Fewer People On Welfare
An under appreciated accomplishment of the past five years has been the continued reduction in the number of people on welfare.
The welfare caseload, after declining dramatically in the first four years after Welfare Reform was enacted, might have been expected to level off, or even rise slightly with overall population growth, after the initial impact of the 1996 law wore off.
After all, the reduction in the number of welfare recipients during the 1990s was stunning. From a peak of over 14 million in 1994, and over 12 million at the end of 1996 (over 4.5 million families) when the new took effect, the number of those receiving welfare came tumbling down to about 5.5 million by the end of 2000 — a decline of nearly 2 million per year.
Wow that’s certainly an impressive record for the welfare reform that Bill Clinton vetoed twice before he finally signed it. What I thought was very interesting was the trend in the last five years. I made this little chart to give you a visual to see the trend:
To hear the Democrats in the media talk our economy is in the dumps. But how can that be true? Unemployment is at a low 4.7% The Democrats say that’s because people have given up looking for work. But if that were the case then you’d expect a rise in unemployment claims.
What we are seeing in fact is that people are not on unemployment. People are not on welfare. The only conclusion is that more people are working. I can’t imagine a better explanation why we have been seeing such good economic numbers in the last few years.
By the way that Newsbusters page I linked to has lots of great links to learn about welfare caseloads. Tags: Uncategorized
