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TANF at Ten: P International Affairs at Princeton University and the Rescue Mis- Olicy a Retrospective on Welfare Reform PrincetonUniversity TANF TANF at Ten Essays and commentary sponsored by the Policy Research Insti- tute for the Region at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and TANF at Ten: P International Affairs at Princeton University and the Rescue Mis- OLICY A Retrospective on Welfare Reform sion of Trenton. R ESEA R The Policy Research Institute for the Region was established CH I by Princeton University and the Woodrow Wilson School of NSTITUTE Public and International Affairs to bring the resources of the University community to bear on solving the increasingly interdependent public policy challenges facing New Jersey, FO R Metropolitan New York, and southeastern Pennsylvania. THE With a full-time staff augmented by project coordinators and R guided by faculty associates and an advisory board, the institute EGION reflects an understanding that the issues facing our region , cut across not only state and municipal borders, but also across P OLICY ESEA R CH NSTITUTE R P R I a range of traditional academic disciplines. Our mission is to INCETON F O R T H E R EGION bring together the University’s greatest resources—its faculty and students, its research expertise, and commitment to public U service—to find solutions across boundaries that improve the NIVE A nthony S horris , D ir EC tor quality of civic life in our dynamic, multi-state region. R SITY Edit E D B Y K E ith S . G O L D FEL D POLICY RESEA R C H I N S T I T U T E FO R THE REGION Robertson Hall, Princeton University Princeton, NJ 08544 WWS Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs (609)258-9065 http://region.princeton.edu 164 TANF at 10: A Retrospective on Welfare Reform Keith S. Goldfeld, Editor A collection of essays and commentary sponsored by the Policy Research Institute for the Region at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, and the Rescue Mission of Trenton. Copyright © 2007 by The Trustees of Princeton University. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, reposted, distributed, republished, sold, modified, stored in a document management system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of Princeton University. The Policy Research Institute for the Region was established by Princeton University and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs to bring the resources of the University community to bear on solving the increasingly interdependent public policy challenges facing New Jersey, Metropolitan New York, and southeastern Pennsylvania. The Policy Research Institute for the Region Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs Princeton University Robertson Hall Princeton, NJ 08544 Cover design by Leslie Goldman Printed by PrintMedia Communications, Anaheim, CA Produced by the Office of Communications, Princeton University The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and are not necessarily the views of Princeton University or its Policy Research Institute for the Region. Contents Preface 1 Introduction 5 Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: 9 The World of Welfare from the Perspective of 2006 Peter Edelman An Examination of the First 10 Years Under TANF in Three States: 19 The Experiences of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania Robert G. Wood and Justin Wheeler Ten More Years: The Future of Welfare Reform 47 Olivia Golden Attitudes Toward Poverty and Welfare in New Jersey, 67 New York, and Pennsylvania Global Strategy Group, LLC Appendices Appendix A 81 Keynote Address: Charles B. Rangel Closing Remarks: Mary Gay Abbott-Young Appendix B 91 Summaries of Panel Discussions Appendix C 101 Conference Agenda Participant Biographies Appendix D 115 Detailed Survey Results Publications from the Policy Research Institute for the Region Beyond Post-9/11: The Future of the Making EVery Vote Count: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Federal Election Legislation in the States Edited by Keith S. Goldfeld Edited by Andrew Rachlin States and Stem Cells: The Policy and Economic Implications of State-Funded Stem Cell Research Edited by Aaron D. Levine Justice and Safety in America’S Immigrant Communities Edited by Martha King The Race for Space: The Politics and Economics of State Open Space Programs Edited by Keith S. Goldfeld From Campaigning to GOVerning: Leadership in Transition Edited by Udai Tambar and Andrew Rachlin Consent and Its Discontents: Policy Issues In Consent Decrees Edited by Andrew Rachlin The Politics of Design: Competitions for Public Projects Edited by Catherine Malmberg New Downtowns: The Future Of Urban Centers Edited by Jonathan R. Oakman Preface Anyone who has marked an anniversary knows that these com- memorations have value only insofar as they force us to take some stock of where we’ve come from, where we are, and where we hope to go. The 10th anniversary of welfare reform was the focus of a recent event hosted by the Policy Research Institute for the Region in conjunction with the Rescue Mission of Trenton. This event was really just a chance for us to force a conversation about something very important to the meaning of America today: how it treats the most vulnerable of its citizens, the poor left behind by the giant roaring engine of the free market that has created the wealthiest society the world has ever known. It is a conversation with many parts and with many perspectives, reflecting the Institute we have built here at Princeton. To understand the life of the poor in America today is of course impossible—it is as variegated as the lives of the rich and the vast middle class—but we can understand a little better the effects the choices we have made as a society about to how we treat the poor among us. Over the past decade or so, we have made profound changes in how we deal with America’s poor. Some of those changes were the product of the national welfare reform of 1996 that led to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), others the results of actions taken by the 50 states in response to that law, and many others the product of the shifting nature of the increasingly global American economy. The aim of our conference was to begin to get our arms around the effect of these simultaneous changes. In order to understand what has been happening in this country, and in particular around our region, we applied a host of tools. The Woodrow Wilson School is built around the notion of creating sound policy using the academic 1 disciplines of economics, sociology, and political science—and so our conference was organized to include some of the nation’s leading scholars in each of these fields. We were able to bring together researchers and policy makers who were closely involved with cre- ating and evaluating the TANF legislation and its long lasting effects on the lives of millions of welfare recipients. More importantly, I also believe that any discussion about welfare policy must begin and end with the real lives of real people—com- plicated, heart-breaking, inspiring, and whatever else, real. We called upon a young filmmaker, Ted Alcorn of the Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film and Television at New York University, and paired him with a leading writer in the field—journalist and professor at The Journal- ism School of Columbia University, my friend LynNell Hancock—to help use the tools of film and journalism to ground the conference, to make sure we heard the voices and saw the faces of the people we were talking about. The video can be seen on our website at http://region.princeton.edu, and a copy is included with this volume. By partnering with the Rescue Mission of Trenton, we ensured that more of those real voices would be heard. Universities like Princeton usually partner for big events with other research institutions, some- times with foundations or even government agencies, but in this case we understood that the best way to ensure we stay grounded in the real world of poverty and the lives of the poor was to work with a direct service provider in one of the most troubled cities in our region. We also wanted to hear from the broader public, and so we sought out one of the country’s a leading public opinion research firms to perform a unique piece of research, testing perceptions of poverty and welfare among those on welfare, the near-poor and the middle class in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The results are included in this publication. Finally, we asked one of the nation’s leading political figures, Congressman Charles B. Rangel, Representative of New York’s 15th Congressional District, to offer us a political perspective from the national level. Congressman Rangel is about to assume the position 2 of chair for the United States House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means, which has full charge of this issue in the Con- gress. His keynote address completed a cycle of perspectives that began with individuals and ended with the national policy-makers. I hope that the perspectives of these additional voices, which are all reflected in this publication, have enriched the insightful papers that formed the basis for the conference and this book. On a more personal note, I’d like to add that this conference and publication, just like my own career working in government and public policy, were guided by my father’s 40 years of struggle to use words as weapons for social justice. These words are reflected through more than a dozen books and hundreds of articles, everyone one of which echoes his fierce belief in our potential for decency.
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