Heartland Institute ranks state 33rd in country.
Washington received a D for welfare reform in a new Heartland Institute report, which said the state should enact stronger lifetime limits for welfare eligibility and do more to enforce its rules. Neighboring Oregon earned an F, while Idaho received an A.
The conservative think tank’s report ranked Washington 33rd in the nation in terms of welfare reform. That represents a drop for Washington, which in 2008 was 26th in the country.
The report aims to highlight how some states were more successful than others at reducing welfare rolls, poverty and unemployment since welfare reform of 2006, when the federal government created Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), a block-grant program that allowed states to design their own programs. The report points out that successful welfare programs can save taxpayers billions of dollars.
In other areas ranked in the study, Washington was 38th in the U.S. in terms of anti-poverty performance. It ranked 37th for decline in welfare recipients, 26th for overall poverty rates and 30th for unemployment rate. Washington earned an F for its limits on eligibility for aid and an F for sanctions that effectively get welfare recipients to comply with requirements.
