Take It From Me: Life After Welfare

A film by Emily Abt

Is welfare reform working? This troubling documentary is the story of four women struggling against enormous odds to raise themselves out of poverty. It is also an in-depth look at the street-level impact of the Personal Responsibility Act, just as the Act’s five-year limit on public assistance goes into effect for the first time.
The film gives people a detailed idea of what welfare recipients are up against trying to make the transition from welfare to work. Ihoka Rivera, her husband and their daughter went on welfare years ago when their home burned down. Now they have lost the welfare that had been helping Ihoka pursue an education. Abby Perez, a single mother of two, whose homelessness landed her children in foster care, is in despair over her inability to afford housing on minimum wage. Teresa Diehl contends with mental illness while struggling to hold down steady work. Valentina Ruiz, a tough survivor of drug addiction and welfare dependence, feels like a winner now that she has found work as a cleaning person.
Take It From Me shows that welfare reform has hardened political and social attitudes towards the poor and made the system less and less responsive to individual needs and circumstances.

75 min. Video or DVD. Sale $295. Video rental $75.

POV broadcast, 2001

National Women¹s Studies Association, 2003

"This heartfelt documentary illuminates the complexity of poverty and the erroneous simplicity of much government policy."
The New York Times