It has been seven years since Amber Izarraraz was on welfare. The 30-year-old single mother of three works as an accountant, often putting in overtime. But home ownership eludes her and lapses in health coverage forced her into medical bankruptcy.

Their paths illustrate the good and bad of welfare reform, now a decade old.

Welfare, as it's commonly known, no longer exists. A relic of the Great Depression, the system was transformed under legislation signed by President Clinton in 1996, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act.

Gone is the guarantee of a government check for parents - mostly single moms - raising children in poverty. Now, recipients must work, and aid is limited. Utahns can get no more than 36 months of cash assistance in a lifetime.

Conservatives and liberals, even welfare reform's initial critics, agree that some good came of the overhaul. But questions remain over whether the new program helps or punishes the poor.

Driving down enrollment

Ron Haskins at the Brookings Institution calls the law, which he helped write while working as a staffer in Congress, a "triumph."

Single mothers left welfare in droves. Between August 1996 and September 2001 the number of welfare recipients plummeted by 52 percent. In Utah, the decline was about 47 percent.

Utah's rolls continue to drop, from a monthly average of 9,304 families in 2005 to 5,728 in 2007.

Meanwhile, employment rates and earnings for single women have risen. Until 2001, the child poverty rate declined. But Haskins said it's still 20 percent better today than at its peak in the 1990s, and dropping.

"If you review the history of federal social programs, they mostly fail," said Haskins. "The government is good at giving people money, but not very good at changing people's behavior."

In Utah, about 43 percent of those who leave welfare find employment. But most are mired in low-paying jobs, earning between $8 and $9 an hour on average.

Nationally, the ranks of women who are neither working nor on welfare has grown, comprising up to 20 to 25 percent of all low-income single mothers, shows research by Rebecca Blank, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan.

The most vulnerable: those with histories of domestic violence, chronic health problems and untreated addictions or mental illness.

Experts say welfare fails to address the plight of these so-called "hard to employ" women and their children.

Get a job

"Welfare is no longer about lifting people out of poverty, it's about getting people into jobs," said Mary Beth Vogel-Ferguson at the University of Utah's Social Research Institute. Ferguson has tracked thousands of welfare recipients over the years. Her most recent study was commissioned by Utah's Department of Workforce Services.

Preliminary findings show welfare's emphasis on finding a job, any job, is best suited for single moms under 21 with no high school diploma and little work history, said Ferguson. "But that only fits 16 percent of the welfare population."

Utah's welfare population looks much as it did before the reforms, comprising mostly young, single white women with an average of two children. But their backgrounds are varied, Ferguson said.

Some were pregnant as teens or grew up poor. Others sidelined college degrees and careers to start families, but later divorced or became widowed. Most resist being branded a "welfare mom," while only a few see the program as their ticket to a better future.

In a perfect world, welfare would work for everyone. But for women in their 30s with some college education, it's far from a long-term solution, said Ferguson.

Izarraraz knew that to advance professionally, she needed to finish her degree. While on welfare, she was told she could attend school if she worked 30 hours a week.

"Try that and raising kids alone," said the Salt Lake City woman, who had nothing but three bags of clothes when she left her boyfriend, the father of one of her children.

Izarraraz easily found work as a paralegal, "mostly doing copy center stuff," she said. She was later promoted to management and recently branched into accounting.

She is paid well, but proper training as a certified public accountant would double her salary and "I'd make enough to buy health coverage for all of us," Izarraraz said.

Supporting working families

Izarraraz's children are enrolled in the state Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). But if she works too much overtime, she'll exceed the income threshold for the government-paid insurance.

A medical emergency during one lapse in coverage forced Izarraraz into bankruptcy in 2004.

Work supports - Medicaid, CHIP, subsidized child care and income tax credits - are now the core of America's safety net for low-income families.

The programs are growing, they're expensive and Congress has targeted them for cuts, while welfare experts urge expanding them.

Utah is already stingy with its work supports, spending less per capita on families below 200 percent of poverty than any state in the nation, a recent Urban Institute study showed.

The state's comparatively low poverty rate and strong economy are probably factors, said the study's author, Sheila Zedlewski. "Utah's do-it-on-your-own philosophy also plays a role," she said.

Child care subsidies were a "life-saver" for 28-year-old Hansen, who has three children "in the potty training bracket."

Adopted from El Salvador at age 5 by a Lehi couple, Hansen never imagined she'd wind up on welfare.

"There were 12 of us. My parents weren't rich, but they were hard workers," she said. "We're contributors, not takers."

But Hansen said when her husband left her with nothing, she had nowhere to turn.

"He didn't even leave us a gallon of gas," she said.

Hard work has paid off in promotions for Hansen, a human resources manager at a local staffing agency. But she said she knows of other women who bypassed higher-paying jobs for fear of losing their child care assistance or Medicaid.

"I essentially traded $1,000 in child care grants for a $200 pay raise," said Hansen. "A lot of women get discouraged. They ought to start rewarding women instead of punishing them for their successes."

Small solutions

Hansen has started a support group for single moms. It's mostly a forum for sharing tips on how to stretch a dollar, but she hopes it encourages women to advocate for changes in social policy.

Ferguson's study gave voice to one problem, the "cliff effect," which the state has committed to fix.

"When you first start a job, you don't get paid for a few weeks. So we're awarding transitional payments to help bridge the gap," said Utah welfare director Helen Thatcher. "It's still early, but it seems to be working."

Ferguson also trains Utah caseworkers to better understand their clients and the challenges posed by generational poverty. But she said federal work requirements - further tightened last year under the Deficit Reduction Act - tie Utah's hands.

"The program," she said, "has become even more restrictive and less helpful."

kstewart@sltrib.com