Abstract
In 1996, the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program was repealed, and the welfare system in the United States was changed. This article critiques, from a nursing perspective, US welfare system reform. It interrogates dominant ideologies about poverty, welfare, and waged labor; examines federal welfare reform legislation of the 1990s and its programmatic implementation at the state level; discusses global health and safety implications of welfare replacement initiatives; and challenges nurses to political and scholarly action.