Question

Even though a Democrat, President Clinton seals the fate of public welfare in the U.S. with the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA)

: 1. What was the context that framed the passage of PRWORA?

2. What are the key elements of PRWORA? How is this welfare program different from previous ones?

3. In what ways did PRWORA tie social policy and immigrant policy in the US?

Answer 1

1. The law had its background in the Republican party's 1994 platform 'Contract with America', which the party had drafted before the congressional elections of 1994. The Republican party had not gained congressional majority in 40 years and in 'Contract with America', they outlined the legislations they will pass if they got majority in the congress. The PRWORA was cornerstone of that as it argued that the welfare program in its then stage was broken and kept poor people in a cycle of poverty.

The Republicans were successful in gaining majority in 1994 elections and post elections, the Republican-controlled Congress passed two major bills designed to reform welfare, but both were vetoed by Clinton. After negotiations, Congress passed PRWORA and Clinton signed the bill into law on August 22, 1996.

2. The following were the main features of the PRWORA-

• It granted more freedom to states in administering social welfare
• It also imposed new requirements for being eligible for receiving welfare. This included a five-year lifetime limit on benefits.
• It disallowed convicted drug felons fro getting food stamps.
• It also had impact on immigrants. It made some immigrants ineligible for federal public benefits during their first five years post getting qualified immigrant status.
• It also had new citizenship requirement to be eligible for welfare

3. As can be seen in above points, the PRWORA inextricably tied immigration and social policy. Welfare is a social policy but the PRWORA made reception of welfare dependent on many conditions. Most of these conditions were in relation to immigrant status. As noted above, 'unqualified' migrants were completely ineligible. They could not get food aid, Medicaid, insurance and more. It is to be noted that unqualified immigrants includes many legal residents also.

Even qualified residents, all of who are legal, needed tp fulfill many conditions to be eligible for welfare. These include even green card holders and asylum seekers.

Given these strict conditions that immigrants needed to be fulfill to avail the benefits of US welfare and social policy, the PRWORA tied social policy and immigration together.

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