In 1996, Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). PRWORA ended welfare as an entitlement, instead creating a system of reciprocal obligation, requiring welfare recipients to be engaged in work activities and time-limiting the receipt of benefits.
Economy
Don’t Fence Me In: Lianne’s Story
Family, then finances—and opportunity. Those are what brought Lianne Halpern back to tiny Shamrock, a small, dusty stop on the famous Route 66 in the Texas panhandle. Like generations of Americans before, Lianne and her family had traveled west along that route in search of the golden promises of California. Lianne’s father worked in the...
January 29, 2026