Abstract
Using a cohort of poor and near poor families captured in the 1996 Survey of Income and Program Participation, this dissertation investigates the factors that explain different outcomes for these families that were being challenged to reduce their reliance on public sources of income through increased work participation and to utilize more private income sources for their basic needs. Under PRWORA poor families were also given incentives to get married and to refrain from having children outside of marriage. This provision ignored the fact that many of the poor families were doing just that and still had difficulties in making ends meet without public assistance. By looking at changes in the degree to which families rely on a combination of income from public assistance programs, work and assistance from their family and friends just before PRWORA was enacted and four years later, this study also demonstrates the need for a different prioritization for policy development and funding allocation to deal with barriers that families will continue to face as they attempt to become self-sufficient, working members of society who are responsible for their children.
This study recognizes that the true challenge to any social policy in a country as diverse as the U.S. is recognizing that the way(s) its citizens experience social problems, such as poverty, are as varied and challenging as any puzzle. PRWORA faced many of the same challenges as previous welfare reform efforts. One challenge was clearly trying to define and, in this case, limit the role of the federal government in supporting poor women and their families. The challenge that I address in my dissertation, however, focuses more on how the characteristics of poor adults, (e.g. race/ethnicity, age, region of the country, education level, marital status, and the age and number of children they are raising) influences the way that families experience poverty and how their lives may have changed as a result of PRWORA’s implementation in 1996.
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