The political and ideological foundations of welfare reform

In 1996, welfare policy in the United States was fundamentally reformed. The Aid to Families with Dependent Children program (AFDC) which had been in existence for over sixty years was eliminated and replaced with a new block grant, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). This dissertation addresses the political and ideological origins of the welfare reform as well as the theoretical implications of the new welfare rules.;I first address the major myths about welfare and analyze the core beliefs shaping Americans' thinking about poverty and welfare. I argue that racist, classist, and sexist beliefs have shaped welfare policy historically and were reinforced in the most recent welfare reform. I find that welfare rules often reflect false assumptions about recipients' situations and motivations, rather than a realistic understanding of the complexities of life in poverty.;A logit analysis of Senators' welfare reform votes reveals that although Senate voting on welfare reform reflected re-election concerns, those re-election interests themselves were shaped by beliefs about poverty and welfare. The analysis demonstrates further that although several ideologies were present in the welfare reform debate, the ideology of the conservative religious right dominated the policy outcome.;I continue with an evaluation and comparison of the individual states' welfare policies. Using multiple regression analysis, I attempt to explain why states designed welfare programs with their particular degrees of restrictiveness, generosity, and endurance. I find that the variable most dominant in explaining both restrictiveness and generosity is the racial composition of the state population. The more African Americans there are in a state, the more restrictive and less generous are the welfare rules.;In the end, then, I demonstrate that peoples' beliefs about who is poor and why are translated into concrete policies that have real-life ramifications for welfare recipients and others. I conclude the dissertation with a review of recent research into some of the consequences of the 1996 welfare reform.