As data from the Economic Policy Institute show,
had we not enacted welfare reform poverty would have probably declined
further than it did. Welfare reform increased poverty. Regardless,
overall poverty rates have been on the rise again, as have child
poverty rates, and more of those who are poor are very poor: according
to the Children's Defense Fund, by 2001 more African American children
were living in deep poverty than at any time since such data have been
collected. Meanwhile, in cities large and small homelessness has risen
to historic levels, higher even than during the homelessness crisis of
the 1980s. Throughout the nation soup kitchens and food pantries are
stretched beyond capacity, struggling and failing to meet new need,
much of it from working people whose wages simply haven't kept up.
According to the Urban Institute, one-third to one-half of those who
left welfare had difficulty providing food for their families. Half or
more former recipients are poor (many are poorer than they were
before), and some sixty percent of those who left the rolls in 2002
were unemployed. This is success? [more 
]
- House panel gives state ability to test welfare recipients for drugs [more ]