Welfare Reform in the Mid-2000s: How African American and Hispanic Families in Three Cities Are Faring

Abstract

This article reports on a sample of 538 African American and Hispanic women who were receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in 1999, 416 of whom left the program by 2005. The Hispanic women consisted of a Mexican-origin group and a second group that was primarily Puerto Rican and Dominican. Combining the experiences of the employed and the non-employed welfare leavers, the authors find at best a modest decline in the average poverty rate among African American welfare leavers between 1999 and 2005. Hispanic leavers showed larger average declines in poverty. Among just the welfare leavers who were employed in 2005, the averages for women in all racial-ethnic groups showed increases in household income and declines in poverty. Among those who were not employed, African Americans had experienced a decline in household income and were further below the poverty line than in 1999, whereas Hispanic women had experienced modest declines or slight increases in their household incomes.