Welfare Changes Do Not Affect Birth Rate
TRENTON, N.J. (AP)

Four years after New Jersey
became the first state to cut off
additional aid to welfare mothers
who continue to have babies, a
new study indicates that the law
has had no effect on birth rates
among such women.

In preliminary findings
completed over a year ago and
released Thursday, Rutgers
University researchers said the
birth rate declined almost
identically among two groups of
welfare mothers, those who
were denied benefits for
additional children and those who
were not.

But Human Services
Commissioner William
Waldman, whose agency paid for
the research, said Thursday his
feeling is that the "personal
responsibility" message is
reaching welfare recipients.

New Jersey had the first
family cap law in the nation.
Other states have followed suit.

Sherry Leiwant, a National
Organization for Women staff
attorney, said New Jersey
officials hid the study from the
public for months because like
prior research in Arkansas - it

showed the benefits cap lid not
lower birth rates Waldman said
the state relayed releasing the
report because it was waiting for
more complete findings.

Dr. Mom's editorial: Saturday, September 13, 1997

On Friday, Sept. 12, the Sun-Gazette carried an article which showed that kicking
women with children off welfare did not change the birth rates in NJ or Arkansas where
such studies were done. Once and for all, this should blow the myth that women are
having children to get welfare money. Nobody gets rich off of welfare, this is one of those
urban legends. The recipients are barely surviving. Even worse, a woman who gets
welfare is “assigned an income” in the family court. This allows the father of the child to
further reduce his child support payments! The burden for support of this family then
shifts to the state.
We are left with children being raised in inferior child care settings because the
mothers are forced to go to work. Is this what we want for the next generation? I
thought we had affirmed decades ago, that the mother is the best person to raise her child.
So what have we done with these crazy welfare laws? We have fueled the daycare and
minimum wage industries.
We should put children under 4 back in their homes with their mothers or add
quality daycare to one of the benefits these mothers get. We can’t have it both ways.
Raise the welfare rates for mothers with young children or provide daycare. Abolish
“assigned incomes” for child support purposes. The current system just doesn’t make
moral or economic sense. Tell your friends; tell your State Legislators.
 

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Updated Jan 2, 1999