On September 14, 1998, ASPE awarded approximately $2.9 million in grants to study the outcomes of welfare reform on individuals and families who leave the TANF program, who apply for cash welfare but are never enrolled because of nonfinancial eligibility requirements or diversion programs, and/or who appear to be eligible but are not enrolled. The thirteen (13) grantees include ten (10) states and three (3) counties or consortia of counties.
These grants are the result of a competitive announcement of availability of grant funds and request for applications from states and counties, published in the Federal Register on May 21, 1998. The grants form the majority of $5 million in funding provided by Congress in 1998 to study the outcomes of welfare reform. All thirteen Grantees propose to use a combination of linked administrative data and surveys to study welfare reform’s outcomes on TANF leavers. In addition, a few Grantees plan use a portion of their grants to determine the status of other populations, including the diverted and the eligible but not enrolled.
Welfare reform outcomes examined by the projects primarily include: employment and earnings, returns to the TANF program, participation in other public programs (i.e., food stamps, Medicaid, child support, child welfare), and family and child wellbeing. Summaries of the thirteen projects follow.
This project will involve cohorts from the last calendar quarter of 1996 and the first calendar quarter of 1998, with administrative data from multiple systems for both cohorts and a sample survey of 800 cases from cohort two. Arizona has waivers which allow for 24 months of transitional child care and Medicaid. The proposal addresses questions about whether people are taking advantage of these benefits, and why or why not. Arizona has also recently implemented progressive sanctioning, ending in fullfamily sanctions. They are interested in learning whether these sanctions are succeeding in motivating participation or employment. The state has not yet chosen a contractor.
This project by the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC) will provide an addition to the Urban Change project with a focus on leavers. Cohorts will be drawn from the fourth calendar quarter of 1996 and the first calendar quarter of 1998. The project will include analysis of up to ten years of full population administrative data developed for the Urban Change project, as well as a small mixedmode sample survey drawn from cohort two and surveyed in September 1999. This project and the Los Angeles project, also by MDRC, will effectively be a twosite study that will allow comparisons while controlling for study design.
This project will be managed by the Urban Institute, with subcontracts for a survey and focus groups. They will use administrative data on TANF, Food Stamps, Medicaid and foster care from their current integrated system, eliminating the need for difficult linking. This administrative data is available over time going back to 1992. Focus groups are planned for fall 1998, for individuals who left TANF in the third quarter of 1997. In addition a mixedmode survey will be conducted for cases that exited in fourth quarter 1998. Approximately 675 families will be surveyed 9 months after exit, between July and September 1999.
This project will explicitly address all three populations listed in the announcement: those who leave welfare, those who are diverted, and those who appear to be eligible but do not enroll. The project involves both administrative data and a very large telephone survey effort (15,000 households over 5 years). Grant funds will support 2,000 of the 3,000 interviews planned for the first year, including all of the interviews for cases of diversion and the eligible but not enrolled.
This project will add a new component to a larger ongoing study. The current effort involves two cohorts: a sample of 2,000 leavers from January to October 1997 tracked in administrative data; and a telephone survey of 200 leavers per month from July 1998 to June 2001, for a total of 7,800. This funding will allow the State to add a twowave survey of sanctioned cases, before exit and again 6 months later, which will provide for nonexperimental analyses of the impact of leaving TANF. The State also requested funding for in-person interviews (500) of persons whom they are unable to contact by telephone, addressing the very real problem of nonresponse bias in telephone surveys of lowincome populations.
This project will add to Illinois’ ongoing Closed Case Study, consisting of closed cases from July 1997 to June 1998 and funded with $350,000 in State funds. Federal funds will allow the University of Illinois at Springfield to use administrative data analysis to track clients for six additional months and to add an additional cohort of cases who leave assistance between January and March 1999, with full population administrative data and 800 interviews.
