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That study, a five-year inquiry by a group of Rutgers University researchers, has now produced its first in-depth report of the family-cap policy. It directly contradicts O'Neill's findings. After closely monitoring 4,428 mothers--2,999 who were penalized if they had more children while on welfare and a control group of 1,429 who were not--the Rutgers team says there is "no reduction in the birthrate of welfare mothers attributable" to the family cap. The dissonance between O'Neill and Rutgers is largely explained by three factors: a general decline in births; a slight decrease in illegitimacy, perhaps imputable to the growing rage against bearing children out of wedlock; and, above all, a reporting delay predicted by independent researchers when O'Neill announced her conclusions late last year. "It seems that many women mistakenly thought they'd be cut off from welfare altogether if they had another kid," says Michael Laracy, who studied welfare policy for New Jersey for 17 years. "When they realized they'd only lose the additional cash payments but could still get food stamps and Medicaid, they reported their new births."
What does O'Neill say of the Rutgers work? "There are lots of ways to look at data, and I haven't seen their report," she says, although a copy was sent to her last week. Charles Murray, who glowingly accepted O'Neill's work when it first appeared, now says, "I never thought some small family-cap disincentive would work. I think the key to what's happening here is the growing stigma that's attaching to illegitimacy across the population." The Heritage Foundation's Robert Rector, who more than anyone else used O'Neill's work to urge copycat laws elsewhere, says, "I never expected O'Neill's results in the first place, but even if she's wrong, giving new money for new babies just sends the wrong moral message and should be stopped on those grounds alone." Laracy is focused on the kids and argues just the opposite: "Cut off from benefits, they'll be worse off, with a greater chance to be abused, to be ill fed and to do poorly in life."
Two federal politicians are pushing hardest to extend family caps everywhere. Missouri Representative Jim Talent is honest enough to say, "We may have to revisit the scholarly underpinnings of our argument, but on the other hand, everyone has a study, right?" Florida Representative Clay Shaw, who pushed the family cap through the House, simply ignores the Rutgers findings: "We have found through our studies that there are kids out there who are having children because of the cash they're going to receive.''
With the welfare bill stalled in the Senate as lawmakers fight over allocating a smaller pot of money, Shaw's facts-be-damned attitude drives Moynihan to distraction. "Knowing what you don't know is a form of knowledge and the beginning of wisdom," he says. "If nothing else, the Rutgers work should finally cause us to slow down and consider what we're doing." And how much would Moynihan bet that his colleagues follow his advice? "Oh," he says, "about nothing."