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A View from the Bottom: Former Welfare Recipients Evaluate the System

ABSTRACT The purpose of this qualitative study is to examine former welfare recipients' perspectives of the system in which they participated. This research utilizes open-ended responses from a 1999 comprehensive, representative statewide survey of 962 West Virginia TANF recipients to document the conceptual themes that emerge in former welfare recipients' suggestions for changing the current system. The results indicate that while there are common themes (i.e., policy delivery and design) in former recipients' critiques of the welfare system, these individuals are not uniform in their assessments of this program. This research reaffirms the importance of including historically marginalized voices in policy debates regarding policy construction and evaluation.