The passage of the 1996 welfare reform bill led to sweeping changes to the central U.S. cash safety net program for … families with children. Importantly, along with other changes, the reform imposed lifetime time limits for receipt of welfare … de facto ending the entitlement nature of cash welfare for poor families with children in the United States. Despite dire …

of needy parents on government benefits, in part by promoting marriage; the pre-reform welfare system was widely believed … to discourage marriage because it primarily provided benefits to single mothers. However, welfare reform may have … on work. This paper uses Vital Statistics data on marriages and divorces during 1989-2000 to examine the role of welfare …