The overwhelming likelihood is that money for welfare recipients will be further reduced, as other federal money to the states is cut back. The right believes that by getting rid of AFDC, government will send teenagers a tough signal to stop having children out of wedlock. If you get pregnant you won't be able to collect welfare benefits after two years any more. We'd better wait until we get married. Since biblical times, the poor have had lots of children.
Abject poverty is no contraceptive.
But AFDC also serves women and children who are victims of desertion, divorce, abuse, breakdown, and economic dislocation. The current welfare reform fails to differentiate between the two. Innumerable studies of the welfare life have shown that even the most highly motivated single parents have difficulty keeping a job in the absence of back-up systems. Kids get sick. Crises at school arise.