A Report to the Congressional Appropriations Committees
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
December 2000
"Introduction and Overview
Background
In its report for the FY 2000 Appropriation for the Department of Health and Human Services, the Conference Committee added funds for the third year to the Policy Research account in the Office of the Secretary and directed in its report that the funding support studies of the outcomes of welfare reform:
"The conference agreement includes $7,150,000 to continue the study of the outcomes of welfare reform. It is recommended that this effort include the collection and use of state-specific surveys and state and federal administrative data. The study should focus on improving the capabilities and comparability of data collection efforts and developing and reporting reliable State-by-State measures of family hardship and well-being and of the utilization of other support programs. The study should measure outcomes for a broad population of low-income families, welfare recipients, former recipients, potential recipients, and other special populations affected by state TANF policies, including diversion practices. The conference agreement includes sufficient funds to continue supporting efforts at Iowa State University to develop state-level data on low-income families that can be integrated with national data collection efforts. A report is to be submitted to the Appropriations Committees within nine months."
(H. Rept. 106-479, page 622)
The following report has been prepared by the Office of the Secretary, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), in response to the requirement for a report. Unless otherwise noted, this report discusses only the welfare outcomes research agenda supported by the $7,150,000 targeted appropriation. No attempt has been made to reflect the separately funded welfare research agenda of the Department's Administration for Children and Families (ACF)(1) or ASPE's or the Department's health research agenda, except to the extent that some projects were supported jointly by welfare outcomes funding and funds from other sources.
General Strategies for Understanding the Outcomes of Welfare Reform
Significant provisions included in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996, and most notably the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, are subject to reauthorization in 2002. The upcoming reauthorization process adds a sense of immediacy to understanding the effects of welfare reform within the context of the devolution of responsibility for major social programs from the federal government to the states. Questions about the implementation and outcomes of welfare reform are legion and encompass a broad range of interests and perspectives. The Department acted early to create a research, evaluation and data strategy that would assure that the implementation of welfare reform and its effects would be documented. The infusion of Policy Research funding dedicated to studying welfare outcomes has been invaluable to our efforts to add to and enhance the information about welfare reform outcomes that will be available to the Congress and other interested parties.
There is a broad array of ongoing research about welfare reform being funded by the Department and other public and private funders. We have used the targeted Policy Research funds to fully fund some projects, to fund specific portions of some larger studies, and to co-fund with other federal and state agencies yet other projects. As a result our research, evaluation and data activities cover a wide spectrum of welfare outcomes policy interests.
To optimize the potential that these targeted funds will increase the Department's understanding of the outcomes of welfare reform, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) has created, often with other funding partners involved, a portfolio of studies and strategies. Careful attention has been paid to identifying on-going research, evaluation, and data activities which could be enhanced or modified, identifying activities being funded or planned by other entities that might provide joint-funding opportunities, to identifying knowledge gaps, and to avoiding unnecessary duplication.
In keeping with the recommendations of the conferees, our research agenda over the past three years has covered a broad array of topics that complement other public and private efforts to assess the outcomes of welfare reform. We have funded studies that measure outcomes for a broad population of low-income families, examine diversion practices, and measure family hardship and well-being including the utilization of other support programs. Projects are also in place to assess the effects of welfare reform on current, former and potential welfare recipients and other special populations (e.g., child-only cases, people with mental health and substance abuse problems and other disabilities, immigrant families) affected by state TANF policies. While some of our research projects involve the collection and use of state-specific surveys and state and federal administrative data, with explicit attempts to increase state and local capacity for data collection efforts, we are working to facilitate greater comparability in state and local level studies and continue to provide leadership in national-level survey work. We are also continuing our support for efforts at Iowa State University to develop state-level data on low-income families that can be integrated with national data collection efforts. Our specific activities and plans in each of the recommended areas are summarized below.
Despite the breadth and scope of these efforts, from a research perspective our knowledge is still quite limited in many areas, and many factors can limit what research can accomplish. For example, since welfare reform has been implemented in the context of a B national economy, we know little about the effect of welfare reform in other economic circumstances. There is wide variation in the design and application of policies across states, between local sites, and even from worker-to-worker. State policies and organizational structures continue to evolve and, in some cases, state responsibilities are further devolved. We know little about low-income families who do not become welfare recipients, and people who leave assistance may be difficult to track over time. Many variables other than welfare policies (such as the economy) affect the outcomes of welfare reform, and these variables often have confounding effects. Because of these factors, the ability of research, evaluation, and data to completely answer questions is always limited.
Future Directions
Building and enhancing state and local capacity for data collection and monitoring studies remains integral to our welfare reform research efforts. We hope to continue supporting state-level data collection efforts, administrative data linking, and the creation of public-use and restricted-access data files. Because TANF is a state-driven program, states must continue to take the lead in monitoring outcomes for their own state and local populations. ASPE, however, can continue to play an important role in facilitating these efforts in several important ways: providing grants to build state data collection and research capacities, providing technical assistance to improve the quality of research results, ensuring more uniformity and comparability across studies, and synthesizing results across state and local level monitoring studies.
National surveys are critical to the study of current and former welfare recipients, as well as to the study of the low-income population in general. ASPE will continue to support secondary data analyses with national-level data sources to add to our understanding of the effects of welfare reform. For example, ASPE plans to continue using a variety of national surveys for analytical work focused on labor market and economic issues affecting low-income families with children, low-wage workers and the working poor. To ensure the relevance of our national surveys to the study of welfare reform, ASPE also will continue to work with the Census Bureau and other government agencies to make certain that national survey instruments are responsive to policy changes and needs.
