Several state welfare reform initiatives that included time limits were started under waivers before and were evaluated using a rigorous, random assignment research design; that is, families were assigned, by chance, to a program group subject to the welfare reform including the time limit or to a control group subject to the previous welfare policies, and both groups were then followed over time to determine what difference the reforms made. Results from the early phases of these studies, before anyone reached the time limits, provide evidence about the anticipatory effects of time limits although the study designs did not allow researchers to measure whether time limits affect welfare applications.
The studies consistently found that program group members were more likely to work than control group members, even before anyone reached the time limits. However, it is impossible to say whether these effects were driven by the time limits, because the programs also included other features that promoted employment such as enhanced earned income disregards and expanded work requirements and services.
In contrast, most of the studies found that program group members were no more likely to leave welfare in the period before people began reaching the time limits. At first glance, this suggests that no banking was going on, but the pattern is probably attributable to expanded earned income disregards and similar policies that made it easier for program group members to continue receiving benefits after going to work.
It is possible that the time limits encouraged some people to leave welfare sooner while the work incentives encouraged people to stay on welfare longer, with the overall result being a wash. A series of econometric caseload studies used data on state policies, caseloads, and economic conditions to try to isolate the effects of welfare reform.
A few of the studies sought to tease out the effects of individual reform components, including time limits. Most of these studies concluded that both welfare reform and the strong economy contributed to the decline in welfare caseloads.
Although some studies did not find evidence that time limits per se affected the caseload, one study using individual-level national survey data estimated that time limits may have been responsible for a substantial proportion of the welfare caseload decline, with the strongest effects being seen for families with very young children. These declines must have been anticipatory effects, because few families had reached a time limit when the analysis was conducted.
Two of the random assignment studies followed program and control group members for four years well beyond the point when families began reaching the states time limits. The studies examined Connecticuts statewide Jobs First program, with a month time limit, and a Florida pilot program, the Family Transition Program [FTP], with and month time limits.
In neither case did the programs effects on employment grow substantially when people began reaching the time limit and having their benefits canceled, suggesting that few people were induced to work by benefit termination. In Connecticut, most of the people whose cases were closed at the time limit were already working, but that was not the case in Floridas FTP. This pattern of effects appears to be consistent with the results of a series of follow-up studies, discussed below, which found that employment rates among people whose benefits were canceled at time limits did not change much over time.
Neither Connecticuts Jobs First program nor Floridas FTP generated consistent overall effects on family income or material well-being in the post-time-limit period, although there is evidence that small groups of families may have lost income as a result of the programs. These results do not mean that program group members lost no income when their benefits were cut off but, rather, that the program group, on average, had about the same income as the control group. In addition, the programs had few effects on fertility, on marital status, or on the well-being of elementary-school-age children.
In both programs, only a fraction of program group members actually reached the time limits most left welfare before reaching the limits , but it is difficult to determine the direct effects on these families because there is no way to know which members of the control group should serve as the appropriate benchmark.
Some of the key questions about time limits concern how families fare after their benefits are terminated. Are they working? Are they receiving other forms of public assistance? Do they experience severe hardships such as homelessness or hunger? Although it is too early to offer definitive answers, eight state and federally funded post-time-limit studies provide a wealth of data.
The studies have the same limitation as other studies of welfare leavers, however: Data on the post-welfare circumstances of families do not necessarily provide evidence about the effects of welfare reform. In addition, none of the post-time-limit studies provide direct evidence on the federal month limit; they were all conducted in states with limits of fewer than 60 months.
Finally, all of the studies were conducted during periods of low unemployment. Keeping these limitations in mind, key findings include:. Several studies also found that time-limit leavers were more likely to lack a high school diploma and to be African-American. These characteristics overlap, however, and it is not clear which are independently associated with reaching a time limit or with having ones benefits canceled. Most of the variation in employment rates after leaving welfare is attributable to state policies that shape who reaches the time limit or who is eligible for a time-limit extension.
