The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconcilia-
tion Act (PRWORA) of 1996 has resulted in the most innova-
tive period in the history of American welfare. All fifty states,
the District of Columbia, and several territories have designed new
welfare systems, many of which show a genuine determination to find
ways to help the poor become independent through self-employment.
While the 1996 act places many requirements and restrictions on the
states, it allows state officials considerable flexibility in designing their
new welfare systems. Many states have taken advantage of this dis-
cretion. States are experimenting with a wide range of policies de-
signed to move welfare recipients, and would-be recipients, into the
job market, and assist them with support services while they become
established in the workforce. The plans being implemented across the
nation vary frequently even within states where different approaches
are often being tested in one or more counties.

State responsiveness, of course, varies a great deal. Public officials
in some states have been interested in comprehensive welfare reform
for over a decade. Wisconsin, Michigan, Vermont, and Oregon, for
example, were leaders in gaining permission to test innovative policies
in the early 1990s. The Clinton administration had approved demon-
stration projects (experimental plans) in forty-three states before the

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