Leslie Kaufman of the New York Times reports:
A report released in August by the left-leaning Urban Institute in Washington said that more than 85 percent of those who left welfare from 2000 through 2002 now have a job, spousal support, and/or other government benefits. However, that is down from about 90 percent in a 1999 study.
Wade F. Horn, assistant secretary for families and children in the federal Department of Health and Human Services, said he agreed with numerous estimates that 85 to 95 percent of all those who have left welfare since the overhaul legislation passed in 1996 had become better off, or at least not significantly worse off, financially. There are 2.4 million fewer American families on the federal welfare rolls than in 1996, when there were 4.4 million.
Well, that's what she *reported*. But this is what she actually *wrote*:
However, a report released in August by the left-leaning Urban Institute in Washington said that as many as one in seven families who left welfare from 2000 through 2002 had no work, no spousal support and no other government benefits. That is up from one in 10 in a 1999 study.
Wade F. Horn, assistant secretary for families and children in the federal Department of Health and Human Services, said he agreed with numerous estimates that 10 percent to 15 percent of all those who have left welfare since the overhaul legislation passed in 1996 had become significantly worse off financially. There are 2.4 million fewer American families on the federal welfare rolls than in 1996, when there were 4.4 million.
And thus she attempts to turn the success of welfare reform into a failure. Same facts, different spin. (Of course, it *is* a failure for those approximately 300,000 families who are worse off. But remember that we've been in what some Democratic presidential candidates call the "worst economy since Hoover". Who's to say they wouldn't have been worse off without welfare reform? Heck, if *only* 10 to 15 percent of the poorest among us are doing worse than they were back in 1996 or 2000, then perhaps the economy isn't as bad as some would like us to believe...)