For example, some states impose large numbers of full-family sanctions, so that most of the people who reach the time limit are either employed or complying with program rules. Similarly, in states with relatively high welfare grant levels and generous earnings disregards, many people are mixing work and welfare when they reach the time limit.
Some states grant extensions to most recipients who are not employed when they reach the time limit, while other states are quite likely to close such cases. As a consequence of these disparities, employment rates in some states are lower for time-limit leavers than for other leavers, and rates in other states are higher for time-limit leavers.
For the most part, however, post-exit employment rates are similar to pre-exit employment rates. In other words, although the overall rates can hide dynamic employment patterns, there is little evidence that large numbers of people responded to the termination of their benefits by going to work.
There is wide variation in Food Stamp receipt across states, largely tracking the differences in employment rates that is, the rates of Food Stamp receipt are lowest in states where most time-limit leavers are working and thus less likely to be eligible. However, time-limit leavers are generally more likely than other welfare leavers to receive Food Stamps, even in states where their post-exit employment rate is higher. In all states, some time-limit leavers reported that their post-welfare income or standard of living was higher than when they received welfare, whereas others reported being worse off.
Although the percentages vary, a greater proportion of respondents in most states said that they were worse off than better off. In general, employed respondents reported higher household income than nonworking respondents. Homelessness has been rare among time-limit leavers, but levels of food insecurity and other hardships such as utility shutoffs have been high. Again, however, there is not a clear association between levels of hardship and employment status, and there are few clear patterns of hardships across states or categories of leavers.
Given the exceptional diversity in both policies and implementation practices affecting time limits, the practical meaning of time limit differs from state to state and from welfare office to welfare office within some states. Also, because time limits interact in complex ways with earned income disregards, sanctions, and other state policies, it is critical to consider the full set of policies before characterizing a states overall approach to welfare reform or assessing data on key outcomes, such as the employment rate of individuals who left welfare because of time limits.
Moreover, the story of time limits is still unfolding. Very few families have reached the federal month time limit, and it is too early to draw any broad conclusions about how states will respond as more families reach the limits, about how families will fare without benefits over the long term, and about whether the 20 percent hardship exemption in federal law will be adequate over time.
There will be many opportunities to obtain additional data over the next two or three years, as a larger number of families reach time limits under varying economic conditions. Publication Date. Findings from other states tell the same story.
Research studies consistently show that a small subset of recipients of Temporary Aid to Needy Families require specialized assistance and ongoing support to be able to provide for their families, because they are grappling with one or more severe difficulties such as physical or mental health problems, caring for a disabled child, the aftermath of domestic violence, or educational deficits and learning disabilities. The families I surveyed for the Maine Time Limit Study look like those all across America who ask for more than temporary welfare assistance.
After benefits were cut off, many of these respondents, including families with children, were left facing increasingly draconian circumstances.
Some findings in our study seemed surprising, given that Maine provides educational programs to welfare recipients and still allows very needy people to apply for hardship exceptions to the five-year limit. But such extra help had not reached many of the respondents I studied:. If welfare in Maine — and beyond — is to meet its core objectives of protecting families and enabling employment for people who can work, several new steps are clearly called for:.
Read more in Sandra S. SSN Key Findings. Share pdf twitter facebook. Sandra Butler. University of Maine. As noted previously, women who were once welfare recipients and have left welfare are not the only ones affected by welfare reform. Some women have chosen not to apply for welfare subsequent to reform, possibly discouraged by the work requirements and other new mandates that come with being on welfare, and possibly encouraged enough by the good economy to stay off welfare and work.
Other women have applied for welfare but have been rejected. Over twenty states have formal diversion programs, which encourage women through financial inducements and other means to not come onto the welfare rolls. More than thirty states have either diversion policies or have imposed work requirements that must be fulfilled prior to eligibility for benefits.
The decline in the number of women joining the TANF rolls has been very large in the post-reform era. In some states, the decline in entry onto welfare has been more important quantitatively than the increase in exit rates in accounting for the caseload decline.
