History

• In 1996, the U.S. federal government began welfare reform initiatives that took effect at the end of the 20th century and continued into the 21st century. The 1996 welfare reform law enacted strict work requirements for welfare recipients through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, program, but also provided incentives such as government-funded child care through the newly-formed Child Care and Development Fund, or CCDF. In 2005 and 2006, Congress debated proposals for reauthorization of TANF and the CCDF.
  
  

Significance

• The act signed by Bush in 2006 reauthorized the federal government's welfare reform policies through the TANF program. The 2006 legislation included a provision to increase the work-participation rate that each state had to show among its welfare recipients. The act also sought to reduce financial dependence on welfare by strengthening child support enforcement programs and promoting the federal government's Healthy Marriage Initiative.
  
  

Criticism

• In a 2006 opinion piece in "The New York Times," former President Bill Clinton, who signed the welfare reform initiatives of 1996, criticized the reauthorization act's limiting effect on each state's ability to create its own guidelines regarding eligible work-participation activities. He also wrote that enrollment in education and training programs should count as work activities for welfare recipients.