Welfare Reform: Prescription for Abuse? A Report on New Research Studies Documenting the Relationship of Domestic Violence and Welfare

Abstract

Anecdotally, welfare‐to‐work programs have documented that domestic violence serves as a welfare‐to‐work barrier by partners’ interference with education, training and work, or by physical or mental trauma which also prevents employment. Four new research studies, which, although using different methods, including random and nonrandom surveys of welfare caseloads and random neighborhood surveys, document high and remarkably consistent prevalence of domestic violence within welfare caseloads. Although much more needs to be known, the prevalence of domestic violence in these women’s lives requires specific domestic violence‐sensitive welfare policies lest women become injured during the welfare‐to‐work process.