Since no new national survey to obtain state-level estimates or to develop a representative national picture of the low-income population is planned, it is critically important that ASPE support and maintain a wide range of Census Bureau data collection efforts, such as the Survey of Program Dynamics (SPD), the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), the Current Population Survey (CPS), and the American Community Survey (ACS). The SPD, in particular, is a necessary component of our understanding of the effects of welfare reform on the low-income population. The Census Bureau needs to be able to produce and distribute on a more timely basis longitudinal SIPP and SPD data, which we believe are crucial in ensuring our ability to perform welfare-related analyses in time for the upcoming TANF reauthorization debate.
Evaluation of the effects of particular aspects of the TANF program is also important. Because of the great diversity of state and local TANF programs, a large-scale national or full-state evaluation is not possible. Rather, using research funds to form partnerships with individual states or small groups of states is a more appropriate role for ASPE. It is difficult, however, to generalize evaluation results from a small number of sites to additional geographic locations with unique economic conditions, varied program rules, and different population compositions. As a result, it is also necessary to support analytical work aimed at interpreting evaluation results in a larger context. Finally, it is important to note that implementing any type of evaluation effort involves a multi-year financial commitment.
Overall, our goal is to create an integrated picture of the low-income population, most importantly of low-income families with children, in the wake of welfare reform. Meeting this goal requires on-going research on welfare outcomes, including program analysis and evaluation, as well as broader analyses of the economic condition, health status, and socio-demographic characteristics of low-income individuals and families. Implementing a broad-based research agenda that addresses this wide range of welfare outcomes research is one of ASPE's most important roles within the Department.
The research, evaluation and data projects funded by the targeted Policy Research funds are critical to understanding the outcomes of welfare reform, and crucial to the Department's ability to respond to questions about those outcomes. Our research agenda is developed and carried out with a full understanding of other efforts, both within and outside the federal government, to assess and monitor the outcomes of welfare reform. This ensures that, to the fullest extent possible, our research complements and enhances other efforts while avoiding unnecessary duplication. In addition, the Department's ASPE-funded research on welfare reform outcomes is consistent with the short-run recommendations for welfare evaluation strategies offered in the Interim Report of the National Academy of Sciences Panel Study on Welfare Outcomes (which are summarized in the next chapter).
The Department is committed to advancing its welfare outcomes research agenda. The projects funded in FYs 1998, 1999 and 2000 cover a broad array of topics, from an examination of diversion practices, to an assessment of those leaving the TANF rolls, from participation in other programs such as Medicaid, to projects studying the effects of welfare reform on special populations, e.g., disability, substance abuse issues, the homeless, and child-only cases. The Department also continues to provide leadership in national-level survey work. This research agenda complements other public and private efforts to assess the outcomes of welfare reform. The Department is also working to facilitate greater comparability in state and local level studies through grantee meetings, list-serve discussions, guidance to states and a technical assistance contract. Furthermore, our strategy of providing grants to states and local TANF agencies is explicitly designed to increase state and local capacity for data collection efforts.
Activities that Support Conferees' Recommendations
Collection and Use of State-Specific Surveys and State and Federal Administrative Data
Activities that support and enhance the collection and use of federal and state administrative data and state-specific surveys are critical to monitoring and understanding the outcomes of welfare reform. ASPE has devoted substantial resources to supporting state-level data collection efforts and administrative data linking, making certain that national survey instruments are responsive to policy changes and needs, supporting and maintaining a wide range of Census Bureau data collection efforts, and supporting secondary analyses of state and national-level data to add to our understanding of the effects of welfare reform.
For example, the states and counties awarded grants to study welfare reform outcomes in FYs 1998 and 1999 are using a combination of linked administrative data and surveys to study welfare reform's outcomes on families leaving the TANF program. A separate FY 2000 project will support the storage of the research data sets that combine the state-specific administrative and survey data they have collected in a controlled environment where confidentiality can be protected. In FY 1999 we also awarded grants to states and large counties to support efforts to gather a variety of information about individuals and their families who are formally or informally diverted from TANF. Through a combination of administrative data and surveys, these projects are assessing the degree to which TANF applicants receive, or are aware of their potential eligibility for, Medicaid, food stamps, and other programs and services that are important in helping low-income families make a successful transition to work.
We have provided support in both FYs 1999 and 2000 for a project designed to match Social Security earnings records with samples of adult welfare recipients and non-recipients from Census surveys to help assess employment and earnings patterns and outcomes on the basis of baseline characteristics. We have also provided funds to offset one-time infrastructure costs and programming time associated with using the National Directory of New Hires (NDNH) database to link with samples drawn for research projects to improve the quality of information on employment outcomes. In cooperation with the Census Bureau, we convened a group of researchers, policy makers and local practitioners to explore potential uses of the new American Community Survey (ACS) data and to explore the development of econometric models that combine ACS data with local area administrative data and local business economic data to provide local area data.
In cooperation with the Administration for Children and Families, we funded a total of 17 researcher-initiated grants in FYs 1999 and 2000 to study various aspects of welfare outcomes. These grants focus primarily on secondary analyses of state and federal administrative data about low-income individuals (both adults and children) and their families. A separate project will use California administrative data from the welfare, unemployment insurance and tax systems to examine the effect of welfare changes, EITC expansions, and business cycles on the economic well-being of families, participation in the labor market and/or transfer programs, and employment changes and earnings trajectories.
We also funded a project in FY 2000 that will use information from the Current Population Survey (CPS), Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) and administrative data to compile a book of tables showing trends in income, poverty and other economic measures, such as access to health insurance and food and housing security. Separately, we funded a project to analyze data from the Urban Institute's National Survey of America's Families, supplemented with other national data sets like the CPS and SIPP, to address the effects of state TANF policies, including whether they have resulted in unmet needs for services. Data from the National Survey of Family Growth will be used to create simulation models that may clarify which factors are associated with changes in teen pregnancy and births, and how possible future changes in these factors might affect teen pregnancy and birth rates. Projects such as these support the overall goal of ensuring that good data are available to create an integrated picture of the low income population, especially families with children, in the wake of welfare reform.
