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University of Wisconsin–Madison
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty

Welfare-to-Work Program – California

California lawmakers again waging political warfare over welfare, By Chris Megerian, June 24, 2012, Los Angeles Times: “The bitter welfare battles that gripped American politics two decades ago were replayed in Sacramento this week, where a dispute over how hard the government should push poor people to rejoin the workforce threatened to derail the state budget plan awaiting the governor’s signature. The debate was as much about ideology as finances, and it carried particular weight in California, which has one-third of the country’s welfare recipients but only one-eighth of its total population. California’s welfare program has shrunk since President Clinton made good on his 1992 campaign promise to ‘end welfare as we know it’ by pressuring those receiving government checks to find work. But the benefits the state provides remain among the most generous and extensive in the nation, and California is one of the few states where families get monthly checks for children even if the parents are disqualified for not working or participating in other programs…”