: Government Matters

University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher, except for reading and browsing via the World Wide Web. Users are not permitted to mount this file on any network servers. Introduction IN THE MID–1980S, welfare was in chronic crisis in Wisconsin, as in much of America. " Welfare " here means the controversial aid program for needy families once called Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and now named Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The welfare rolls in Wisconsin reached 100,000 families and 300,000 people in 1986—in a population of only 5 million. The state, like the nation, had struggled with rising welfare dependency since the 1960s, and no solution seemed in sight. But in little more than a decade, the situation was transformed. The Badger State became home to the most radical welfare reform in the nation. Welfare in its traditional form was virtually abolished. The vast majority of recipients were driven off the rolls, mostly into jobs, while those who remain must work at some level to get any cash aid. At the same time, unprecedented new benefits were offered to the entire low-income working population. This revolution transformed the welfare state and the lives of many former recipients, mostly for good. I ask two questions in this book. First, what did Wisconsin do? I show in some detail how the Wisconsin reform developed. Starting in 1986, the state instituted a series of experimental programs in welfare. Most of them stiffened requirements that adult recipients work in return for aid. The changes culminated in the radical Wisconsin Works (W-2), a new aid system implemented in 1997. The effects of the reforms seem remarkably positive. Not only did dependency plummet, but work levels among low-income adults soared while poverty fell. Many former recipients remain poor, but incomes are rising. After a generation of defeatism about uplifting the inner city, Wisconsin exemplifies a new and more promising antipoverty policy. The solution to poverty is no longer seen as doing more or less for the poor, the traditional debate among liberals and conservatives. Rather, it requires restructuring welfare so as to promote recovery from poverty. That means supporting families and helping needy adults work and stay in school. But it …