Clinton Signs Bill Cutting Welfare; States in New Role

In a sweeping reversal of Federal policy, President Clinton today ended six decades of guaranteed help to the nation's poorest children by signing into law a vast welfare overhaul requiring the 50 states to deal more directly with the social burdens and the budget expense of poverty.

''Today we are taking a historic chance to make welfare what it was meant to be: a second chance, not a way of life,'' Mr. Clinton declared in signing the measure, which will affect tens of millions of poor Americans, largely by mandating work requirements and imposing a five-year lifetime limit on welfare help to needy families.

Publication Date: 
1996
Location: 
New York, NY, United States