The enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) raised two questions in particular for child welfare policymakers and practitioners: Would the policy elements included in PRWORA affect the well-being of low-income children and families? Would such effects, in turn, alter the demands upon the services of child welfare systems? Despite a flurry of recent research on the effects of welfare reform on child and family outcomes, clear answers to these questions have yet to emerge. In this article, I summarize the issues that arise when we try to assess the impact of welfare reform on child maltreatment, highlight some key research findings, and suggest several issues that we need to consider in the debate over reauthorizing PRWORA.
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