Making Something Out of Nothing: Welfare Reform and a New Race to the Bottom

The 1996 welfare-reform law has been characterized as a significantact of devolution. For some, this devolution will free statesto become "laboratories of democracy" that develop better welfarepolicies; for others, it will provoke a debilitating "race tothe bottom" where states will reduce benefits out of fear ofbecoming "welfare magnets" that attract recipients from otherstates. This article suggests that neither "laboratories ofdemocracy" nor "race to the bottom" does justice to the complexitiesof the 1996 reforms. In the case of the former, new federalmandates limit state action and states face informal pressuresto "keep up" with one another in developing new restrictionsso that they can avoid becoming "welfare magnets." In the caseof the latter, we find limited empirical support for the existenceof welfare migration that is supposed to be provoking a "raceto the bottom." We find that there is limited welfare migrationbecause the real value of welfare benefits to recipients doesnot vary nearly as much as common portrayals suggest. Giventhese realities, welfare reform may produce a procedural raceto the bottom that turns the myth of migration into a self-fulfillingprophesy.