Title II: Supplemental Security Income Children
were deemed disabled and therefore eligible for
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) if they had a
medically determinable physical or mental impair-
ment resulting in marked and severe functional limi-
tations, expected to result in death or having lasted
or being expected to last for at least twelve months.
Maladaptive behavior was removed from the list of
medical impairment criteria.
Title III: Child Support States were required to oper-
ate a Child Support Enforcement Program. TANF
recipients were required to assign rights to child
support and cooperate with paternity establishment
records. A Federal Case Registry and National Direc-
tory of New Hires were established to track delin-
quent parents across state lines. Employers had to
report all new hires to state agencies, and new hire
information was to be transmitted to the National
Directory.
Title IV: Immigrants Most current and future legal
immigrants were ineligible for SSI until citizen-
ship. States were permitted to retain legal immi-
grants already enrolled in Medicaid, TANF block
grants, Title XX social services, and state-funded
assistance.
Title V: Child Protection PRWORA authorized
states to make foster care maintenance payments on
behalf of children in for-profit institutions and re-
quired states to consider giving preference for kin-
ship placements if relatives met state child protec-
tion standards.
Title VI: Child Care The law authorized $13.6 bil-
lion in mandatory funding for child care for fiscal
years 1997 to 2002. Single parents with children un-
der six years old who could not find child care were
not to be penalized for failure to engage in work ac-
tivities.
Title VII: Child Nutrition Programs Individuals eligi-
ble for free public education benefits under state or
local law were also eligible for school meal benefits
under the National School Lunch Act and the Child
Nutrition Act of 1966, regardless of citizenship or
immigrant status.
Title VIII: Food Stamps Most current and future le-
gal immigrants were ineligible for food stamps until
citizenship, except refugees and asylees for their
first five years in the United States, veterans, and
people with forty qualifying quarters of work. Non-
exempt eighteen- to fifty-year-olds without responsi-
bility for dependent children were ineligible to con-
tinue to receive food stamps after three months in a
thirty-six-month period unless they were working or
participating in workfare, work, or employment and
training programs.Title IX: Miscellaneous Nothing in the law prohib-
ited states from performing drug tests on recipi-
ents or from sanctioning recipients who test posi-
tive for controlled substances. Allocated funds
enabled states to provide abstinence education with
the option of targeting funds to high-risk groups
such as those most likely to bear children out of
wedlock.Impact Public assistance caseloads dramatically
dropped after the law was passed. From an average
of 4.1 million families per month in 1990 (7.9 mil-
lion children, 11.7 million total recipients), the
AFDC monthly caseload climbed to 4.8 million in
1995 (9.1 million children, 13.4 million total recipi-
ents). In 1999, the TANF average monthly caseload
was 2.6 million families (5.1 million children, 7.2 mil-
lion total recipients), a 45.8 percent decline in the
number of families (a 44 percent decline in the
number of children, and a 46.3 percent decline in
the number of total recipients). Such percentage
declines dwarfed the accompanying 5.4 percent
(0.8 million people) decline in the percent of peo-
ple in female-headed families whose pre-welfare in-
comes were below poverty between 1995 and 1997.
Further, the average disposable income of the poor-
est 20 percent of single mothers fell by 7.6 percent
between 1995 and 1997, while that of the poorest
10 percent fell by 15.2 percent.
The employment rates of unmarried single moth-
ers increased from 58.5 percent in March, 1994, to
62.9 percent in March, 1998, and economic well-
being increased with the extent of work involve-
ment, especially when other factors such as food
stamps and the earned-income tax credit are taken
into account. Child care and other work-related ex-
penses such as transportation and clothes offset part
of the economic gains associated with increased
work effort among low-income single mothers.
There were no immediate increases in homelessness
or foster-care placement among recipients and their
children.The Nineties in America Welfare reform 911