Last night, former President Bill Clinton claimed that President Obama had not gutted welfare reform. Clinton proclaimed that Obama would actually strengthen welfare reform by urging states to increase the number of people moving “from welfare to work” by 20 percent. What is Obama really doing? In July, the Obama …
The Obama Administration has created a firestorm by claiming the authority to waive the work requirements of the popular 1996 welfare reform law. But the damage doesn’t stop there. The same July 12 guidance from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) states that HHS will not approve policy …
Two Members of Congress demanded an official explanation from Obama’s Health and Human Services Department (HHS) for its gutting of welfare work requirements—and HHS responded by saying (in many more words), “Well, years ago, some Republicans tried to do this.” Except they didn’t. Not only did Secretary Kathleen Sebelius completely …
Last Thursday, the Obama Administration quietly issued new bureaucratic rules that overturned the popular welfare reform law of 1996. This was an illegal move, and it completely undoes years of progress that helped millions of Americans. What Welfare Reform Accomplished The 1996 reform replaced the old Aid to Families with …
Today, the Obama Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released an official policy directive rewriting the welfare reform law of 1996. The new policy guts the federal work requirements that were the foundation of the reform law. The Obama directive bludgeons the letter and intent of the actual reform …
The Census Bureau’s new poverty measure is another tool in President Obama’s endless quest to “spread the wealth.” Although the media portray it as a more accurate measurement of poverty, in reality it deliberately severs all connection between “poverty” and actual deprivation. The new measure places income thresholds for poverty …
Today a new report was released indicating nearly one in five children in the U.S. is poor. The report, from the Annie Casey Foundation, was technically correct; it followed conventional Census procedures for identifying poor children. But what does it mean to be “poor” in the U.S.? Government data show …
Bob Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities claims that the Boehner budget is a form of “class warfare.” He says that “if enacted, it would produce the greatest increase in poverty and hardship produced by any law in modern U.S. history.” What Greenstein disingenuously fails to acknowledge …
