While welfare caseloads have dropped and poverty has been reduced since the enactment of welfare reform five years ago, many cities are still struggling to help welfare recipients move into and stay in the workforce. Cities face unique challenges to welfare reform, including having a greater share of the nation’s welfare caseloads and being home to the hardest to serve. This research brief, derived from a longer paper released earlier this year, offers a detailed list of policy recommendations for the federal reauthorization of welfare reform that will help meet the needs of urban areas. This reform agenda, if implemented, would promote real opportunity and economic self-sufficiency for urban welfare recipients and the working poor, and bring stability and vitality to thousands of poor inner-city neighborhoods.
