Welfare reform and its work requirements remain in place, but the employment rates for single mothers have fallen consistently since 2000. That result jibes with findings from other studies showing that any increases in employment following the introduction of work requirements are small and short-lived, and that such requirements fail to improve low-income people’s employment prospects in the long run. Advertisement Continue reading the main storySo what do work requirements do? Supporters of work requirements claim that the rules can be structured to exempt people who can’t work, but that doesn’t happen in practice. To be sure, providing work opportunities is a worthy goal, especially given the extent to which anti-poverty policy is already tied to work.

Source: New York Times March 23, 2017 00:22 UTC