Welfare Reform in the Mid-2000s: How African American and Hispanic Families in Three Cities Are Faring

Abstract

This article reports on a sample of 538 African American and Hispanic women who were receiving TANF in 1999, 416 of whom left the program by 2005. The Hispanic women consisted of a Mexican-origin group and a second group that was primarily Puerto Rican and Dominican. Combining the experiences of the employed and the non-employed welfare leavers, we find at best a modest decline in the average poverty rate among African American welfare leavers between 1999 and 2005. Mexican-origin and other Hispanic leavers showed larger average declines in poverty. Among just the welfare leavers who were employed in 2005, the averages for women in all racial-ethnic groups showed increases in household income and declines in poverty. Among those who were not employed, African-Americans had experienced a decline in household income and were further below the poverty line than in 1999, whereas Hispanic women had experienced modest declines or slight increases in their household incomes.