Time to revisit Bill Clinton’s welfare reform Research by Marianne Bitler cited in the Washington Post
The Washington Post, May 28, 2016
HILLARY CLINTON’S presidential campaign is premised, at least
implicitly, on the idea that if you liked her husband Bill
Clinton’s presidency, you’ll love hers. That’s understandable,
given that the period between 1993 and 2001 saw economic growth,
balanced budgets and declining crime. At the same time, it was
inevitable, and also fair, that her opponents in 2016 would
challenge this upbeat narrative.
As it happens, welfare reform is one of the most intensively
studied policy changes of recent history. The findings support
neither unbridled enthusiasm nor the dire hindsight Mr. Sanders
voices today. “A broad summary of that voluminous literature,”
write economists Marianne Bitler and Hilary
Hoynes, “is that welfare reform contributed to a
significant reduction in welfare participation and an increase in
female employment, with little consistent evidence that reform
led to an increase (or decrease) in poverty or a worsening of (or
improvement in) child well-being.”
Marianne Bitler is a Professor in the Department of Economics at
the University of California, Davis; a Research Associate at the
National Bureau of Economic Research; and a Research Fellow at
IZA. She received her PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology in 1998. Her research focuses on the effects of the US
social safety net on poverty, income, human capital, and health;
economics of the family; economics of education; and health
economics.
