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The Wages Of Welfare Reform: A Report On New York City's Job Centers, Rebecca L. Scharf, Barry Bassis, Lorraine Doran, Benjamin Dewitt Duke, Donald Friedman, Matthew Schneider

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Waving the banner of welfare reform, President Clinton signed historic legislation in August 1996 abolishing poor families' federal entitlement to direct cash assistance and replacing it with a decentralized system of conditional block grants to the states. To qualify for these grants, most states—including New York—overhauled their own welfare systems and added rigorous new welfare-to-work requirements (the most prominent of which is frequently called "workfare"), as well as other programs which became conditions of eligibility for assistance. Not surprisingly, New York City, with one of the largest and most concentrated welfare populations in the United States, has become a crucible …