(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - According to a report by Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), the value of monthly cash benefits for the poorest families with children in the US has continued to decline steadily since the program was "reformed" in 1996.
Welfare benefits are not enough to lift a poor single mother with two kids above 50 percent of the poverty line, or about $9700 a year, the report said.
“Right now, the economy is still sort of mixed and in fact the shutdown of the government and the refusal to raise the debt level has actually hurt the economy and therefore TANF, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families is just failing throughout the country,” political economist Joachim Martillo said.
“It’s going to be hard to raise benefits in such a bad economy,” Martillo told Press TV on Thursday.
TANF was created under former president Bill Clinton in 1996 to provide temporary financial assistance to poor families while aiming to get people off that assistance in the long run, primarily through employment.
Martillo blamed the current economic situation on the dysfunction in Washington.
“Congress really should stop playing games and raise the debt level, stop forcing shutdowns and the Obama administration should work harder on thinking about how to decrease poverty in the US instead of worrying about helping the banks and ignoring prosecutions of those who created the economic mess back in the 2000’s and even in the 1990’s,” Martillo stated.
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