The de Blasio Administration is in the process of overhauling the strict work requirements that have defined public assistance in New York City for almost 20 years. 

Since the Giuliani Administration, welfare has worked something like this: If you want cash assistance and you're able-bodied, then you put in 35 hours a week, partly at an unpaid job — usually doing maintenance at a city office — and partly at a job search program.

If you miss a day, you get sanctioned. According to the city, last May more than 20,000 out of 56,000 households on cash assistance were either sanctioned or about to be sanctioned. That's more than one-third. People who are sanctioned are typically cut off from their benefits, usually temporarily. But it requires an administrative hearing to get them back.

The philosophy behind that strict work requirement is called "Work First."  Liz Schott from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington, D.c.-based think tank, described the approach, which started under welfare reform in the late '90s.  

She said the idea is to "get a job, any job, and you will then advance in your earnings and in your job prospects from being in the labor force." But she said, "What the research has shown is that's not really what happened."

People found jobs quickly, Schott said, but they lost them just as quickly and wound up back on welfare. Now, she said, public policy experts believe people need different types of assistance in order to find meaningful work. That often means that skill building should take priority over job placement.

The city's Human Resources Administration said 25 percent of welfare recipients connected to a job through the city's welfare-to-work program were back on welfare within 12 months. The agency said that's proof that the "Work First" approach has failed in New York City. 

The city's new plan will allow college, GED Programs and English language courses to count toward work requirements. The plan will also replace unpaid jobs with internships, community service and subsidized work. To reduce sanctions, the city wants to decrease the number of work hours for adults with certain hardships, such as homeless people who are looking for housing.

The stricter work requirements of the past 18 years have lead to dramatic drops in the welfare rolls; critics argue these changes will cause that trend to reverse.

Schott said that could be true. 

"The flip side of that is, if the work activities are actually more useful.....the people who participate in those activities are more likely to successfully and more permanently exit [public assistance]," she said. 

The new rules will affect 56,000 households. City officials say the changes, which require a public comment period and state approval, are expected to be phased in over the next two years.