Gaining Ground in Illinois: Welfare Reform and Person-Centered Policy Analysis

In 1997, then state Senator Barack Obama sponsored legislation in the Illinois General Assembly to study the newly passed federal welfare reform and how it would affect the citizens of Illinois. He believed that a sound piece of research assessing how the new law affected the poor of Illinois would give lawmakers a way to come together and improve the law and the lives of the poor. Dan A. Lewis was selected to direct the study and report back to the legislature. For four years, Lewis and hi...