Theodor de Bry’s 1590 engraving of Secoton, from John White’s watercolors. Public domain.
The 1996 welfare law ended the open-ended cash program and put time limits and work rules in its place.
If money is tight, the clock is not a metaphor, it is the date the check stops.
If you are in the middle, the law asks you to believe that a job will be there when the aid ends.
If you have savings, this bill does not touch your portfolio, and it rewrites the safety net under the people who do not have one.
On August 22, 1996, President Clinton signed the welfare reform law.
Aid to Families with Dependent Children was replaced by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
States got block grants, and adults faced work requirements and a federal time limit.
Source: Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, signed August 22, 1996.