Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right

by Arlie Russell Hochschild

Since President Bill Clinton declared “the end of welfare as we know it” in 1996, Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) ended and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF, with work requirements and time limits) began. TANF—assistance to the nation’s poorest families with children—is now 20 percent below its 1996 levels in thirty-five states and the District of Columbia. But since the Great Recession of 2008, the number of Americans who receive food stamps (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP) has risen above 1995 levels, although that number peaked in 2013 and has fallen steeply since then. Medicaid expenditures have also risen but, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study, they are projected to fall to 1999 levels by 2016.