Policy watch: the Food Stamp Program and welfare reform
Article Abstract:
The Food Stamp Program provides low-income groups with the means to purchase a nutritionally adequate diet. The largest federal welfare program, it caters to the monthly nutritional requirements of about 27 million people. The facility is available on a national scale to all households on the basis of their financial status. For many low-income families, the food stamps form the single major source of the family's total purchasing power. Major structural changes in food stamps are being envisaged to make the Food Stamp Program more conversant with other public assistance programs.
Publication Name: Journal of Economic Perspectives
Subject: Economics
ISSN: 0895-3309
Year: 1996
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
Anti-poverty policy for families in the next century: from welfare to work - and worries
Article Abstract:
There has been a drop in numbers of US families on welfare since 1993, and support has tended to shift toward parents in work on low incomes. Single parents are less likely to be widows than when welfare systems were first set up, so are less likely to be seen as part of the deserving poor. Spending on Medicaid and tax credits has increased. Changes in welfare policies may hit problems if work is unavailable, and high marginal tax rates can be created. There are also problems of insecurity for families depending on one income, despite these policies.
Publication Name: Journal of Economic Perspectives
Subject: Economics
ISSN: 0895-3309
Year: 2000
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
The 1996 welfare report
Article Abstract:
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 includes a revision to the Aid to Families with Dependent Children. The Temporary Assistance to Needy Families transfers the control of public assistance programs to the state. States will have more leverage in determining who should get the funds and how much they should get. State-entitlements to open-ended federal payments have also been ended.
Publication Name: Journal of Economic Perspectives
Subject: Economics
ISSN: 0895-3309
Year: 1997
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
- Abstracts: The output-inflation tradeoff and central bank reform: evidence from New Zealand. The role of selective job search in UK unemployment
- Abstracts: The strategic objective is the country's revival. Market reforms in the Far East. Basic directions of a unified state monetary and credit policy for 1998: Central Bank of the Russian Federation
- Abstracts: Adoptions and orphans in the early microcomputer market. Product variety and welfare under tough and soft pricing regimes
- Abstracts: Corporate hedging and input price risk. Matching rules. Uncertain tax rules and futures hedging
- Abstracts: Takeover motives during the conglomerate merger wave. Post- '87 crash fears in the S&P 500 futures option market