Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials Highlight

The rise in childhood poverty, the declining real funds, and the new law’s restrictions have meant that the percentage of families with children in poverty receiving welfare benefits has plummeted. At the time of TANF’s enactment, AFDC covered 68 out of every 100 families with impoverished kids—down from 82 in 1979. By 2014, it was down by more than half, to 23 percent.