Welfare reform

Welfare reform is the redesign of public assistance programs, including changes to eligibility, benefit levels, administration, and conditions for receiving aid.

Means testing: Means testing determines eligibility for public benefits by assessing income, assets, or other resources. It is a common way reforms target assistance to people below specified resource thresholds.
Poor Law: The Poor Law was a body of English laws regulating relief for people in poverty, especially from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. It established an influential precedent for deciding who deserved public relief and under what conditions.
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families is a U.S. federal block grant supporting state cash assistance and related programs for low-income families. It is the principal U.S. program created by the 1996 reform law.
Universal basic income: Universal basic income is a recurring cash payment provided to all members of a political community without means testing. It contrasts with reforms that target aid through income tests or recipient obligations.
Welfare dependency: Welfare dependency is prolonged reliance on public assistance, a concept used in debates about poverty and benefit design. Reform arguments often invoke dependency, while evidence disputes how programs affect long-term reliance.
Workfare: Workfare makes participation in work or work-related activities a condition of receiving public assistance. It exemplifies reforms that exchange benefit eligibility for employment-related obligations.
New Deal: The New Deal was a set of U.S. programs and reforms enacted under President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1930s. Its social insurance and assistance programs shaped the U.S. system later targeted by reformers.
Poverty in the United States: Poverty in the United States is the condition of living below official or alternative measures of income and material resources. Changes in assistance can affect how many households fall below poverty thresholds and how deeply.
Social insurance: Social insurance is public protection against risks such as unemployment, disability, and old age, usually financed through contributions or taxes. It is generally based on insured status rather than the behavioral conditions common in welfare reform.
Poverty trap: A poverty trap occurs when taxes and lost benefits make additional earnings yield little or no increase in disposable income. Reforms intended to reward work can fail if benefit phase-outs create weak financial incentives.

Linked from 5 pages