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This report presents the research that Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. (MPR) is conducting for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), to assist states and counties in studying their current Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) caseloads. This research consists of a summary review of existing survey instruments that focus on welfare populations, especially those with sections covering barriers to employability and self-sufficiency, as well as recommendations for specific measures and questions to include in a new survey instrument. This work will culminate in the development of a recommended instrument that states and counties will use to conduct telephone surveys of their TANF caseloads.
The introductory chapter discusses the importance of this project within the current policy context, as well as reinforcing the need for a new survey instrument that focuses on barriers to employability and self-sufficiency and provides background on the process we undertook to review existing survey instruments.
Early implementation studies of TANF suggest that states have made significant progress in shifting to a more work-oriented assistance system. Welfare caseloads have fallen 49 percent in the United States since the enactment of TANF, and the proportion of recipients who were working reached an all-time high of 33 percent in fiscal year 1999, compared to less than 11 percent in 1996. The dramatic decline in the TANF caseload has spawned numerous research studies to examine the circumstances of families who left the welfare rolls. With caseloads appearing to have leveled off in some states, however, policymakers and program administrators are now focusing more attention on those who remain on welfare. Yet there is currently little research that describes the characteristics and needs of these families.
While it is likely that some of the families on TANF began receiving benefits only recently, others are likely to have been receiving them for some time, and they may soon be affected by the program’s time limits. Although there is limited information on the characteristics of families remaining on the TANF rolls, there is widespread concern that, one, these families face
more barriers to employment than families who have already left the welfare rolls, and, two, they will need more assistance in moving from welfare to work than most welfare employment programs are now capable of providing. With the additional information on the characteristics and needs of TANF recipients that will be provided by this task-order project and the ASPE-funded studies by states, policymakers and program administrators will be in a better position to decide both how to help these families make the transition from welfare to work, and how to address the needs of those who may lose their benefits due to time limits.
Recently, a few studies have questioned whether families currently receiving TANF are more disadvantaged than families receiving cash assistance prior to welfare reform (Moffit and Stevenson 2001; and Zedlewski and Alderson 2001). However, all studies that compare the characteristics of current and former recipients find that those who remain on the welfare rolls are more disadvantaged than those who have left. This suggests that, even if the current TANF caseload is not more disadvantaged than the pre-welfare reform caseload, many families currently receiving TANF are experiencing substantial barriers to employment.
An Urban Institute study based on a nationally representative sample of families receiving welfare in 1997 found that current recipients were generally more disadvantaged than former recipients (Loprest and Zedlewski 1999). For example, 40.7 percent did not complete high school, compared with 28.9 percent of former recipients. While current and former recipients did not differ significantly on a number of other dimensions related to employment, such as health status, current recipients were significantly more likely to experience multiple barriers to work. For example, 17 percent of current recipients had three or more obstacles, compared with only 7 percent of former recipients. The percentage of recipients with no significant obstacles was nearly double that of current recipients — 42 percent, compared with 23 percent.
Studies conducted in California, Michigan, and New Jersey provide detailed information on families who have not been successful at making a permanent transition from welfare to work. Thirty-two percent of families surveyed 30 months after they entered Work First New Jersey (WFNJ), New Jersey’s TANF program, remained on TANF (Rangarajan and Wood 2000). Some received TANF continuously, while others cycled on and off the welfare rolls. Those who remained on the welfare rolls (“stayers”) had less education than those who had left TANF. Three out of four TANF stayers had some serious health problem; more than one in three had been seriously ill in the past year. In addition, more than half the TANF stayers faced multiple employment barriers, such as poor health, low education levels, and no recent employment history. About two-thirds had received welfare for more than one year prior to entry into WFNJ. In spite of these barriers, two-thirds of stayers had worked since entering WFNJ. They typically worked in lower-paying jobs than those held by clients who had left WFNJ and were more likely to have worked in seasonal or temporary jobs.
The Women’s Employment Study (WES), conducted in an urban county in Michigan, was the first extensive study of potential barriers to employment (Danziger et al. 2000). This study found that more than 27 percent of recipients suffer from a major depressive disorder; 19 percent suffer from a physical health problem; 22 percent are caring for a child with a health problem; 15 percent are current victims of domestic violence; 30 percent have not completed high school; and 47 percent do not have access to a vehicle or a license to drive. With only a few exceptions, the prevalence of personal and family challenges is far greater among welfare recipients than among all adult women. For example, welfare recipients are twice as likely to suffer from a major depressive disorder and five times as likely to be a victim of domestic violence.
Among the personal and family challenges that significantly reduced the likelihood that a recipient was meeting her work requirements were: low education, few work skills, lack of work experience, poor access to transportation, health problems, drug dependence, major depression, and experiences of perceived workplace discrimination. Multiple barriers to employment were common: 37 percent had two or three barriers; 24 percent, four to six barriers; and 3 percent, seven or more barriers. The prevalence of multiple barriers to employment is important, since the likelihood of working 20 or more hours per week decreases sharply as the number of barriers increases. For example, the likelihood that a single, African American mother — aged 25 to 34, living in an urban area, with one child under the age of two, worked 20 or more hours per week — is 60 percent; if she had between four and six barriers, the likelihood decreased to only 40 percent.
