by Carolyn L. Weaver

About the author: Carolyn L. Weaver is the director of Social Security and Pension Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a public policy research organization. She is the author of Disability and Work.

President Bill Clinton claims his welfare reform plan will “end welfare as we know it.” Yet his plan fails to tackle the federal government’s largest and fastest- growing cash welfare program, Supplemental Security Income (SSI)—now more costly and growing much more rapidly than AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children), the focus of the welfare reform debate. Established to serve the elderly and people with disabilities, SSI’s poor targeting of benefits has caused the program to double in cost between 1980 and 1994. Ironically, at the same time the federal government is...