The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act presented challenges to all US states to alter their welfare programmes and management systems. This book analyzes the responses of five states - Florida, Mississippi, New York, Washington and Wisconsin - to these challenges.

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 presented challenges to all states to alter their welfare programs and management systems. This book analyzes the responses of five states to those challenges. It features similarities as well as differences in their implementation of welfare reform, within the context of their distinctive historical, political, cultural, economic and demographic experiences. Public support for moving welfare recipients to work forms the common overlay; reorganized state-level administrative structures, and diverse local management and service arrangements differentiate them. The chapters provide an in-depth account of welfare reform, its complex workings, and the important role played by political leaders at state and local levels in Florida, Mississippi, New York, Washington, and Wisconsin.