Welfare Reform That Works?

"New Jersey's Experiment in Welfare Reform" by Ted G. Goertzel and Gary S. Young, in The Public Interest (Fall 1996), 1112 16th St. N.W., Ste. 530, Washington, D.C. 20036.

New Jersey's controversial welfare reform plan--enacted in 1992 over strenuous protests--has worked, contend sociologists Goertzel, of Rutgers University, and Young, of the Community College of Philadelphia. The "message" it sent to people in the state's inner cities was received, the "culture" there has changed--and declining birthrates, as well as reduced welfare dependency, are the proof.

The plan's most controversial part was its "family cap" provision, which denies an additional cash benefit to an unmarried woman who has another child while receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) payments. The National Organization for Women called it "an impermissible attempt to intrude on the private lifestyle choices of poor women." But Assemblyman (now Senator) Wayne Bryant, an African-American liberal Democrat from Camden and the architect of the reform plan, wanted, the authors say, "to send welfare recipients the message that welfare must be temporary, not a way oflife." Other ele- ments of the plan included a requirement that recipients meet with social workers to formulate a "family plan" to improve their situation through education, work experience, or mar- riage, and an increase in the amount of school- ing and child care offered to the women.

Bryant's message got through, Goertzel and Young contend. Between 1992 and '94, births to AF'DC mothers in the state fell by four per- cent-twice the rate of decline among all New Jersey women. In 10 New Jersey cities where the "welfare culture" is strongest, births to women receiving AFDC dropped much more, by an average of about nine percent. In the largest city, Newark, where half of the children belong to families receiving AF'DC benefits, births to AFDC mothers fell 10 percent; in Camden, such births plummeted by 21 per- cent. State officials, meanwhile, have found no increase in abortions.

Ironically, the authors point out, the wel- fare advocates' attacks apparently helped to get the message of change across even before the reforms were fully implemented. Many inner-city women probably saw the reform package as more punitive than it really was. Governor Christine Todd Whitman's subse- quent proposal for a strict five-year lifetime limit on AFDC benefits, as well as the recent federal action ending AFDC as an entitle- ment, have also undoubtedly had an impact. "Women are no longer certain that AFDC will be there to support them," conclude the authors, and this has been affecting their decisions.