Study: Refocus on Workfare to Lift Mass. Residents from Poverty
Two decades after welfare reform, only 7.3 percent of Mass. recipients are participating in workfare, compared to the national average of 29.5 percent; Mass. has the lowest rate among the 50 states and Washington, D.C. BOSTON – During the 1990s, Massachusetts led a welfare reform revolution. A key pillar of that groundbreaking reform was workfare – giving able-bodied recipients the tools to become self-reliant by making work a condition of receiving benefits. For a decade, workfare was a central part of Massachusetts’ continued efforts to truly make welfare a vehicle to transition to the mainstream economy. But a new Pioneer Institute study, Rebuilding the Ladder to Self- Sufficiency: Workfare and Welfare Reform, shows that today, the commonwealth has the lowest workfare participation rate in the […]