A Bottom-Up Look at Welfare Reform

By Margaret Dunkle

Congress and the Clinton administration are barreling toward changing both the form and function of the country's social safety net, a system of programs that is cumbersome at best and broken at worst.

However, few people, even members of Congress and state legislators, understand how awkwardly current assistance programs fit together for real people. This blind spot makes it likely that the dramatic proposals moving through Congress to put states in charge will repeat problems that plague the current federally driven system.

Earlier this year, the nonpartisan Institute for Educational Leadership conducted a hands-on exercise in which members of Congress, state legislators, their staffs, and other policymakers stepped into the shoes of a typical working-poor family in San Diego and applied for assistance from more than 20 federal, state, and local programs. Participants became a "virtual" family, the Hernandez family: Carlos (a U.S. citizen), his wife Yolanda, their four children,...