Will Carter's Welfare Reform Plan Reform Welfare?: Evidence from Empirical Research

This paper introduces the central dimensions which have emerged in the current welfare reform debate. They include adaquacy, work incentives, family stability and cost. The last legislative session introduced a new group of "welfare reform" proposals, each attempting to address these critiques of the current welfare system. Considering four major bills including Carter's Comprehensive Program for Better Jobs and Income on the basis of recent research findings, results in a tentative preference for Carter's plan. It addresses the major reform dimensions better than the others and would result in modest improvements. Nevertheless, true reform is unlikely to be achieved by any of these approaches if more fundamental intervention in the labor market is not taken. The welfare reform debate has been rescued once more by the Carter Administration from the domain of academics and the social welfare community. It has resided there since its ignominious fall from favor after the defeat of the Family Assistance Plan (FAP). In the new round of public discussions very little of its fundamental content has changed in over a decade. Indeed, the central issues of debate and the ideological positions which seize them have remained remarkably unscathed by the multitude of important social and economic changes which have occurred over the last decade. Though the prevailing concerns of welfare reform have remained relatively unchanged, the political climate in which reform must take place has altered considerably. Years of seemingly uncontrollable inflation and unemployment, coupled with a view that government cannot work, have soured many on the value of large government policies and programs. This is reinforced by the recent onslought of taxpayer revolt against government spending and the attendant fraud and mismanagement perceived as an inevitable counterpart of government programs. At the same time, however, considerable progress has been made in the state of social science knowledge. Several income maintenance experiments have been completed, analyses of longitudinal data sources circulated, and a variety of important social science evidence on the nature and determinants of poverty permit a more informed discussion of the policy options. Nevertheless, politics and research continue to be inextricably bound to one another and the current interpretations of the relationships of recent research findings to proposed bills for welfare reform have not been completely satisfying. This paper will attempt to assess the value that current research findings have for selecting among the major welfare reform proposals. These dimensions represent those which political debate has identified as critical. They do not represent the full array of values or goals around which social planners might design an optimal system. Rather, they address the more practical and less idealized dimensions which policy analysts are required to consider in constructing a welfare reform plan acceptable to a reluctant constituency. A brief description of the major legislation currently under consideration will be presented. Finally, the results of empirical research will be applied to an assessment of the degree to which existing proposals can be expected to address the major welfare reform issues. Will the welfare reform plans as conceived reform welfare in response to these concerns? The paper will conclude with a discussion which explains the often inappropriate and inadequate use of the growing body of social science research in designing and evaluating welfare policy. ENDURING ISSUES IN THE WELFARE REFORM DEBATE