When teh poor get fucked.

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The Safety Net Will Not Catch the Poor This Time

Unemployment insurance is not as generous now. Yet the unemployment rate is at 6.5 percent and some forecasters say it could top 8 percent next year. It hit 10.8 percent in the early 1980s.
This is also the first severe economic slump since President Bill Clinton overhauled the welfare system and made it tougher to qualify for, and keep receiving, benefits. Many people who lose their jobs now and fall into poverty may not qualify for public assistance. Other programs designed in part to counter hard times — like job training and housing subsidies — have also been cut back.

If you are a follower of my blog or know me personally, you have probably picked up on some anti-Bill Clinton sentiment. The primary reason for my President Clinton hate is the 1996 PRWORA welfare-reform bill which should serve as primary example as to how triangulated policies result in very bad policies. I will get to the NYT article, but first let me point out TANF's (welfare) failures:
1. By establishing welfare as a maintenance-of-effort grant, states are tasked with setting benefit levels themselves. This has the effect of fracturing the risk pool. By doing so, it is impossible for high poverty risk states (poor states like Mississippi) to be subsidized by the low poverty risk states (wealthy states like Connecticut). This has made it impossible for TANF to actually reduce poverty rates as the states where poverty is concentrated cannot afford to payout enough benefits to the impoverished.MORE