Improve the Capabilities and Comparability of Data Collection Efforts
As stipulated in the FY 1998 appropriations language accompanying the targeted policy research funds to study welfare outcomes, the Department submitted its research plan to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for guidance on research design and recommendations for future research on the effects of welfare policy changes. We have provided funding in FYs 1998, 1999 and 2000 for the 30-month NAS Welfare Outcomes Panel Study which was established to evaluate the design of current, proposed and future studies of the effects of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996. In its Interim Report, released in September 1999, the panel offered the Department an initial set of short-run recommendations (2) for welfare evaluation strategies, including placing a high priority on improving the capabilities of data collection efforts and working toward cross-state and within-state comparability of data and research on welfare program effects. Our strategy of providing grants to states and local TANF agencies is explicitly designed to increase state and local capacity for data collection efforts. In addition, we have been working to facilitate greater comparability in state and local level studies through grantee meetings, list-serve discussions, guidance to states and a technical assistance contract.
In FY 2000 we awarded competitive grants to five states and counties specifically to enhance state-specific surveys of populations affected by welfare reform, by expanding or improving data collection activities, including efforts to improve cross-state comparability. These grants were designed to facilitate real improvements of existing or close-to-final surveys, without paying for basic start-up costs, and will be used by the grantees to add additional waves of data collection, raise response rates, analyze non-response bias, increase sample sizes, and expand the content of instruments. We also committed FY 2000 funds to an effort to improve cross-study comparisons of the prevalence of multiple barriers to employment, by critically assessing current studies that measure barriers to employment and convening experts to address issues in identifying an optimal caseload survey design, with the goal of laying out the scope and content of a "model" caseload survey of welfare recipients.
We also funded two technical assistance projects in both FYs 1999 and 2000. One project funds a contractor to provide technical assistance to the welfare outcomes grantees. The focus of this year's technical assistance under that contract is to improve the quality, comparability, documentation and accessibility of the research data sets each grantee will be preparing and submitting from the state-specific administrative and survey data they have collected on former, current, and potential TANF recipients. The other project is devoted to providing researcher technical assistance to states that received grants to promote child indicator work. Technical assistance has been provided on conceptual and methodological issues in identifying and measuring child health and well-being indicators within and across states and ways of creating or using survey and administrative data and combining several data approaches.
Develop and Report Reliable State-by-State Measures of Family Hardship and Well-Being and of the Utilization of Other Support Programs
Welfare devolution and increased flexibility in the design and delivery of program benefits have created substantial new challenges for data collection and analysis to monitor welfare outcomes. To meet these challenges, new and better data are needed at the state and local level. Over the last three years, ASPE has committed funds for several projects geared toward developing state-level data on hardship and/or program utilization.
In FY 2000, funds are being provided to support the longitudinal New Immigrant Survey which will collect data on program utilization and hardship and well-being over time among newly arriving low-income immigrant families in different states. Support is also being provided for the design of a framework for research samples to be drawn from the Federal Parent Locator Service (FPLS) database, with the goal of obtaining representative samples for all states that can identify socio-demographic characteristics and program participation data. Our support for the administration of a welfare participation question in the State and Local Area Integrated Telephone Survey (SLAITS) will yield a data element that, when combined with other data available from the survey, will permit the development of state-level estimates of the incidence of special health care needs of children of current and former welfare recipients, plus the health insurance status (including Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program, SCHIP) of current and former recipients.
The "leavers" grants awarded to states and counties in FYs 1998 and 1999 to study the outcomes of welfare reform are using a combination of linked administrative data and surveys to study welfare reform's outcomes on families leaving the TANF program. Their research questions span eight broad research topic areas, including employment and earnings, case closures and recidivism, other income supports, health insurance, child care, child well-being, barriers to self-sufficiency, insecurity/deprivation, and other topics. FY 2000 funds have been committed to synthesize the findings from these projects and conduct secondary data analyses of welfare outcomes measures drawing on the state-specific public use data sets. The "diversion" grants awarded in FY 1999 are supporting state efforts to gather information about individuals and their families who are diverted from TANF. These projects are assessing the degree to which TANF applicants receive, or are aware of their potential eligibility for, Medicaid, food stamps, and other programs and services that are important in helping low-income families make a successful transition to work. Finally, the "child indicators" grants awarded to states in FYs 1998 and 1999 promote state efforts to develop and monitor indicators of the health and well-being of children as welfare reform and other policy changes occur.
Measure Outcomes for a Broad Population of Low-Income Families, Welfare Recipients, Former Recipients, Potential Recipients, and Other Special Populations Affected by State TANF Policies, including Diversion Practices
Consistent with one of the recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences Interim Report to include a broad population of recipients, former recipients and potential recipients in our welfare reform research, studies we funded in FYs 1998 and 1999 cover a broad array of topics, including the examination of diversion practices, an assessment of those leaving the TANF rolls, and participation in other programs such as Medicaid. Projects have also been funded to study the effects of welfare reform on special populations (e.g., child-only cases, disability, substance abuse). Examples from our FY 2000 research agenda that continue and expand on this trend follow.
One study will use data from the Current Population Survey and data on industries and occupations to investigate the prevalence of alternative or contingent work arrangements (such as work through a temporary help agency, working for a contract company, or working on-call) among the low-skilled and low-income populations (including current, former and potential welfare recipients) to determine the rates and trends in nonstandard work and overlap with welfare receipt. Another will look at coping mechanisms and examine a variety of factors that may help or hinder a low-wage working family's efforts to be self-sufficient, including formal and informal support services, social support networks, time management, money management, and other life skills. A separate project will study strategies that states and communities are pursuing to provide high quality child care and other support services for welfare and working poor families.
