California Welfare Reform

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had a more challenging task ahead than most other states. In many ways will be one of the most difficult to manage in the country because the population is by far the largest and most diverse. The welfare caseloads reflect that diversity. Nationwide, Latinos make up 24.5% of the TANF caseload, but in California, the represent 46.4 percent of the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) caseload. In addition, Asians comprise 9.8 percent of the CalWORKs caseload, nearly three times the national average of 3.6 percent. Two-parent families represent 10.9 percent of California's caseload, considerably higher than the national average of 4.7 percent. California is home to more low-income families than any other state in the nation and the state's poverty rate remains significantly above that of the nation (13.8 percent as compared to 11.8 percent in 1999). (Breslin, 2001) This is shown by the fact that Los Angeles County alone has a larger CalWORKs caseload than ...

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effort to reach out to the poor. (Allen, 1999) Newspapers and welfare watchdogs cite scattered reports of families resorting to soup kitchens or abandoning their children to protective agencies. This may be caused by several factors including decreased levels of economic support and increased behavioral expectations of parents. These new economic and social conditions could lessen the likelihood of family reunification and preservation. The possibilities of positive reform-related effects have also been considered, but little emphasized except in the arena of service innovation using welfare dollars for child welfare purposes. The mechanisms by which these effects could occur have ...

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