The CalWORKS Project was a study of the prevalence of mental health, alcohol, and other drug and domestic violence issues among CalWORKS applicants in Kern County and among CalWORKS recipients in Stanislaus County. The longitudinal study conducted by the California Institute for Mental Health followed 703 women. Initial interviews were conducted using an in-person interview that included such standardized diagnostic assessments as the Composite International Diagnostic Interview-short form (CIDI-SF). The baseline survey found that more than one-third of all respondents were experiencing domestic violence or alcohol/drug dependency or had a mental health diagnosis. One-third of recipients reported domestic abuse within the past year, while about 80 percent reported that they had experienced domestic violence at some time during their lives. Thirteen percent of the sample were found to have a diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that resulted from a physical or sexual assault occurring in the past year. Nearly 1 in 10 participants had a diagnosable alcohol or other drug dependence or abuse disorder. More than one-third of respondents in each county had at least one diagnosable mental disorder in the past year; while about 20 percent had two or more. The CalWORKS survey measured many other potential barriers to employment including limited English; caring for a disabled child; physical health problems; few job skills, and discrimination (Chandler and Meisel 2000).
The Alameda County CalWORKS Needs Assessment study was a separate project from the ongoing study in Kern and Stanislaus counties. Conducted by the Public Health Institute, the project used an entirely different survey instrument, but also focused on barriers to employment among California’s TANF recipients. Recent reports presented bivariate and multivariate associations between barriers and employment (Driscoll, Speiglman, and Norris 2000).
While these studies all tell a consistent story — that families who remain on the TANF caseload are more disadvantaged than those who have left — the studies do not measure the concept of “disadvantage” in a consistent way. In addition, with the exception of the 1999 Urban Institute study, these studies focus on examining the experiences of a cohort of TANF recipients over time, rather than describing the characteristics of the caseload at a point in time.
The completion of this current research will provide the grantee states and counties with an opportunity to develop a better understanding of the characteristics and needs of their current TANF caseloads. By developing a common survey instrument for states to use, it will be possible to examine whether the prevalence of common barriers to work is relatively consistent across the states, or whether there is significant variation from state to state. While these studies will not be able to examine whether the characteristics of the TANF caseload have changed over time, they will be able to offer significant insight into the challenges TANF agencies might face in helping families who remain on the TANF caseload move from welfare to work.
The process of reviewing and analyzing existing survey instruments took roughly eight weeks. We began by collecting all the relevant survey instruments fielded specifically for use with welfare populations in the past five years, while paying close attention to the instruments that focused on barriers to employability and self-sufficiency. We then reviewed the surveys for content, focusing on instruments with relevant barrier measures and weeding out those with no particular measures of interest. Table I.1 includes the full list of survey instruments initially reviewed during this preliminary phase.
We then reduced our initial list into a core group of 11 survey instruments that contained all the barrier measures of interest, and compiled into one table a list of measures and questions found in each instrument (see Appendix A).(1) We reviewed the measures and questions across the entire group of 11 instruments and studied their differences and common themes. We chose the measures and questions to be recommended for inclusion in the new survey instrument based on their ability to accurately measure the domains of demographics, employment, and personal, family, and community barriers to employability and self-sufficiency. We then chose that instrument’s measure that captured the necessary information best — factoring in the survey administration mode and time constraints on the survey to be designed.
TABLE I.1:
LIST OF SURVEY INSTRUMENTS INITIALLY REVIEWED
The following five chapters are dedicated to a specific domain and provide an in-depth review of the measures examined, as well as our recommended choice of measures to be included in the survey of TANF recipients. Chapter II covers demographic measures, while Chapter III covers employment and economic outcome measures. Chapter IV is dedicated to personal barrier measures, Chapter V to family barrier measures, and Chapter VI to community barrier measures. At the beginning of each chapter, we present a table that summarizes our recommendations and priorities for measuring the data items of interest in the survey. For each subtopic in the table, we provide the number of questions necessary for adequate measurement; references to surveys that have included the same subtopic; an estimate of the time it would take to administer the measure; and, in the last column, a rating of our priorities for each measure.
To indicate a strong recommendation for the measure, we placed an “A” in the final column. A rating of “B” indicates that it would be useful to include the measure, but either it is not critical to the purposes of our survey, or there are issues with reliable measurement of the topic that cause us to be somewhat less enthusiastic about recommending it. Thus, items given a B-rating are ones we would recommend including in the survey, time permitting, but they are not included in our overall time estimates for each section. Measures rated with a “C” are those we feel could be left out of the survey without seriously compromising its integrity.
The time estimates provide an approximation of how long it will take to administer the measures. Such estimates are variable because respondents can automatically skip out of questions or even entire measures (for example, only those who have work experience can answer the questions about basic job skills). Questions that are administered as part of a multi-item scale with the same response options tend to go more quickly than would the same number of stand-alone items; but this is not always the case. Despite the limitations associated with making estimates at this early stage of survey development, we include them now, in order to aid in making decisions about which measures to drop or abbreviate.
After this summary table, we provide: (1) detail on why each subtopic was selected for inclusion in the survey, including a sketch of background information on the characteristic as a potential barrier to work; (2) a discussion of the various measures used in prior research, their advantages and disadvantages, and their appropriateness for the survey we are developing; and (3) a discussion of the measures we recommend, along with the reasons for our recommending them over the alternatives — including, where appropriate, prioritization.
Appendices A and B provide more detailed information on the measures included in each instrument, organized by topic area and background information about the core group of survey instruments reviewed.
1. Background information about each instrument — such as sample design, sample size, and completion rate; mode of administration; key barrier measures covered; and contact information — are found in Appendix B.
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Last updated: 01/21/03