This project by the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC) will provide an addition to their Urban Change project with a focus on leavers. Cohorts will be drawn from the fourth calendar quarter of 1996 and the first calendar quarter of 1998. The project will include analysis of up to ten years of full population administrative data developed for the Urban Change project, as well as a small mixedmode sample survey drawn from cohort two and surveyed in September 1999. This project and the Cuyahoga County, OH project, also by MDRC, will effectively be a twosite study that will allow comparisons while controlling for study design.
This project looks at two cohorts of welfare leavers. For the first cohort they will use a full population sample (20,000) of leavers from January to June, 1997. This cohort will be tracked in the Massachusetts Department of Revenue’s existing Longitudinal Database and in a sample survey which is underway and will be completed in September. For the second cohort, they plan to draw a full population sample (15,000) of administrative data for families that exited welfare between December 1998 and February 1999. This will be supplemented with a detailed, mixed mode survey of 600 cases, which will be linked to the Longitudinal Database for the duration of the project. This second cohort is particularly interesting because it will include the first group of TANF recipients to hit Massachusetts’ time limits.
This project is based on two valuable databases: a comprehensive statewide collection of administrative data from health and human services programs, employment and training programs and wage records maintained by the University of Missouri and a unique database of nonprofit emergency assistance in metropolitan Kansas City created by the Mid America Assistance Council, a consortium of nonprofit agencies using shared forms and intake procedures. These existing databases will be linked to each other and to a twocohort survey of TANF leavers by the Midwest Research Institute.
This is a twoyear, $294,853 project, for which the state requested $80,476 this year. The study will include both TANF exiters and individuals under sanction, whether or not they leave assistance. The goals of the project include: determining the frequency of outcomes such as employment, job retention, use of transitional assistance and returns to assistance; identifying barriers to selfsufficiency; examining the effectiveness of sanction policies in changing behavior; and developing a longitudinal tracking capacity for welfare outcomes in New York City. The State plans to use full population administrative data from TANF, SSI, Food Stamps, Medicaid, foster care, child support, and wage records to analyze cohorts from the first quarter of 1997 and the first quarter of 1999. If second year funding is awarded, the 1999 cohort will also involve a 900 case survey in the first quarter of 2000.
This project involves a consortium of three contiguous counties: San Mateo, Santa Cruz, and Santa Clara, together with the SPHERE Institute. They plan to use full population administrative data for the 1996 cohort, and both full population administrative data and two 30 minute mixed mode surveys for the 1998 cohort. The project includes an elaborate sampling plan in an attempt to look at a large variety of policy relevant subgroups across three counties. The project period is for two years and $250,661. Second year funding is contingent on performance and availability of funds.
This project will explicitly address all three populations listed in the announcement: those who leave welfare, those who are diverted, in this case through cash payments, and those who appear to be eligible but do not enroll. Three cohorts will be analyzed in linked administrative data: a pre-TANF cohort from the fourth quarter of calendar 1996; an early implementation cohort from fourth quarter 1997; and a full implementation cohort from fourth quarter 1998. TANF data will be linked to data from Food Stamps, Medicaid, Child Support, Child Welfare, Unemployment Insurance and the State Basic Health plan from at least 12 months before exit until at least 12 months after. The second cohort will include a sample of continuing cases for comparison. Finally, a mixed mode survey of 1,300 cases is planned for the third cohort.
This project will build on and expand three projects. The first project will use non-HHS funding to build a longitudinal database from 1988 forward to study families who either left AFDC prior to implementation of Wisconsin Works (W-2) or who did not convert during the transition. The grant includes $25,000 for additional analysis of this database. The data will also be used in conjunction with a survey of families who leave W-2 in 1998. This survey is in the field for clients who exited in the first quarter of 1998. Grant funds include $70,000 to extend this survey to clients who exited during the rest of 1998. The bulk of the funding the State requested ($105,000 this year and an additional $100,000 next year) is to expand a planned study of people who apply for W-2 in Milwaukee between October 15, 1998 and March 15, 1999. This portion of the request will be funded by the Administration for Children and Families.