Tom Blumer has a great review of how the Welfare Reform Act may be exceeding the expectations from when it was signed into law.
From a peak of over 14 million in 1994, and over 12 million at the end of 1996 (over 4.5 million families) when the new law took effect, the number of those receiving welfare came tumbling down to about 5.5 million by the end of 2000 — a decline of nearly 2 million
The index to data for all years back to 1960 is here
Dec. 31, 2000: 5,527 (from year-end 2001 reports)
Dec. 31, 2001: 2,101; 5,276 (from year-end 2002 reports)
Dec. 31, 2002: 2,045; 5,014 (from year-end 2003 reports *)
Dec. 31, 2003: 2,003; 4,844 (from year-end 2004 reports)
Dec. 31, 2004: 1,978; 4,701 (from year-end 2005 reports)
Dec. 31, 2005: 1,870; 4,396 (from latest available 2006 reports)
Mar. 31, 2006: 1,814; 4,231 (from latest available 2006 reports)
* - the Dec-02 column is mislabeled Dec-03 in these reports
The reductions in families and recipients on welfare over the last 5-plus years are almost 16% and over 23%, respectively, which the country’s overall population has increased by about 6%. The percentage of the population receiving welfare benefits has dropped from 1.95% at the end of 2000 to 1.42% — a per-capita drop of over 27%.