welfare reform

April 12, 2017

What Christians can learn from Utah’s economic success

How do we move closer to ending poverty and expanding opportunity in America? Does a single solution or road map even exist? In a widely cited study, the Brookings Institute’s Isabel Sawhill and Ron Haskins famously argued that at least one predictable path is evident. Continue Reading...

March 28, 2017

The future of work: Arthur Brooks on human dignity and ‘neededness’

Although unemployment continues to hover somewhere around 4.7 percent, the labor-force participation rate offers a grimmer outlook, falling from 67% in 2000 to 63% today. With the continued acceleration of globalization and automation, the future of work looks increasingly uncertain. Continue Reading...

January 15, 2014

Senator Rubio’s Poverty Speech Muddled

A recent speech by U.S. Senator Marco Rubio laid out what his press office terms “Conservative Reforms for Combating Poverty.” It began well and had a nice line or two emphasizing the role family breakdown plays in perpetuating generational poverty, but then it went all technocratic and wobbly. Continue Reading...

September 27, 2013

Extreme Couponing as Workfare

I’m not an aficionado of the show Extreme Couponing, but I have seen it a couple times, and have been amazed at the industriousness of the people on the show. Continue Reading...

November 05, 2012

Jesse Jackson Didn’t Have to Choose Between the Poor and the Unborn

In 1977 a pro-life Jesse Jackson compared the pro-choice position to the case for slavery in the antebellum South: There are those who argue that the right to privacy is of higher order than the right to life. Continue Reading...

October 14, 2010

Meaningful Work and the Economics Nobel

This week’s Acton Commentary. Sign up for our free, weekly email newsletter here. While you’re at it, pick up a copy of Victor Claar’s new monograph, Fair Trade: It’s Prospects as a Poverty Solution, in the Acton Bookshoppe. Continue Reading...

August 28, 2006

Changing Culture, Not Politics, Changes Human Behavior

In 1936 Congress passed the Aid to Dependent Children Act to help widows stay home and raise their children. From 147,000 families on welfare in 1936 the number rose to five million by the 1994, the peak year. Continue Reading...

August 23, 2006

Welfare Reform is Working

Anthony Bradley, a research fellow for the Acton Institute, looks back on the effects of the welfare reform of 1996. Many people criticized this legislation as it was being passed and predicted that the result would be increased poverty. Continue Reading...

August 07, 2006

Second Phase of Welfare Reform

“I’ve got a bunch of government checks at my door / Each morning I try to send them back / But they only send me more.” –Nelly Furtado, “Hey Man,” Whoa, Nelly! Continue Reading...