This finding casts a different light on the caseload decline and demonstrates that there is an important group of women other than leavers whose employment, earnings, and income should be of interest to policymakers. Unfortunately, no studies have been conducted to date that examine this group, so their employment status and well-being remains unknown. However, the studies which have showed large post-reform increases in employment rates of single mothers as a whole, and which necessarily combine both those who have left welfare and those who have not come onto the rolls, strongly suggest that employment rates of women who choose not to enter the welfare system are high.
The overall picture of employment among single mothers in the wake of welfare reform is a favorable one, indicating widespread work among former welfare recipients and among low-income single mothers as a whole. With this accomplishment a given, reauthorization should focus on policies that address the remaining problems.
There are two major problems that deserve attention. One is the broad issue of how to improve the income gains of women who have left welfare for work. Income gains are too modest for too many families, with earnings gains insufficient to counter reductions in benefits and with poverty rates-though lower than for families staying on welfare-remaining high.
Aside from the need to increase the income of former welfare families for its own sake, income gains from leaving welfare will be necessary, in the long term, to provide financial incentives for women to leave welfare for work. While sanctions and work requirements can continue to be used to push women into the work force, they will operate much more successfully if the financial incentives operate in the same direction.
More supports for working families in the form of increased child care assistance, assistance with transportation, and other work-related services can substantially increase the incentive to work. Moving more women from part-time work to full-time work would be another direction to pursue, but this approach has limits if adequate child care and transportation are not available. Major improvements beyond this are likely to come only from increased earnings.
This calls for expanding policies aimed at job retention, skills enhancement, and job training. States are only now beginning to think about these types of policies and have a long way to go before such policies are widespread and have a major impact on incomes.
The second major issue is how to develop policies to assist families that have special difficulties in establishing employment. One important result of the studies reviewed here is that many of these families are found not to be on TANF or on any other major welfare program.
Rather, they are already on their own, off welfare, and have very low incomes. Any set of services that is directed mainly to TANF recipients alone on the presumption that the most disadvantaged families are still on the rolls, will not reach these families. This fact requires a major expansion of assistance to the non-TANF population. Some states, notably Wisconsin, have made such an expansion a major goal, but most states are far from having penetrated this population deeply with services and programs.
Most observers already recognize that designing successful policies to move non-employed families into stable work will be very difficult, given the severity of the difficulties these families face. These difficulties include low levels of education and job skills, significant health problems both physical and mental , substance abuse, and domestic violence.
The multiple interlocking and overlapping sets of problems faced by these families should give pause to any optimistic view that easy solutions will lead to steady employment and significant earnings gains. Given these difficulties, a more open discussion is needed of assistance policies for floundering families who are unlikely to achieve significant employment gains in the short-term or even medium-term.
Long-term cash assistance accompanied by job training, health insurance, and better programs aimed at reducing substance abuse, mental health problems, and domestic violence need to be directed toward this population independent of employment considerations.
While the strong work incentives that are currently in place should remain, thereby continuing to provide financial incentives to families to work at higher levels than they currently do, simply strengthening work supports and further increasing work incentives will not, by themselves, provide much help to these families. Virtually all states have already taken steps to develop programs for these families.
States have started to identify families with serious problems that are barriers to work, and then design an appropriate set of services for them. However, the states must further develop these programs before a successful set of identification procedures and an adequate service delivery structure is established.
When coordinating treatment for these families with employment programs, states can use their ability to exercise exemptions from work requirements and time limits as a short-term strategy. But more active and aggressive policies should be implemented to address the needs of these floundering families, both on and off TANF.
Employment Among Single Mothers Has Increased The overriding single piece of evidence showing that progress has been made on the agenda of helping mothers on welfare work is the dramatic increase in employment rates among single mothers in the last decade. Related Books. Global Cities By , and. Asia in Washington By Kent E. Related Topics Poverty U. Metro Areas. More on U.
0コメント