting
only of original research should be removed. (April 2010)
Overall decline in welfare monthly benefits (in 2006 dollars)[22] PRWORA
proposed TANF as AFDC's replacement. The Congressional findings in PRWORA
highlighted dependency, out-of-wedlock birth, and intergenerational poverty as
the main contributors to a faulty system.[23] In instituting a block grant
program, PRWORA granted states the ability to design their own systems, as long
as states met a set of basic federal requirements. The bill's primary
requirements and effects included the following:
. Ending welfare as an entitlement program;
. Requiring recipients to begin working after two years of receiving
benefits;
. Placing a lifetime limit of five years on benefits paid by federal
funds;
. Aiming to encourage two-parent families and discouraging
out-of-wedlock births;
. Enhancing enforcement of child support; and
. Requiring state professional and occupational licenses to be
withheld from illegal immigrants.[24]
In granting states wider latitude for designing their own programs, some states
have decided to place additional requirements on recipients. Although the law
placed a time limit for benefits supported by federal funds of no more than two
consecutive years and no more than a collective total of five years over a
lifetime, some states have enacted briefer limits. All states, however, allowed
exceptions to avoid punishing children because their parents have gone over
their respective time limits.[citation needed] Federal requirements have
ensured some measure of uniformity across states, but the block grant approach
has led individual states to distribute federal money in different ways.
Certain states more actively encourage education; others use the money to help
fund private enterprises helping job seekers.
The legislation also greatly limited funds available for unmarried parents
under 18 and restricted any funding to all immigrants.[3] Some state programs
emphasized a shift towards work with names such as "Wisconsin Works" and
"WorkFirst." Between 1997 and 2000, enormous numbers of the poor have left or
been terminated from the program, with a national drop of 53% in total
recipients.[25] According to the House Ways and Means Committee, "The major
goal of Public Law 104-193 is to reduce the length of welfare spells by
attacking dependency while simultaneously preserving the function of welfare as
a safety net for families experiencing temporary financial problems." A major
prong in this effort was to improve child support collection rates in an effort
to move single parent families off of the welfare rolls, and keep them off.
According to the Conference Report. "It is the sense of the Senate that - (a)
States should diligently continue their efforts to enforce child support
payments by the non-custodial parent to the custodial parent, regardless of the
employment status or location of the non-custodial parent".
The reformed child support program attacks this problem by pursuing five major
goals: automating many child support enforcement procedures; establishing
uniform tracking procedures; strengthening interstate child support
enforcement; requiring States to adopt stronger measures to establish
paternity; and creating new and stronger enforcement tools to increase actual
child support collections. The law envisions a child support system in which
all States have similar child support laws, all States share information
through the Federal child support office, mass processing of information is
routine, and interstate cases are handled expeditiously.
Section III (Child Support), Subtitle G (Enforcement of Child Support) contains
14 enforcement measures to improve the collection of child support, including
potential denial or revocation of passports. One provision required the State
Department to refuse or revoke passports for anyone who owed more than $5,000
in child support. Those provisions were upheld in Weinstein v. Albright (2001),
Eunique v Powell (2002), In re James K. Walker (2002), Dept of Revenue v
Nesbitt (2008), Risenhoover v. Washington (2008), Borracchini v. Jones (2009),
and Dewald v. United States (E.D. MI 2009).
In granting states wider latitude for designing their own programs, some states
have decided to place additional requirements on recipients. Although the law
placed a time limit for benefits supported by federal funds of no more than two
consecutive years and no more than a collective total of five years over a
lifetime, some states have enacted briefer limits. All states, however, allowed
exceptions to avoid punishing children because their parents have gone over
their respective time limits.[citation needed] Federal requirements have
ensured some measure of uniformity across states, but the block grant approach
has led individual states to distribute federal money in different ways.
Certain states more actively encourage education; others use the money to help
fund private enterprises helping job seekers.
The legislation also greatly limited funds available for unmarried parents
under 18 and restricted any funding to all immigrants.[3] Some state programs
emphasized a shift towards work with names such as "Wisconsin Works" and
"WorkFirst." Between 1997 and 2000, enormous numbers of the poor have left or
been terminated from the program, with a national drop of 53% in total
recipients.[25] According to the House Ways and Means Committee, "The major
goal of Public Law 104-193 is to reduce the length of welfare spells by
attacking dependency while simultaneously preserving the function of welfare as
a safety net for families experiencing temporary financial problems." A major
prong in this effort was to improve child support collection rates in an effort
to move single parent families off of the welfare rolls, and keep them off.
According to the Conference Report. "It is the sense of the Senate that - (a)
States should diligently continue their efforts to enforce child support
payments by the non-custodial parent to the custodial parent, regardless of the
employment status or location of the non-custodial parent".
The reformed child support program attacks this problem by pursuing five major
goals: automating many child support enforcement procedures; establishing
uniform tracking procedures; strengthening interstate child support
enforcement; requiring States to adopt stronger measures to establish
paternity; and creating new and stronger enforcement tools to increase actual
child support collections. The law envisions a child support system in which
all States have similar child support laws, all States share information
through the Federal child support office, mass processing of information is
routine, and interstate cases are handled expeditiously.
Section III (Child Support), Subtitle G (Enforcement of Child Support) contains
14 enforcement measures to improve the collection of child support, including
potential denial or revocation of passports. One provision required the State
Department to refuse or revoke passports for anyone who owed more than $5,000
in child support. Those provisions were upheld in Weinstein v. Albright (2001),
Eunique v Powell (2002), In re James K. Walker (2002), Dept of Revenue v
Nesbitt (2008), Risenhoover v. Washington (2008), Borracchini v. Jones (2009),
and Dewald v. United States (E.D. MI 2009).