We funded a study that will examine the way in which special populations, particularly individuals of different backgrounds and limited English-language abilities, are treated in local offices, and the extent to which program services, agency culture and caseworker discretion may lead to differences in approval rates, work assignments, access to support services, or sanctions. Another study will examine ways in which state TANF programs identify, refer and treat welfare recipients with mental health problems and assist them in obtaining treatment and finding and keeping employment. We are also providing continuing support for an evaluation of the effectiveness of a substance abuse research demonstration project that includes coordinating screening, referral and treatment with employment and training or vocational services.
Another project will investigate what is known about the effects of welfare reform on families affected by having incarcerated mothers and fathers. We are looking separately at various approaches states are taking to help children in families in which a grandparent or another relative has taken over parental responsibilities. These and other projects will help us achieve our goal of covering all important low-income population groups in our grant and contract research programs, from welfare leavers to stayers to potential applicants who are diverted or do not apply.
Support Efforts at Iowa State University to Develop State-Level Data on Low-Income Families that can be Integrated with National Data Collection Efforts
As directed by the conferees, ASPE provided funding to Iowa State University to continue support for efforts to develop state-level data on low-income families that can be integrated with national data collection efforts. Iowa State began working with ASPE in FY 1999 to develop an approach for state-level surveys that is relevant for local welfare program design, implementation, and evaluation (particularly in less densely populated areas) and that can be integrated into the Census Bureau's Survey of Program Dynamics (SPD). Current work is exploring the feasibility of extending and expanding the SPD to capture state-level reliable samples for use in exploring the outcomes of federal and state policies, as well as economic conditions of low-income families. Continued funding will support further feasibility work on the extended survey, including conducting a 20-minute telephone survey of Iowa households to pre-test a questionnaire that includes a module from the SPD along with a module on transportation issues to help address the needs for data in a rural setting. We believe this is a promising approach, given the need for state-specific questions and data, but the desire for a national framework.
These projects and the others described in later chapters of this report reflect the broad-based approach we have taken in advancing the Department's welfare outcomes research agenda. Chapter II summarizes the results and findings from projects funded in FYs 1998 and 1999. Chapter III provides brief descriptions of the FY 2000 welfare-outcomes funded projects, including more information on the studies highlighted above. Finally, Chapter IV describes the current status and target completion dates of continuing projects funded by the targeted policy research appropriations in FYs 1998 and 1999.
Endnotes
1. Information on ACF's welfare-related activities can be found at <http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/news/welfare/index.htm>. Information on ACF's welfare-research activities can be found at <http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/opre/>.
2. The NAS Panel Study and the short-run recommendations included in the Interim Report are discussed in more detail in the Results/Findings chapter.
Results/Findings from Outcomes-Funded Projects
Highlights of Research Findings
A substantial proportion of our FY 1998 and 1999 welfare outcomes funding went to partnering with states and counties through grants to study the experiences of people who left the TANF program ("leavers") or were diverted from welfare. While most of the studies funded with the targeted Policy Research funds are still on-going projects, including the state/county grants examining families who have been diverted from welfare, interim findings are available from many of the ASPE-funded grantees studying leavers and a few other long-term projects.
Most of the leavers grantees have released interim reports based on linked administrative data sets that tracked families who left welfare, and several grantees also have already released final reports with findings based on information gathered through surveys. These reports show that, despite some outliers, there is a surprising amount of consistency among findings across the studies overall with respect to employment, hours worked and earnings, income and poverty and returns to TANF. There is much less consistency with respect to the use of Medicaid and Food Stamps. Although many such studies exist, comparisons across studies beyond the ASPE-funded studies are somewhat problematic because of the many differences in study populations, time periods studied, sources of data, and research methodologies. Final reports, with more detailed findings, are expected by the Summer of 2001.
Notwithstanding differences in studies, findings from the state/local leavers studies are quite consistent, particularly in the areas of employment and recidivism.
- Employment. Administrative data indicate that about 55 percent of former TANF recipients (ranging from 46 to 64 percent across 11 studies) are working each quarter after exit from welfare. Over the 12-month period, some former recipients lost their jobs, while others found new employment, resulting in cumulative employment rates of approximately 80 percent, measured as those who were ever employed within the first 12 months of exit. The remaining 20 percent never worked during the year after exit.
Self-reported survey data from five reports suggest somewhat higher rates of employment, both at time of interview (57 to 65 percent) and over the first year since exit (85 to 90 percent).
In general, employed leavers tend to work full time and earn between $7 and $8 an hour. Quarterly mean earnings of employed leavers ranged from close to $2,200 to over $3,400 across ten studies in the first quarter after exit, with earnings rising steadily in every location over the course of the year following exit. Household income information (not including the Earned Income Tax Credit) from a few states suggests that over half of all leavers are "poor" (having total incomes below the official poverty threshold, which was $13,003 for a family of three in 1998).
- Recidivism. In general, about one in six leavers (ranging from 8 to 19 percent) are receiving TANF in the fourth quarter after exit. The proportion that ever returned to cash assistance at some point during the first 12 months after exit is higher, ranging from 18 to 35 percent.
State and local reports show a wider range of outcomes across the studies with respect to post-exit use of Food Stamps and Medicaid.
- Food Stamps. Between one-third and one-half of leavers receive Food Stamps in the first quarter after exit in most states, although participation by single-parent leavers was as low as 9 percent in one county. When measured over time, three of eight states show participation declines of ten percentage points or more. The other states report relatively flat participation rates.
- Medicaid. Rates of Medicaid enrollment vary considerably across states, with enrollment among single-parent leavers in the first quarter after exit ranging from 26 to 57 percent of adults. In studies reporting rates for both adults and children, slightly more children than adults (28 percent of children compared to 26 percent of adults in one study, and 62 percent of children and 55 percent of adults in another) are enrolled in Medicaid. Half the states show a decline in Medicaid participation over time of ten percentage points or more. Similar to Food Stamps, other states show flatter participation rates over time.
