And still there was a 67+% decline in recipients in the first ten years after welfare reform.
Nationwide, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 was a major policy success. Between 1996 and 2006, it led to a decline in the number of welfare recipients from 12.5 million to 4.0 million -- 67.6 percent -- along with smaller declines in the poverty rate, teenage birth rates, and unemployment rate.
Some states were notably more successful than others in addressing poverty and its major causes. This report card -- the first to rank states by their welfare reform efforts -- provides a roadmap for states seeking to put more of their poor on the road to economic self-sufficiency.
These rankings were made on the basis of academic research as well as judgment based on experience. Clearly, there is a strong basis for governors and legislators in poor-performing states to act now in fulfilling their responsibilities to their most disadvantaged citizens.
http://heartland.org/sites/all/modules/custom/heartland_migration/files/pdfs/23499.pdf