Bill Clinton on Welfare & Poverty President of the U.S., 1993-2001; Former Democratic Governor (AR)

"We're in this together" better than "You're on your own"

We Democrats, we think the country works better with a strong middle class, with real opportunities for poor folks to work their way into it, with a relentless focus on the future, with business and government actually working together to promote growth and broadly shared prosperity. You see, we believe that "We're all in this together" is a far better philosophy than "You're on your own."

Expand Home Affordable Refinance Programs to millions

Social & economic mobility depend on equalizing opportunity

Canada, Sweden, and Norway rank higher than the US in terms of job mobility. In terms of income mobility, the chances of earning more than your parents are greater in Canada, Finland, Sweden and Norway than in the US.

It is heartening that people all over the world want to pursue their own version of the American Dream but troubling that others are doing a better job than we are of providing it to their people. The success of the nations doing better than we are is due to government policies that equalize opportunities and prepare their people to seize them.

In assessing the overall quality of a nation's infrastructure, the US ranks 24th out of 142 countries measured. The US spends only 1.7% of the GDP on infrastructure, compared with the 4% for Canada or 9% for China.

American workers are working harder for less

1992: People who work hard & play by rules shouldn't be poor

Unlike Clinton, who faced severe ideological headwinds of antipathy to government, Obama takes office at a moment when the previous administration is disgraced and the ideology of letting speculative markets rule is discredited by financial catastrophe. For the first time in four decades, a principled progressive enjoys an ideological tailwind.

OpEd: Welfare measured by rolls, not by situation of poor

For Democrats as well as Republicans, the proof of success became the dramatic shrinkage of the welfare rolls, and not the more troubling question of how many of the poor were better or worse off. By embracing an essentially GOP version of welfare reform, Clinton reinforced conservative dogma that the welfare state was more of a problem than a solution.

Clinton Global Initiative: partnering donors with problems

A: Well, we had more commitments for more money than ever before, but also we had two new breakthroughs. We had more of our really interesting commitments involve larger and larger numbers of people working together, which is what I wanted to have. I wanted to bring people together, have them work together. The second thing is we have really democratized this now. It looks like we’re going to have over half million people following this over the Internet, myCommitment.org, to create a community of small givers.

Q: When you say money raised, our viewers, I think, would be interested in this. The money doesn’t go to you or to a foundation.

A: No, no, I don’t touch any of it.

Q: You broker people, in effect.

A: Yeah.

Q: You take someone with money, identify a problem and put them together in a partnership.

A: Yeah. Once in a while I go into one, if asked. I’m trying to get other people to help and work with each other.

Welfare reform succeeded because of focus on jobs

The success of welfare reform was due to more than better policies. There was also a conscious effort to expand the job market [by promoting the hiring of] new employees from the welfare ranks.

Promote innovative ideas and "social entrepreneurs"

In recent years, more funding for social entrepreneurs has become available, principally from foundations established by wealthy individuals. Among the most important is the Omidyar Network, established by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife, Pam.

Other foundations set up to fund social entrepreneurs include Echoing Green and the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.

One of the most promising examples of multifaceted social entrepreneurship I've witnessed in American is the Harlem Children's Zone, which helps parents, teachers, residents, and other interested parties create a safe learning environment for young people in a sixty-block area of central Harlem.

Organize market to produce benefits from "public goods"

If wealthiest 1% gave away 5% of income, we'd meet all goals

The example of how much money we could give also applies to gifts of time, skills, things, reconciliation, and new beginnings. If we just all gave according to our ability, the positive impact would be staggering.

Biblically-inspired social justice, especially serving poor

Reform attacked by Christian left; but genuine middle ground

Marian Wright Edelman wrote to Bill: “Do you think the Old Testament prophets Isiah, Micah, & Amos--or Jesus Christ--would support such policies?” It was a display of moral arrogance by Edelman. Sure, Jesus wanted Christians to help the poor, as Christian Republicans and Democrats knew, but nowhere in the Gospel did the Messiah weigh in on whether he preferred centralizing or decentralizing Medicaid.

Bill Clinton signed the bill. In response, Edelman’s husband, Peter, resigned his post in the Department of Health and Human Services saying this was “the worst thing Bill Clinton had done.” Contrary to Edelman’s predictions, welfare-reform proved an enormous success, maybe the greatest domestic achievement of Clinton’s presidency.

Opened office in Harlem Empowerment Zone

Make welfare pro-work and pro-family

At the time Bill took office America's welfare program, AFDC, received more than half of its funds from the federal government but was administered by the states, which contributed between 17% and 50% of the payments. Federal law required coverage of poor mothers and children, but the states set the monthly benefits. As a result, there were 50 different systems. The Republican plan provided minimal support to help people make the transition to work.

