ABSTRACT
The passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), and with it the implementation of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program in 1996, directed scholarly, policy, and public attention to the work lives of low-income mothers (Albelda & Withorn, 2002; Cancian, Haverman, Meyer, & Wolfe, 2000; Ehrenreich, 2001; Henly, 2002; Kingfisher, 1996; Mink, 2002; Newman, 2001). PRWORA limits the time that families can receive cash public assistance (now called TANF) and requires beneficiaries, typically the mothers of young children, to enter the workforce or become more work-ready. While there is some variability by state in how the TANF work requirement is enforced, many have argued that the health of TANF eligible mothers and their children has not been at center stage in the political debate on moving families from welfare to work (Burton et al., 2002; Earle & Heymann, 2002; Heymann & Earle, 1999; Olson & Pavetti, 1997). Health care providers, in particular, have cautioned policymakers to strongly consider the relationship between work and health, noting that if the work requirements of welfare reform further exacerbate the physical, mental, and financial vulnerabilities of America’s poor, health care providers will be the inundated “inheritors of a failed policy,” with low-income families losing substantially more ground in family health and economic security from parental unemployment (Chavkin, Wise, & Romero, 2002).
