ABSTRACT
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) ended the federal government's sixty-one-year commitment to aid needy children. Passed with wide bipartisan support and the blessings of President Clinton, the new law focused on shoring up marriage, enforcing work requirements, and cutting welfare grants. The excerpt from the law below reveals a powerful preoccupation with single motherhood. It also describes the purpose of the newly created Temporary Aid to Needy Families program, far different from the Social Security Act of 1935.