The five studies that have completed analysis of their survey data all include an analysis of the hardships experienced by former recipients and their families. In general, many leavers experience some hardship with respect to food, housing or medical problems after leaving welfare. For example, 24 to 44 percent of families report not having enough food six months after exit; 27 to 39 percent report being behind on their rent, and 8 to 31 percent report an inability to afford or get medical attention. Interestingly, hardships are reported at about the same rate for TANF participants as TANF leavers. Overall, approximately 60 percent of leavers report being better off after leaving TANF than before leaving TANF.
In addition, a number of entities have undertaken non-ASPE-funded projects to monitor the effects of pre- and post-welfare reform initiatives. Appendix L of the 2000 Green Book: Background Material and Data on Programs Within the Jurisdiction of the Committee on Ways and Means summarizes findings from primarily pre-PRWORA welfare programs and pilot projects that have tested numerous state and local welfare reform initiatives. These studies vary substantially in terms of study design, cohorts, administrative data linkages, research topics, and response rates. Finding from impact studies are included as well as findings from leavers studies. The 2000 Green Book can be found at http://waysmeans.house.gov/publica.htm.
Some additional ASPE studies, supported in whole or in part by the targeted Policy Research funds, have been completed. Interim findings are also available from some other long-term projects. For example:
- Child-only cases. A study of child-only cases found that in 1999, 29 percent of TANF cases were child-only families in which only children received the benefits. Of those, about 40 percent consisted of children living with adult relatives who are not their parents, while parents were in the household in the remaining 60 percent of the cases, but they were ineligible for benefits for reasons such as sanctions, immigration status, or receipt of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits.
- Immigrants. Three reports have been released to date from a study of welfare reform and the health and economic status of immigrants. One report found that the cash assistance and Medicaid approval rates declined by half for legal non-citizen families in Los Angeles between 1996 and 1998, with no corresponding decrease for citizen families. In addition, the cash assistance and Medicaid application rates for citizen children with non-citizen parents fell by almost half during the same period, while applications for children with citizen parents increased slightly. Another report found that welfare and immigration reform had more of a "chilling effect" on non-citizen use of cash assistance, Medicaid and Food Stamps than actual program eligibility changes. For example, between 1994 and 1997, a period when few legal immigrants would have been affected by benefit restrictions, the rate of decline within non-citizen households was more than double the rate of decline within citizen households. Finally, the third report found that one in ten children in America live in families where at least one parent is a non-citizen and one or more children are U.S. citizens, and that more children living in mixed status families have no health insurance when compared to all-citizen families.
- Representativeness of ASPE grantees. A study comparing ASPE grantee states to the nation as a whole found that the grantee states capture a diverse cross section of the U.S. experience, and that findings from these studies are helpful in representing the range of potential outcomes associated with welfare reform, although findings for the nation as a whole may differ in some dimension from findings in grantee states.
- Interim guidance from the National Academy of Sciences. The National Academy of Sciences Panel Study n Welfare Outcomes released its Interim Report providing guidance to the Department on welfare reform research and evaluation strategies. The short-run recommendations offered by the panel are consistent with the Department's research on welfare reform, and the report acknowledged that the Department is already taking most of the recommended steps.
The remainder of this chapter provides project-by-project summaries of the available results and findings from all outcomes-funded projects, including details on those studies highlighted above.
National Academy of Sciences Panel Study on Welfare Outcomes
Conference Report language accompanying the targeted welfare outcomes research funding for Fiscal Years 1998 and 1999 urged the Department to submit its research plan to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to receive guidance on research design and recommendations for further research. Accordingly, we have provided over $1 million to the NAS to convene an expert panel to evaluate current and future welfare reform research. An interim report for this panel study, Evaluating Welfare Reform: A Framework and Review of Current Work, Interim Report, was released in September, 1999, and covers the NAS panel's early recommendations to the Department on welfare reform evaluation strategies. The final report is expected in late 2000.
The 30-month NAS Welfare Outcomes Panel Study was established to evaluate the design of current, proposed and future studies of the effects of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996. The panel's interim report provides a framework for conducting evaluations of welfare program changes, reviews current Departmental efforts to evaluate these changes, and provides the panel's initial conclusions and recommendations. The short-run recommendations for welfare evaluation strategies offered by the panel are consistent with the Department's research on welfare reform:
- set priorities on key welfare policy questions and concerns
- include a broad population of recipients, former recipients and potential recipients in welfare reform research
- place a high priority on improving the capabilities of data collection efforts
- work toward cross-state and within-state comparability of data and research on welfare program effects
- document and publish each State's TANF policies and changes to these policies on an ongoing basis
- encourage broader population coverage in existing leavers studies
- facilitate greater overall comparability in existing leavers studies
As noted in the body of the interim report, the Department is already taking most of the recommended steps. Our FY 1998, 1999 and 2000 studies cover a broad array of topics including the examination of diversion practices, an assessment of those leaving the TANF rolls, and participation in other programs such as Medicaid. Projects are also in place to study the effects of welfare reform on special populations (e.g., people with mental health and substance abuse problems and other disabilities, immigrant families) and the Department continues to provide leadership in national-level survey work. This research agenda complements other public and private efforts to assess the outcomes of welfare reform. The Department is also working to facilitate greater comparability in state and local level studies through grantee meetings, list-serve discussions, guidance to states and a technical assistance contractor. Furthermore, our strategy of providing grants to states and local TANF agencies is explicitly designed to increase state and local capacity for data collection efforts.
Findings from ASPE-Funded Leavers Studies (Grants to States and Localities to Study Welfare Outcomes)
Welfare caseload numbers released in August showed that the number of welfare recipients has decreased from 14.1 million in January 1993 to 6.3 million in December 1999 - a drop of 56 percent, or 7.8 million. Nearly three-quarters of this overall decline has occurred since the welfare reform law (the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act) was enacted in 1996; 1999 caseloads were roughly half of what they were in 1996. As the caseloads have fallen there has been widespread interest in the circumstances of recipients who have left welfare. How are they faring without cash assistance? Are they working? Are they moving out of poverty? To what extent do they return to welfare? To what extent do they continue to need and to receive assistance and supportive services through other programs?
