16-07-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
If Clinton's Welfare Reform Was Big, Trump's Is Huge
In passing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Republican Congress set a new gold standard for welfare reform. Some conservatives say the GOP has gone wobbly on work. The reality is that even the 1996 reform that created the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program—which by 2005 had shrunk the TANF caseload by nearly 60% by moving able-bodied adults into work—pales in comparison with what this month's reconciliation bill achieves. It is easily the biggest welfare reform in U.S. history.
Unlike past reforms, the reconciliation bill focused on the core of the welfare state. TANF's predecessor, Aid to Families With Dependent Children, often trapped families in dependency for generations. Fixing it was necessary. But the 1996 reforms still ignored the biggest drivers of welfare's growth. Federal welfare spending has increased by an inflation-adjusted 170% since then, largely driven by able-bodied adults leaving the workforce to receive Medicaid and food stamps. Those programs now have, respectively, about 83 million and 42 million recipients. By contrast, AFDC had around 14 million enrollees before the 1996 reforms.
Republicans are now tackling this moral and fiscal crisis. The reconciliation reforms will likely move at least twice as many people off welfare as the 1996 reform did.
These include the first-ever Medicaid work requirement. Thanks to President Trump and Congress, able-bodied adults without children, as well as adults with children 14 and older, will now have to work, volunteer, train or go to school at least part time as a condition of receiving taxpayers' help. My organization, the Foundation for Government Accountability, estimates that this requirement will cover at least 10 million people. Millions will leave Medicaid as their incomes rise.
