This report asserts that welfare reform has been very successful in reducing child poverty. For a quarter-century prior to reform, black child poverty and poverty among single mothers remained virtually constant. Six years after reform, poverty among both groups dropped rapidly, reaching the lowest levels in U.S. history. Welfare rolls have plummeted, employment of single mothers has increased dramatically, and child hunger has declined substantially. In all recessions since the beginning of the war on poverty in the mid-1960s, child poverty has increased sharply, but in the 2001 recession, child poverty did not rise at all. Black children are perhaps the ones enjoying the most success from welfare reform, with 1.2 million black children released from poverty since 1996. While many black children still live in poverty, hundreds of thousands are better off than they were 6 years ago. For every black child whose economic condition has worsened in the past 6 years, six black children have risen out of poverty. The status of black children in extreme poverty varies depending on the measure of income used in the analysis. The report concludes that Congress must strengthen work requirements in the reauthorization of welfare reform by challenging and engaging America's most vulnerable families still in poverty so they can realize their full potential. (Contains 9 footnotes.) (SM)