In an attempt to answer these questions, ASPE awarded approximately $2.9 million in grants to states and counties in FY 1998 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 non-financial eligibility requirements or diversion programs, and/or who appear to be eligible but are not enrolled. The grants were awarded to ten states and three large counties or consortia of counties (Arizona, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, Washington, and Wisconsin; and Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Los Angeles County, California, and San Mateo, Santa Cruz, and Santa Clara Counties, California). Separate but somewhat comparable studies were also funded in Wisconsin, through the Institute for Research on Poverty, and South Carolina, resulting in a total of 15 studies of former recipients funded in FY 1998. (1)
These states and counties represent a diverse range of state policies and underlying economic and demographic conditions. In addition, study designs varied across the sites. In most studies, researchers are using a combination of linked administrative data sets and surveys of former recipients to monitor the economic status and general well-being of families leaving welfare, but each grantee followed its own proposed study methodology. In general, the grantees' research questions can be grouped into eight broad research topic areas: employment and earnings, case closures and recidivism, other income supports, health insurance, child care, child well-being, barriers to self-sufficiency, insecurity/deprivation, and other topics.
ASPE took certain steps to promote comparability across the studies, including developing a consensus definition of "leavers" as those who remain off welfare for at least two months, encouraging researchers to report outcomes for "single-parent" leavers if different from the entire study population, and gaining agreement to exclude or disaggregate closures of "child-only" cases from the study population. Brief summaries of the projects can be found at <http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/leavers99/fy98.htm. A short paper synthesizing the findings to date of these ASPE-funded studies is being prepared by the Urban Institute and is expected to be released in the Fall, 2000. (When it is available, it will be posted at http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/index.htm.) A more comprehensive report is expected by Summer 2001.
As of July 2000, 11 (2) of the 15 studies initiated in FY 1998 had released reports of preliminary outcomes based on administrative data findings for an early cohort of families that left welfare as between 1995 and 1998. Findings from these studies focus principally on employment and earnings, returns to cash assistance, and program participation in Medicaid and food stamps. Four (3) of these 11 studies have also released reports containing both administrative data and survey data findings for a later cohort who left welfare after the transition from Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Preliminary survey findings supplement the administrative data in the areas of household income and experiences of material hardship of former recipients. While cross-site differences reflect a variety of conditions (4), it should also be noted that outcomes can vary significantly across various subgroups. Highlights of aggregate findings for "average" welfare leavers follow. (5) It should be noted that the findings are for single-parent leavers except where noted otherwise.
Employment and Earnings
- Employment
Based on administrative data from ten sites for an early cohort, approximately 45 to 65 percent of former TANF recipients were working after leaving TANF. As shown in Table 1, most studies reported that 50 to 60 percent of leavers were employed in the first quarter after exit. Between 62 and 75 percent were ever employed in the 12-month period following exit, while 35 to 40 percent of leavers were employed in (but not necessarily continuously (6)) all four quarters, indicating that many former recipients experienced spells of unemployment as well as employment. Results from four states reporting on two or more cohorts were mixed in terms of the stability of employment rates for later, in relation to earlier, cohorts - one state had higher employment rates for the later cohort, one state had lower employment rates, and two states had similar rates across the cohorts.
Survey data from four sites found that self-reported employment rates were between one and ten percentage points higher than the rates based on administrative data. This discrepancy is not unexpected, considering that the administrative data findings are based on quarterly earnings records maintained by the state's unemployment insurance (UI) program, which do not cover earnings from self-employment, employment in the military or federal government, certain agricultural employment, and jobs across state boundaries.
- Earnings
According to administrative data from ten study areas, mean quarterly earnings in the quarter immediately following exit from TANF ranged from about $2,200 to over $3,400 for those leavers with earnings. Table 2 shows that in every location earnings rose steadily over the course of the year following exit (7) to mean quarterly earnings in the $2,400 to $3,600 range. Data from three surveys not displayed on the table found that respondents who were employed reported average monthly earnings ranging from $958 (at 6 to 8 months after exit) to $1,101 (at 24 to 36 months after exit). The mean quarterly earnings observed in these studies suggest that annual earnings of employed welfare leavers were low, averaging no more than $10,000 to $13,000, despite the fact that many former recipients had jobs involving full-time work.
