'Back At Square One': As States Repurpose Welfare Funds, More Families Fall Through Safety Net

'Back At Square One': As States Repurpose Welfare Funds, More Families Fall Through Safety Net

Butler is among the millions of low-income Americans sliding into the ranks of a group experts call "the disconnected" -- people who are both out of work and not receiving welfare. Their desperate straits reflect the extent to which key components of the American social safety net have been substantially reduced in recent years, just as the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression has amplified demand for help.

In an Iv-B economy there can be pressure to weaken V-Bi, also they can become short of money after loans to the Iv-B economy are not repaid after hitting the ceiling. Welfare can be reduced because the insurance nature of it seems to create a moral hazard, this can create a temporary boom as innovations grow. For example forcing some people off welfare might allow some businesses to grow that could not get desperate enough people to work there. However these can be Iv-B weeds as they grow to absorb these new resources, then crash causing people to use up their savings.

In Georgia, as in many states, gaining cash assistance has become increasingly difficult since the landmark welfare reform signed into law by President Clinton in 1996. Nationally, the share of poor families with children that were drawing welfare cash benefits plummeted from 68 percent to 27 percent between 1996 and 2010, according to an analysis of federal data by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). During the same period, the number of poor families with children grew from 6.2 million to 7.3 million.

Behind these precise data points lie messy stories of frustration over the seeming impossibility of navigating a bewildering welfare system that sometimes seems rigged for rejection; over mounting bills that can't be paid; over plans subject to constant renegotiation in lives ruled by scarcity. Like many states, Georgia does not track what happens to people who are eliminated from its welfare rolls. But in conversations with six women who have tried to gain cash assistance here, this is the picture that emerges: Vexation, fear and deepening trouble.