The Republicans passed a bill with strict limits on welfare, no supports for the transition to work, no benefits for legal immigrants, an end to federal oversight and accountability in how states spent federal welfare money. In short, the states would be free to determine what to offer in monthly payments, child care, food stamps & medical care or whether to offer them at all. After a vigorous debate in the White House, the President vetoed the bill.

Keep estate tax to encourage philanthropy

Expanded the EITC from $15.9 to $21.2 billion

The decision to grant a significant increase in the EITC was a crucial, if little noticed, moment in the presidency. There was NO political benefit to expandin the Earned Income Tax Credit. No one would notice if the prospective recipients--the legions of waitresses, hospital orderlies, and janitors--still toiled for wages that left them below the poverty line; the EITC subsidy was too cumbersome a concept for most journalists to even bother to understand, much less attempt to describe.

Clinton expanded the EITC from $15.9 to $21.2 billion in the first year, which, in effect, cut taxes for 15 million families.

Create "New Markets" in impoverished areas

Clinton did not create this new atmosphere. Indeed, his formal efforts to "do" something about race--his second-term "commission" to study the problem, for example--and more than that, his appreciation of African-Americans--created the subtext for a new American tolerance, especially among young people, who really did seem to understand, as the twentieth century ended, that the nation's racial diversity was not only a significant advantage in the global marketplace but also a source of social and cultural creativity at home.

Welfare reform significantly reduced unmarried child-raising

It seemed that Clinton had not only made work pay, but he'd also removed the disincentive to marriage that had been an unintended consequence of the old welfare system, which only visited benefits upon single mothers. So there was an answer to the "culture of poverty" arguments long posed by conservatives--but it was an answer that combined conservative values ("responsibility") with liberal spending ("opportunity"). This was, perhaps, the purest demonstration of the substance and possibilities of the Third Way.

Help Low-income Fathers Support their Children

$125 million for new “Fathers Work” grants will help approximately 40,000 low-income non-custodial parents (mainly fathers) work, pay child support, and reconnect with their children.

End welfare as we know it

The law contains strong work requirements, performance bonuses to reward states for moving welfare recipients into jobs and reducing illegitimacy, state maintenance of effort requirements, comprehensive child support enforcement, and supports for families moving from welfare to work -- including increased funding for child care. In May 1999, the Department of Health and Human Services released guidance on how states and local governments can use welfare block grant funds to help families move from welfare to work.

The "E" in EITC is about earning: so reduce marriage penalty

Tonight I propose another major expansion of the EITC: to reduce the marriage penalty, to make sure it rewards marriage as it rewards work, and also to expand the tax credit for families that have more than two children. It punishes people with more than two children today. Our proposal would allow families with three or more children to get up to $1,100 more in tax relief. These are working families; their children should not be in poverty.

Address Homelessness via federal, state, & county govt

Transfer 10% of federal housing to churches, for homeless

Status: The Administration supports the McKinney program which provides nonprofit homeless organizations the opportunity to have first bid at all surplus federal property. Legislation has been proposed to give local nonprofit organizations a direct role in determining the use of HUD homeless resources.

Welfare-to-work, instead of welfare as a way of life

[As president], we cut welfare red-tape and approved welfare-to-work programs for 40 states. And it has worked. There are 1.3 million fewer people on welfare today than there were when I took office. Food stamp rolls are down by more than 2 million.

In 1991, I said we needed to end welfare as we know it. Now, with the passage of new welfare reform legislation, we have an opportunity to establish a new system based on the following principles:
1. It should be about moving people from welfare to work.
2. It should impose time limits of welfare benefits.
3. It should give people the child care and health care assistance they need to move from welfare to work without hurting their children.

Welfare reform includes states, communities, & businesses

This reform is just a beginning. We must implement this legislation in a way that truly moves people from welfare to work, and that is good for children. We will be refining this reform for some time to come.

Finish welfare reform by moving able recipients into jobs.

Help Working Families Lift Themselves from Poverty
In the 1990s, Americans resolved to end welfare dependency and forge a new social compact on the basis of work and reciprocal responsibility. The results so far are encouraging: The welfare rolls have been cut by more than half since 1992 without the social calamities predicted by defenders of the old welfare entitlement. People are more likely than ever to leave welfare for work, and even those still on welfare are four times more likely to be working. But the job of welfare reform will not be done until we help all who can

work to find and keep jobs -- including absent fathers who must be held responsible for supporting their children.

In the next decade, progressives should embrace an even more ambitious social goal -- helping every working family lift itself from poverty. Our new social compact must reinforce work, responsibility, and family. By expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, increasing the supply of affordable child care, reforming tax policies that hurt working families, making sure absent parents live up to their financial obligations, promoting access to home ownership and other wealth-building assets, and refocusing other social policies on the new goal of rewarding work, we can create a new progressive guarantee: No American family with a full-time worker will live in poverty.

Goals for 2010 Finish the job of welfare reform by moving all recipients who can work into jobs.
• Cut the poverty rate in half.
• Double child support collections and require every father who owes child support to go to work to pay it off.