Welfare Reform’s Broken Promises Exposed Again

Isaiah J. Poole

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) says he wants to double down on so-called “welfare reform” from his new perch as speaker of the House. But Ryan should first look at the experience of Maryland, and specifically to a recent study that exposes the broken promise of welfare reform.

That study, by researcher Lisa Thiebaud Nicoli at the University of Maryland School of Social Work, is one of the remarkably few efforts to actually chronicle in detail how welfare recipients actually fare once they get back into the workforce. The story for a majority of people in Maryland who exit Temporary Assistance for Needy Families – the official name of the federal welfare program – is “a struggle to earn enough to achieve self-sufficiency” and make ends meet, the report said.