Children and Family

Many states are "failing, and failing badly" to improve the economic conditions of people on welfare, a 50-state study of welfare-reform implementation concludes.

Researchers from the Center on Hunger and Poverty at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., examined how each state is handling the 34 policy decisions left up to their discretion under the federal reform law passed in 1996. Those decisions affect such issues as child care, health coverage, job training, and time limits for benefits.

According to the scale designed by the researchers, states that received a negative score are doing "more poorly" than they were before welfare became their responsibility. For example, they may have decided to decrease spending on transitional child care for...