American Notes: Welfare Carrots and Sticks

Tough love or tough luck. That's the choice that New Jersey welfare families faced after Governor Jim Florio signed a bill intended to get aid recipients out of the home and into the job market. The Family Development Act will eliminate extra payments to women who have additional children while on welfare and will require welfare parents to take part in job-training and education programs. At the same time, it will allow working mothers to earn up to 50% of their welfare-grant level with no loss in benefits. And in a reversal of previous rules, the act will allow welfare mothers to marry without losing their benefits. The law was drafted by Democratic assemblyman Wayne Bryant, a black lawyer from Camden, who calls welfare "tantamount to slavery" because it fosters dependency.

The act is the latest in a wave of welfare reforms enacted or proposed by budget-strapped states. But New Jersey's law is the first to freeze grants for additional children, which effectively eliminates a $64-a-month aid increase. Critics say the sum is too small to affect a woman's childbearing decisions and that the main result will be more hunger for the kids.