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- <text id=92TT0230>
- <title>
- Feb. 03, 1992: American Notes:Welfare
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992
- Feb. 03, 1992 The Fraying Of America
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 25
- American Notes
- WELFARE
- Carrots and Sticks
- </hdr><body>
- <p> Tough love or tough luck. That's the choice that New Jersey
- welfare families faced after Governor Jim Florio signed a bill
- intended to get aid recipients out of the home and into the job
- market. The Family Development Act will eliminate extra payments
- to women who have additional children while on welfare and will
- require welfare parents to take part in job-training and
- education programs. At the same time, it will allow working
- mothers to earn up to 50% of their welfare-grant level with no
- loss in benefits. And in a reversal of previous rules, the act
- will allow welfare mothers to marry without losing their
- benefits. The law was drafted by Democratic Assemblyman Wayne
- Bryant, a black lawyer from Camden, who calls welfare
- "tantamount to slavery" because it fosters dependency.
- </p>
- <p> The act is the latest in a wave of welfare reforms enacted
- or proposed by budget-strapped states. But New Jersey's law is
- the first to freeze grants for additional children, which
- effectively eliminates a $64-a-month aid increase. Critics say
- the sum is too small to affect a woman's childbearing decisions
- and that the main result will be more hunger for the kids.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
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