Jared Bernstein and Mark Greenberg

Jared Bernstein and Mark Greenberg contend in the following viewpoint that government should do more to ensure the economic well-being of working families who have left the welfare rolls since the passage of the 1996 welfare reform law. According to the authors, many former welfare recipients are struggling to make ends meet, and families who remain on the welfare rolls are faced with losing their assistance under federally imposed time limits. As the welfare law comes up for congressional reauthorization in 2002, the authors assert that low-income working families should have expanded access to food stamps, health care, and child care, and that welfare recipients unable to find employment should be granted more flexible time limits. Jared Bernstein is an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. Mark Greenberg is a senior...