TY - JOUR AU - Bennett,Neil G. AU - Lu,Hsien-Hen AU - Song,Younghwan TI - Welfare Reform and Changes in the Economic Well-Being of Children JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 9399 PY - 2002 Y2 - December 2002 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9399 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9399.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Neil G. Bennett Baruch College/ CUNY Institute for Demographic Research Box D-901 One Bernard Baruch Way New York, NY 10010 Tel: 646/660-6779 Fax: 646/660-6784 E-Mail: Neil.Bennett@baruch.cuny.edu Younghwan Song Department of Economics Social Sciences Building Union College 807 Union Street Schenectady, NY 12308 E-Mail: songy@union.edu AB - Since the implementation of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program in late-1996, welfare rolls have declined by more than half. This paper explores whether improvements in the economic well-being of children have accompanied this dramatic reduction in welfare participation. Further, we examine the degree to which the success or failure of welfare reform has been shared equally among families of varying educational background. We analyze data from the March Current Population Surveys over the years 1988 through 2001. Specifically, we link data for families with children who are interviewed in adjacent years and determine whether their economic circumstances either improved or deteriorated. We use two alternative approaches to address this general issue: a variety of regression models and a difference-in-differences methodology. These approaches provide consistent answers. In a bivariate framework TANF is associated with higher incomes; but this association becomes insignificant in the presence of business cycle controls. We also determine that children who were poor at an initial time period benefit differently, depending on their parents' educational attainment level. Poor children with parents who do not have a high school degree are significantly worse off in the TANF era, relative to the era prior to welfare reform, than are their more educated counterparts. ER -