Recent Welfare Reform Research: An Annotated Bibliography

This project was prepared at the Urban Institute under U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration contract number K-6830-8-00-80-30, task order #2.

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).

Table of Contents

I. Introduction

II. Evaluating Various of Welfare-to-Work Strategies
The National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies (NEWWS) (formerly the JOBS program evaluation)

III. Evaluation of AFDC/TANF Waivers
State AFDC/TANF Waiver Studies
Evaluation of Arizona Employing and Moving People Off Welfare and Encouraging Responsibility Program (EMPOWER)
California Welfare Reform Impact Evaluation
State of Connecticut Welfare Reform Evaluation Project
Florida Family Transition Program (FTP) Evaluation
Indiana Welfare Reform Evaluation Project
Iowa State Welfare Reform Evaluation Track 2
Iowa: The Family Investment Program (FIP)
Maryland Family Investment Program Evaluation
Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP)
Minnesota WorkFIRST Program
Montana Welfare Reform Evaluation Project: Implementation Process and Outcome of the Families Achieving Independence in Montana (FAIM) Program
Evaluation of the Nebraska Employment First Program
Impact Study of the New Hampshire Employment Program
New Hampshire Employment and Training Program Process and Outcome Study
Evaluation of the North Carolina Work First Program
North Dakota: The Training, Education, Employment, and Management (TEEM) Project
Ohio Works First Evaluation
South Carolina Project Independence
Achieving Change for Texans
Vermont Welfare Restructuring Project (WRP)
Virginia Independence Program (VIP)
Wisconsin Pay for Performance/Self-Sufficiency First Evaluation

IV. Welfare Leavers Studies
Earnings of Welfare Leavers: Substantive and Methodological Explorations
Final Synthesis Report of the Findings from ASPE-Sponsored "Leavers" Studies
Findings from ASPE-Sponsored "Leavers" Studies (Appendix B)
How Are Families That Left Welfare Doing? A Comparison of Early and Recent Welfare Leavers
Initial Synthesis Report of the Findings from ASPE-Sponsored "Leavers" Studies
Interpreting TANF Leaver Studies: Comparing ASPE Grantee States to the Nation as a Whole
W-2: Converting to Wisconsin Works. Where Did Families Go When AFDC Ended in Milwaukee?
How Families That Left Welfare Are Doing: A National Picture

V. The National Welfare-to-Work (WtW) Grants Evaluation
The National Evaluation of the Welfare-to-Work Grants Program
VI. Employment Retention and Advancement
The Postemployment Services Demonstration (PESD)
Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) Project
Assessing Enhanced Transitional Employment (ETE) Programs

VII. Rural Welfare Research
Rural Welfare-To-Work Strategies Project: Planning Grants and Technical Assistance
Rural Welfare-to-Work Strategies Demonstration and Evaluation Project

VIII. Noncustodial Parents
Evaluation of the Parents' Fair Share (PFS) Demonstration
Serving Noncustodial Parents: A Descriptive Study of Welfare-to-Work Programs
Multi-Site Evaluation and Synthesis of Responsible Fatherhood Projects
Evaluation of the Partners for Fragile Families Demonstration Projects
The Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study

IX. Hard-to-Serve Welfare Recipients and Barriers to Employment
The Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ (HtE) Demonstration and Evaluation Project
Screening and Assessment in TANF/WtW
Work-Based Strategies for Hard-to-Employ TANF Recipients: A Preliminary Assessment of Program Models and Dimensions
Beyond Work First: How to Help Hard-to-Employ Individuals Get Jobs and Succeed in the Workforce
State Welfare-to-Work Policies for People with Disabilities Implementation Challenges and Considerations
Strategies for Addressing the Needs of Domestic Violence Victims within the TANF Program: The Experience of Seven Counties
Barriers to the Employment of Welfare Recipients

X. Changes in the Welfare Caseload
The Effects of Welfare Policy and the Economic Expansion on Welfare Caseload: An Update
What Causes Public Assistance Caseloads to Grow?

