SW 525 Final policy paper intent of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opport

SW 525 Final policy paper Name Institution Page Break SW 525 Final policy paper The Intent of The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act Of 1996 President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 into law on August 22, and part of its intentions was to stimulate the formulation of innovative welfare initiatives at the state and local levels. The legislation played a critical role in eradicating stringent federal guidelines on how cash welfare programs were implemented in the country. It created a programmatic environment characterized by significant freedom to assist the local offices in helping individuals who shifted from welfare to work within short periods (Larrison et al., 2005). Overall, the law intended to convert the nation’s welfare system into one where people were required to work for time-related help or support. Overall, the PRWORA of 1996 aimed at reforming the US social care system through the implementation of specific initiatives such as the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) which achieved significant success in reducing the number of families on social welfare in the country by more than 60%. According to the final policy document, the legislation was founded on four distinct objectives. First, the aims of the legislators at the time of enacting the law included the provision of support to the needy families in the country in a bid to ensure that children received appropriate care within the confines of their homes or those of their relatives. It also aimed at the tendency of needy parents to depend on government benefits through the promotion of job preparation, work, and marriage. The legislative milestone also aimed at preventing or reducing cases of out-of-wedlock pregnancies while encouraging the establishment and maintenance of two-parent families (Poterba, 2000). The objectives of the law were primarily based on the fact that the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program had become an extremely costly affair for the American government at the time. The program was also viewed as an ineffective tool for confronting the persistence of poverty among low-income earners. Also, part of the law’s intent was to ensure that the low-income earners sought employment rather than being overly dependent on benefits payments by the government (Allard, 2007). On the other hand, the law aimed at breaking the country’s poverty cycle by ensuring that all individuals sought active employment. In a bid to end welfare, President Clinton sought to delegate the control of welfare policy to the state governments through the federal block grant. The initiative, therefore, aimed at compelling individuals to work by denying TANF benefits to an adult for more than sixty months during their lifetime. Therefore, it left individuals with no other options rather than seeking paid employment; thus, confronting the poverty cycle. PRWORA also aimed at transforming the federal child-care policy in the US in various critical ways, as evidenced by the fact that it increased federal funding for child care in the country (Poterba, 2000). While the legislation aimed at streamlining the administration of child-care programs, it empowered states to decide independently on the eligible low-income earners for such support. The milestone would serve as a great success in reducing the government’s caseload as American families would be compelled to be less reliant on government welfare services for survival. State governments would contribute positively to the identification of the genuinely needy individuals to receive such child-care benefits; thus, compelling the rest to seek employment actively. Overall, the country’s Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 was centered on the need to transform the American social welfare system in a bid to break the nation’s poverty cycle as well as minimize its burden as a result of social welfare caseload of middle-income households. It aimed at eliminating such social welfare initiatives such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children and replace them with more stringent policies such as state-administered block grants. By shifting the administration of welfare benefits to the states, the government aimed at achieving substantial transparency and accountability in the administration of welfare payments by ensuring that only the needy families received such payments (McFayden, 2008). As such, the ...

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