In the eight years since the 1996 Welfare Reform Act ended welfare as it had been known by placing a new emphasis on shifting welfare recipients to workfare, states have succeeded in cutting welfare rolls by huge margins---by two-thirds in seven Midwest states. While many politicians have hailed these changes as eliminating dependence and helping individuals to become productive members of the workforce, a study released yesterday shows that many of those moved off the welfare rolls have ended up trapped in jobs with poverty-level wages. Among the alarming statistics brought to light by the study are the following: forty-nine percent of former welfare recipients in Michigan who are working full time are below the federal poverty line; the average income of all former recipients in Iowa, Ohio, Indiana and Minnesota is below the federal poverty line; fifty percent of the former recipients in several states cannot afford food, rent or utilities; and, one in ten individuals shifted off the welfare rolls into the labor market have lost their homes.
See JODI WILGOREN, The New York Times, April 24, 2002