<Li> Reported by the joint conference committee on July 30, 1996; agreed to by the House on July 31, 1996 (328--101) and by the Senate on August 1, 1996 (78--21) </Li> <Li> Signed into law by President Bill Clinton on August 22, 1996 </Li> <P> The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) is a United States federal law considered to be a major welfare reform . The bill was a cornerstone of the Republican Contract with America and was authored by Rep. E. Clay Shaw, Jr . (R - FL - 22). President Bill Clinton signed PRWORA into law on August 22, 1996, fulfilling his 1992 campaign promise to "end welfare as we have come to know it". </P> <P> PRWORA instituted Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which became effective July 1, 1997 . TANF replaced the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program--which had been in effect since 1935--and supplanted the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training program (JOBS) of 1988 . The law was heralded as a "reassertion of America's work ethic" by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, largely in response to the bill's workfare component . TANF was reauthorized in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 . </P>

The personal responsibility and work reconciliation act (prwra) was signed into law in