I believe the public message does have an impact on people's behavior. But welfare researchers say any drop in births should be seen in the context of what is happening across the country. Nationally, birth rates dropped 7 percent between 1990 and 1995, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Over the same period, rates dropped 17 percent for black women, who are disproportionately represented in the welfare population. That makes it difficult to know how much of the drop in states reporting notable declines would have happened regardless of welfare policy changes.
Abortion statistics are notoriously poor in many states.
In Massachusetts, welfare director Claire McIntire argues that the primary purpose of the family cap was not to reduce births, and that five months of flat birth numbers is not nearly enough time to know its effect on a mother's decision to bear more children. We're not saying you're absolutely forbidden to have children. It's your choice, knowing if you have a child you will receive no additional money from the taxpayers. It must compete with an often chronic state of crisis, with frequent moves from one tenuous household to another, with a constant struggle to pay the bills, and with neighborhoods wracked by violence and crime, and boyfriends in and out of jail. Despite all that, Nandora Myers and other women on welfare here say they were aware of the family cap and other changing welfare rules.