Welfare State Growing Despite Overhauls

Shannon Stanfield poses with her daughter Maddy, left, and her son John at her home in Clinton, N.Y., Sunday, Feb. 18, 2007. Stanfield is a former welfare recipient who was accepted into the Access Project, a program that offers a free college education to welfare-eligible parents in central New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Rivoli) (Kevin Rivoli - AP)

But other government programs grew, offsetting the declines.

About 44 million people _ nearly one in six in the country _ relied on government services for the poor in 2003, according to the most recent statistics compiled by the Census Bureau. That compares with about 39 million in 1996.

Also, the number of people getting government aid continues to increase, according to more recent enrollment figures from individual programs.

Medicaid rolls alone topped 45 million people in 2005, pushed up in part by rising health care costs and fewer employers offering benefits. Nearly 26 million people a month received food stamps that year.

Cash welfare recipients, by comparison, peaked at 14.2 million people in 1994.

There is much debate over whether those leaving welfare for work should be offered more opportunities for training and education, so they do not have to settle for low-paying jobs that keep them dependent on government programs.

"We said get a job, any job," said Rep. Jim McDermott, chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees welfare issues. "And now we expect them to be making it on these minimum-wage jobs."

McDermott, D-Wash., said stricter work requirements enacted last year, when Congress renewed the welfare overhaul law, will make it even more difficult for welfare recipients to get sufficient training to land good-paying jobs.

But people who support the welfare changes say former recipients often fare better economically if they start working, even in low-paying jobs, before entering education programs.

"What many people on TANF need first is the confidence that they can succeed in the workplace and to develop the habits of work," said Wade Horn, the Bush administration's point man on welfare overhaul.

"Also, many TANF recipients didn't have a lot of success in the classroom," Horn said. "If you want to improve the confidence of a TANF recipient, putting them in the classroom, where they failed in the past, that is not likely to increase their confidence."

Horn noted that employment among poor single mothers is up and child poverty rates are down since the welfare changes in 1996, though the numbers have worsened since the start of the decade.