Independence Day (1996

[Patrizia Leones]

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We demonstrate that for atom interferometers with lasers serving as beam splitters state independence (including freedom from Doppler effects) of the phase shift is obtained if the paths of the two interfering beams are closed and have obtained the same momentum transfer. This is also the case when the center-of-mass motion of the atoms is subject to a constant force field (acceleration). Among these interferometers the one with the simplest geometry is deduced for which the phase shift does not depend on acceleration. Its remaining sensitivity to rotation is discussed. Finally the geometry of a state-independent interferometer that is practically insensitive to both acceleration and rotation is worked out. As an application its relevance for the detection of the influence of space-time curvature on the atomic motion is studied. 1996 The American Physical Society.

In 1964, President Johnson declared war on poverty. At the time, the Federal commitment to solving domestic social problems was modest, as measured by either the number of programs or the level of spending. But in that remarkable year, the Nation embarked on a path that led to an expansion of programs and spending designed to attack poverty and other domestic problems. Over the next decade, the Federal Government enacted Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, food stamps, Supplemental Security Income, and an array of additional programs. By 1995, the Nation had over 300 social programs, and Federal and state spending on the poor had jumped from around $40 billion to about $360 billion.

These programs were the Federal Government’s first sustained attempt to address low income and poverty. Two important results of the new programs are that poverty among the elderly has been reduced by about two-thirds and affordable health care for the elderly has become universal. These are great achievements.

However, the effects of War on Poverty programs on children, young adults, and parents have been far less positive. Indeed, despite the dramatic increase in programs and spending, child poverty stayed at high levels and actually drifted upwards between the 1970s and the early 1990s. Even worse, more and more children were born outside marriage, a circumstance associated with high levels of poverty, youth violence and crime, and welfare dependency, all of which increased during this period.

By 1995 there was broad agreement that the guaranteed benefits of the welfare state had failed to help young adults establish economic independence. A new direction was needed to break rising welfare dependency and return more young people, especially parents, to lives of self-reliance and dignity.

Following the Republican sweep of the Congressional elections of 1994, Republicans introduced legislation to reform the Nation’s leading welfare programs. The goals of the reforms were to stimulate work, promote healthy marriages, and reduce non-marital births. Work was promoted both by making continued receipt of cash welfare conditional on serious efforts to prepare for and find work, and by making it clear to recipients that welfare was temporary. Thus, families were limited to a total of five years of cash welfare over their lifetime. States were also directed to place a specific percentage of their welfare recipients in work programs or suffer penalties. The 1996 law also streamlined childcare programs and greatly increased childcare funding, improved child support enforcement so that more money could be collected for single mothers and children, changed Medicaid rules so that virtually all families leaving welfare would have at least one year of guaranteed Medicaid, and enacted a series of reforms designed to reduce non-marital births. States were also given unprecedented flexibility to design and conduct programs to increase employment and reduce non-marital births.

The results of these reforms, which were implemented during one of the hottest economies of recent decades, are nothing short of spectacular. Taken together, information from state surveys, large-scale surveys from the Census Bureau, and other sources portrays a very consistent picture.

As shown in Figure 1, the number of families on welfare (now called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families or TANF) has been declining rapidly for the first time ever. Although many commentators claim that welfare rolls rise during recessions and decline during economic booms, this claim is refuted by the information in Figure 1. After 1960, welfare declined in only a few years until the mid-1990s. The gray areas representing recessions in Figure 1 show that the rolls tended to rise during both recessions and economic expansions. Even the booming economies of the 1960s and the 1980s could not substantially reduce the welfare rolls. Yet for the first time ever, following the 1996 reforms, the rolls declined rapidly as the economy expanded.

Because so many people left the rolls after the mid-1990s, many observers predicted disaster during a recession. This prediction is now being put to the test by the recession that began in March of 2001. Although the welfare rolls have started to increase in several states for the first time since the mid-1990s, total enrollment in welfare across all the states continued to decline slightly through September of last year as compared with September of 2000. Thus, even during the recession, states have continued to have some success in helping mothers leave welfare, albeit less success than they were able to have when jobs were more plentiful.

Declining rolls suggest reduced welfare dependency, but a full evaluation of welfare reform requires careful study of more than caseload declines. What happens to mothers who leave welfare? More than 40 states have now conducted studies to answer this question. These studies show that on average around 60 percent of mothers leaving welfare are employed at any given moment and that over a period of time more than 80 percent are employed.

National survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau confirm this finding. Because Census Bureau studies are based on representative samples of the entire population, they provide the most reliable and valid estimates of how the economic fortunes of Americans change over time. Consistent with the state studies of mothers leaving welfare, Census Bureau employment data for all females who head families show dramatic increases in work beginning in the mid-1990s. After a decade in which the annual employment rate of single mothers hovered around 58 percent, the rate increased every year through 2000, the last year for which information is available. By 2000, well over 73 percent of mothers heading families were working, an increase of 25 percent in 6 years.

Even more to the point, most of the increased employment occurred among low-income mothers. Figure 2 shows employment levels for never-married mothers, the most disadvantaged subgroup of mothers heading families. These mothers are the least educated, the least job experienced, and the most likely to have long spells on welfare often lasting well over a decade. Yet between 1995 and 2000, their employment rates increased from under 46 percent to nearly 66 percent, an increase of more than 40 percent in just five years.

These employment increases by single mothers and former welfare mothers are unprecedented. By 2000, the percentage of single mothers with a job reached an all-time high. Thus, the decline in welfare rolls has led to substantial increases in employment.

Even those who raised doubts about welfare reform must concede that millions of mothers previously dependent on welfare have proven themselves capable of holding jobs. But skeptics might still question whether the rise in work has contributed to increased economic well-being among female-headed families. After all, during the welfare debate of 1996, a highly publicized study had predicted that at least a million children would be cast into poverty by welfare reform.

Again, the Census Bureau surveys provide reliable information on changes in economic well-being among all female-headed families. In most years since the mid-1990s, the Census Bureau data paint a consistent picture of economic progress by low-income mothers heading families. Figure 3 captures the essential features of the portrait for the bottom 40 percent of mother-headed families (total income under $21,000). Between 1993 and 2000, earnings increased dramatically while income from welfare fell. The figure shows that welfare income, primarily from cash and food stamps, has declined by about $2,500 per family. However, income from earnings and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a program that provides a cash subsidy to low-income working parents, has more than offset this loss of welfare income for many families. Earnings and the EITC climbed by an average of $5,300 per family over the period. Thus, when these and all other sources of income are combined, the total income of families headed by low-income single mothers increased by well over 25 percent between 1993 and 2000. This pattern of rapidly increasing employment and earnings accompanied by decreasing welfare income is the very definition of breaking welfare dependency.

Not surprisingly, the surge in employment and earnings was also successful in reducing child poverty rates. As Figure 4 shows, the predictions of increased child poverty have proven to be incorrect. In fact, child poverty has declined every year since the mid-1990s. The total decline of about 30 percent, from 22.7 percent in 1993 to 16.2 percent in 2000, has brought overall child poverty to its lowest level since 1978. Equally important, poverty among African-American children has fallen dramatically to its lowest level ever, and Hispanic children are not far behind.

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