XI. Welfare Time Limits
Ways That States Can Serve Families That Reach Welfare Time Limits
State Choices on Time Limit Policies in TANF-Funded Programs

XII. TANF Reauthorization
Welfare Reform: The Next Act
The New World of Welfare
Highlights of the Final TANF Regulations

I. Introduction

In the past thirty-five years, there has been a dramatic evolution in welfare employment and training programs. During this period, there have been numerous efforts to evaluate the effectiveness of these programs. In simple terms, the welfare reform research and evaluations of the past thirty-five years can be described in three major waves:

(1) Work Incentives (WIN) Program evaluations conducted by states and others between the implementation of WIN in 1967 and 1988 when the Family Support Act (FSA) of 1988 was passed;

(2) Evaluations of the Job Opportunity and Basic Skills Training Program (JOBS), passed under the FSA, between 1989 and 1996; and

(3) Welfare evaluation from the mid-1990s to the present, after enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) welfare evaluations from the mid-1990s to the present.

The welfare reform research and evaluations presented in this annotated bibliography focus on the two latter waves of welfare reform evaluation with a particular emphasis on recently completed and ongoing research and evaluation projects. For the reader's information, however, a brief historical context of the past thirty-five years is provided here.

In 1967, the Work Incentives (WIN) Program—the first large-scale employment program for recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC)—was established as part of the Social Security Act. Prior to 1989, the WIN program was the only federal program designed to assist families in leaving welfare and finding work.¹ As the welfare rolls continued to grow, however, participation requirements were added and emphasis on both job placement and job training gradually increased. Under the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981 (OBRA), states were authorized under federal waivers to conduct their own WIN demonstrations as an alternative to the standard WIN program.² There were many large-scale evaluations of various state welfare reform and WIN demonstration programs.

Expanding upon many innovative state welfare reforms, the Family Support Act (FSA) of 1988 was passed replacing WIN with the Job Opportunity and Basic Skills (JOBS) Training Program. While continuing to focus on job training and placement, the JOBS program also emphasized education as a means for attaining self-sufficiency. Congress mandated a national evaluation of the JOBS program in 1988 to rigorously measure the effects of the program, including both economic and non-economic outcomes for welfare recipients and their children. The JOBS study, called the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies (NEWWS) Evaluation and described more fully in Section II, was designed to determine the effect of different welfare-to-work program approaches on welfare recipients' future employment earnings, receipt of AFDC and other transfer payments, total income, and other family circumstances, and to assess the program's effects on the cognitive and social development, health, and school performance of recipients' children.

In 1996, the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) reformed welfare and transformed the cash welfare support system. The legislation replaced the 60-year-old Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) entitlement program with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), providing states with block grants and considerable flexibility in designing their welfare programs. Under TANF, states have flexibility in determining eligibility, establishing benefit levels, and designing education, employment, and training services. TANF, a time-limited program, emphasizes moving welfare clients to work.

Prior to TANF, 43 states were granted waivers from AFDC and the Food Stamp Program rules to demonstrate new approaches in welfare. Federal law required that states evaluate these experiments and provide matching funds to do so. After the enactment of TANF, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services approved 20 of the states to continue with their waivers and some of their research. Each of these 20 waiver evaluations is described in Section III.

Since the passage of PRWORA, there have been numerous efforts to evaluate the effectiveness of TANF and related programs and subpopulations. Some of the many issues being studied and described in this annotated bibliography include:³

• The well-being of former welfare recipients;
• Evaluating various Welfare-to-Work strategies;
• Employment retention and advancement initiatives;
• Rural welfare initiatives;
• Programs designed to serve noncustodial parents;
• Hard-to-serve welfare recipients and barriers to self-sufficiency;
• Changes in the welfare caseload; and
• Welfare time limits
• TANF reauthorization.

This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

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