From The Atlantic, Alana Semuels on the end of welfare as we know it: America’s once-robust safety net is no more. The failure of welfare reform: Jordan Weissmann on how Bill Clinton’s signature legislative achievement tore America’s safety net. Twenty years since welfare “reform”: America’s poorest are still dealing with the consequences of the legislation that Bill Clinton signed into law two decades ago today. Max Ehrenfreund on how welfare reform changed American poverty, in 9 charts. Annie Lowrey on the anti-poverty experiment that could fix America’s broken welfare system. The near impossibility of moving up after welfare: In the wake of welfare reform, unemployed people are pushed to quickly find work, any work — but too often those jobs lead nowhere. Paul Ryan is pretty sure welfare recipients are not working hard enough.
The return of American hunger: An uneven recovery and new food-stamp restrictions have left millions more people short on food. Who gets food stamps? White people, mostly. How do Americans view poverty? Many blue-collar whites, key to Trump, criticize poor people as lazy and content to stay on welfare. Welfare utopia: Oregon, one of the whitest states in the union, also has one of the most generous safety nets — is that a coincidence or something more troubling? Alma Carten on how racism has shaped welfare policy in America since 1935.