| Grantee & Cohort CY(Qtr) | Exit Qtr | 1st Qtr post exit | 2nd Qtr post exit | 3rd Qtr post exit | 4th Qtr post exit | Ever employed within 1 year | Employed all 4 quarters |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Administrative Data | |||||||
|
Los Angeles 96(4) |
45.9 | 47.2 | 45.5 | 46.3 | 46.6 | 34.8 | |
|
San Mateo 96(4) |
50.5 | 49.6 | 49.9 | 48.4 | 50.3 | 67.1 | |
|
New York 97(1) |
50.0 | 50.0 | 49.0 | 48.0 | 48.0 | 62.0 | 40.0 |
|
Washington 96(4) |
55.0 | 52.0 | 52.0 | 55.0 | 56.0 | 68.2 | |
|
Illinois 7/97-12/98 |
55.3 | 54.0 | 53.3 | 53.5 | 54.5 | 69.5 | 38.9 |
|
Arizona 96(4) |
60.9 | 58.2 | 55.8 | 55.1 | 55.4 | 74.7 | |
|
Missouri 96(4) |
62.5 | 58.4 | 57.8 | 58.7 | 58.1 | ||
|
Cuyahoga 96(3) |
59.3 | 54.2 | 55.8 | 56.8 | 71.7 | 40.3 | |
|
Wisconsin 7/95-6/96 |
63.7 | 63.2 | 61.5 | 61.3 | 61.6 | 75.3 | |
|
Georgia 97(1) |
64.2 | 60.1 | 59.2 | 53.3 | 73.9 | ||
|
Notes: A recipient is considered "employed" if she or he has any earnings in UI-covered employment within the state, with the exception that the Cuyahoga and Los Angeles studies require a minimum of $100 per quarter and the Washington study counts earnings reported to the welfare system in addition to earnings in the UI system. |
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| Grantee & Cohort CY(Qtr) | Qr before exit | Exit Qtr | 1st Qtr post exit | 2nd Qtr post exit | 3rd Qtr post exit | 4th Qtr post exit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean | ||||||
|
Missouri 96(4) |
$2,130 | $2,185 | $2,346 | $2,372 | $2,685 | |
|
Georgia 97(1) |
$2,193 | $2,272 | $2,549 | $2,389 | ||
|
Arizona 96(4) |
$1,277 | $2,276 | $2,415 | $2,497 | $2,519 | $2,862 |
|
Wisconsin 7/95-6/96 |
$2,155 | $2,440 | $2,509 | $2,563 | $2,686 | |
|
Illinois 7/97-12/98 |
$1,916 | $2,420 | $2,663 | $2,746 | $2,846 | $2,959 |
|
Washington 96(4) |
$1,598 | $2,448 | $2,722 | $2,862 | $2,938 | $3,196 |
|
Cuyahoga 96(5) |
$2,756 | $2,756 | $2,891 | $2,952 | ||
|
San Mateo 96(4) |
$1,998 | $3,056 | $3,124 | $3,407 | $3,457 | $3,647 |
|
New York 97(1) |
$3,067 | $3,393 | $3,402 | $3,877 | $3,602 | |
|
Los Angeles 96(3) |
$2,876 | $3,245 | $3,414 | $3,387 | $3,521 | 3,576 |
| Median | ||||||
|
Missouri 96(4) |
$1,913 | $1,996 | $2,171 | $2,200 | $2,535 | |
|
Georgia 97(1) |
$2,051 | $2,097 | $2,384 | $2,218 | ||
|
Arizona 96(4) |
$1,024 | $2,179 | $2,371 | $2,351 | $2,389 | $2,754 |
|
Wisconsin 7/95-6/96 |
$2,116 | $2,383 | $2,437 | $2, 460 | $2,602 | |
|
Illinois 7/97-12/98 |
$1,624 | $2,223 | $2,471 | $2,527 | $2,614 | $2,720 |
|
Washington 96(4) |
$1,279 | $2,299 | $2,526 | $2,672 | $2,646 | $2,923 |
|
Cuyahoga 96(4) |
$2,587 | $2,620 | $2,729 | $2,776 | ||
|
San Mateo 96(4) |
$1,598 | $2,815 | $3,104 | $3,290 | $3,521 | $3,572 |
|
Los Angeles 96(4) |
$2,695 | $3,108 | $3,248 | $3,156 | $3,303 | $3,290 |
|
Notes: Excludes leavers without earnings in the quarter. Earnings are reported in nominal dollars, with the exception of San Mateo (November 1998 $). New York did not report median earnings; and the District of Columbia did not report any earnings data. |
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Program Participation
- Returns to TANF
Families in the early cohort who left cash assistance between 1996 and 1998 did so before they were affected by either the federal or state time limits on benefit receipt. Thus they had the option of returning to cash assistance as needed. Administrative data from eight reports, displayed in Table 3, show that between five and 20 percent of welfare leavers returned to welfare within one quarter after exit. Over the next three months, an additional four to seven percent of leavers returned in most states, bringing the total population of former recipients receiving AFDC/TANF to between 10 and 28 percent at two quarters after exit. The recidivism rate increased only slightly over the next two quarters (with returns to welfare ranging from 12 to 29 percent at 12 months after exit), but the proportion who ever received assistance for at least one month during the first 12 months after exit was somewhat higher (ranging from 23 to 35 percent).
Survey data on returns to TANF are fairly similar to the administrative data. In addition, survey data also found that at least one half of those who returned to TANF did so for a job-related reason, such as job loss or decreases on work hours or wages. Other common reasons for returning to TANF included divorce or separation from partner, pregnancy or birth of a new child, re-compliance with program regulations, loss of other income, problems with child care, and problems with health or medical benefits.
- Medicaid and Health Insurance
Adults
Administrative data on Medicaid enrollment from the eight studies that reported on this measure showed dramatic variations across states, unlike the relatively consistent findings on employment, earnings and recidivism. As shown in Table 4, three months after exit, the Medicaid enrollment rate for the early cohort of adult leavers ranged from 24 to 76 percent, with most studies reporting rates between 35 and 60 percent. Participation in Medicaid declined over time in the year following exit in over half the states (dropping as much as 10 to 20 percentage points for adult leavers between the first and fourth quarters after exit), but remained relatively stable in three studies. Enrollment rates among "continuous leavers," i.e., those who do not return to cash assistance, were even lower, primarily because this group excludes leavers who return to TANF, most of whom are re-enrolled in Medicaid at the time of their return to cash assistance.
