Rural Dimensions of Welfare Reform : Welfare, Food Assistance, and Poverty in Rural America

This volume presents a comprehensive look at how welfare reforms enacted in 1996 are affecting caseloads, employment, earnings, and family well-being in rural areas. Annotation Weber (Rural Policy Research Institute), Greg Duncan (Joint Center for Poverty Research), and Leslie Whitener (Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture) present 16 contributions to a joint research conference jointly sponsored by their respective organizations. The papers explore the rural dimensions of poverty in the wake of the passage of the welfare reform (or "welfare deform," as critics have dubbed it) of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. Contributors find that while the legislation has been successful in the goal of caseload reduction, it has been considerably less successful in areas of poverty reduction and providing for peoples needs. They recommend policy initiatives that make jobs pay a reasonable wage and maintain or even reinstate parts of the social safety net. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This book examines the effects of work requirements imposed by welfare reform on low-income women and their families. The authors pay particular attention to the nature of work, whether it is stable or unstable, the number of hours worked in a week, and the regularity and flexibility of work schedules. They also show how these factors make it more difficult for low-income women to balance work and family requirements.

This volume presents the first comprehensive look at how welfare reforms enacted in 1996 are affecting caseloads, employment, earnings, and family well-being in rural areas This book presents revised versions of about half of the papers presented at a conference on the title topic held in Washington, D.C., May 2000.