Survey data provides more complete information about the status of health insurance coverage. Data from the four studies reveal that one-third to one-half (33 to 53 percent) of adult leavers were covered by Medicaid at the time of interview, about one-fifth to one-third (20 to 34 percent)
| Grantee & Cohort CY(Qtr) | 1st Qtr (3 mos) post exit | 2nd Qtr (6 mos) post exit | 3rd Qtr (9 mos) post exit | 4th Qtr (12 mos) post exit | Ever receiving within 1 year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Administrative Data | |||||
|
Georgia 97(1) |
14.3 | 13.4 | |||
|
Arizona 96(4) |
4.8 | 13.6 | 17.6 | 17.2 | 28.4 |
|
D. C. 97(4) |
5.6 | 10.4 | 14.0 | 16.5 | |
|
San Mateo 96(4) |
7.7 | 12.1 | 11.6 | 12.3 | 22.7 |
|
New York 97(1) |
17.0 | ||||
|
New York 97(1) |
19.0 | ||||
|
Washington 96(4) |
12.0 | 19.0 | 22.0 | 23.0 | 29.8 |
|
Missouri 96(4) |
12.4 | 18.6 | 20.8 | 20.6 | |
|
Wisconsin 7/95-6/96 |
14.3 | 19.3 | 18.6 | 17.0 | 27.6 |
|
Illinois 7/97-12/98 |
16.2 | 18.6 | 17.5 | 16.3 | 28.9 |
|
Cuyahoga 96(3) |
20.4 | 27.5 | 29.6 | 28.7 | 35.3 |
|
Notes: Grantees measuring program participation by month - Arizona, the District of Columbia, San Mateo, New York and Illinois - are likely to report lower program participation than grantees measuring participation over a three-month quarter. Also, there is potential one-month discrepancy in how grantees define months and quarters "post exit," because some grantees define "month of exit" as the last month of benefit receipt, while others define it as the first month without cash assistance. These methodological differences have a particularly B effect on measurement of TANF receipt three months/one quarter after exit, and so differences in the first column of Table 3 should be viewed with caution. |
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were covered by employer or other health insurance, and about one-third (26 to 41 percent) of former adult recipients had no health insurance coverage. These studies suggest that there is little difference from state to state in private health insurance rates and that the difference in uninsurance rates among welfare leavers is due to Medicaid. State to state differences in Medicaid enrollment rates result from policy choices affecting Medicaid eligibility rules and
| Grantee & Cohort CY(Qtr) | Exit Quarter /month | 1 st Qtr (3 mos) post exit | 2 nd Qtr (6 mos) post exit | 3 rd Qtr (9 mos) post exit | 4 th Qtr (12 mos) post exit | Ever receiving within 1 year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Administrative Data | ||||||
|
San Mateo 96(4) |
24.4 | 28.2 | 22.9 | 23.7 | 47.1 | |
|
-Children covered |
25.9 | 30.6 | 26.0 | 26.2 | 48.4 | |
|
D.C. 97(4)- Anyone on case (m) |
97.2 | 35.4 | 37.7 | 36.3 | 37.9 | |
|
New York 97(1) |
35.0 | |||||
|
-Children covered |
34.0 | |||||
|
- Anyone on case |
45.0 | |||||
|
- Anyone on case |
40.0 | |||||
|
Cuyahoga 96(3) |
41.4 | 41.7 | 39.6 | 37.7 | 55.3 | |
| Washington 97(4) ** | 99.0 | 53.0 | 40.0 | 46.0 | 43.0 | |
|
Illinois 7/97-12/98 |
41.8 | 57.0 | 51.7 | 47.4 | 40.0 | 68.8 |
|
Arizona 96(4) |
57.8 | 54.2 | 49.3 | 46.5 | 84.9 | |
|
Wisconsin 7/95-6/96 |
75.9 | 69.4 | 66.0 | 63.1 | 81.5 | |
|
Notes: These rates measure enrollment of the single adult head who left TANF, except where noted as rate of leavers whose "children are covered" or where "anyone on case" (child or adult) is covered. As noted in Table 3, above, measures of participation by month - reported by San Mateo, Illinois and Arizona, and New York for "anyone on case" - are likely to be lower than measures of participation over a three-month quarter, and "month of exit" may mean first month without cash assistance or last month receiving cash assistance. |
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application procedures, and/or state and local administrative practices affecting families transitioning off welfare. Survey data from two states (discussed in the section on Material Hardship and displayed on Table 7 below) show the consequences of lack of health insurance coverage.
Children
As expected, children are covered under Medicaid (or the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)) at considerably higher rates than adults. Survey data from four sites showed enrollment rates for children of leavers at six to 27 percentage points higher than rates for adults. One-half to two-thirds (51 to 67 percent) of leavers reported Medicaid/SCHIP coverage for their children. Similar to the adult rates, about one-fifth (20 to 23 percent) of leavers reported that their children had insurance coverage other than Medicaid. Unlike the adults, however, children were somewhat less likely than adults to have such insurance in the form of employer-sponsored coverage, and more likely to have it in the form of "other" insurance, including coverage through a non-custodial parent. Finally, between 11 and 29 percent of leavers reported that their children had no health insurance, although the majority of them should have been eligible for either Medicaid or SCHIP.
- Food Stamps
The percentage of leavers participating in the Food Stamp Program was lower than the percentage enrolled in Medicaid across almost all study sites. Administrative data from eight of nine studies reporting on food stamp use by the early cohort, shown in Table 5, found that roughly one-third to one-half (34 to 57 percent) of former cash assistance recipients received food stamps immediately after exit. Survey data from two studies had similar findings, reporting 33 to 50 percent participation six to eight months after exit. By one year after exit, food stamp participation rates had fallen to between 33 and 40 percent in seven of the nine studies. The percentage of leavers ever receiving food stamps in the first year after exit typically ranged from 57 to 67 percent. One study proved to be the exception to these trends - only 9 percent of leavers were participating in the first quarter after exit, and 14 percent in the fourth quarter. About 28 percent of leavers in that study ever received food stamps within one year after exit. The following section on Material Hardship and Table 7 below address the prevalence of food shortages reported in survey data from two states.
Poverty and Material Hardship
- Household Income and Poverty Status
Information on total household incomes of welfare leavers is currently available only from the four studies with survey data. Across these studies, total monthly household income averaged from about $1,050 to over $1,400, with median household incomes even lower. See Table 6. Information on the distribution of income available from two studies showed that very few
| Grantee & Cohort CY(Qtr) | 1st Qtr post exit | 2nd Qtr post exit | 3rd Qtr post exit | 4th Qtr post exit | Ever receiving within 1 year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Administrative Data - Early Cohorts | |||||
|
San Mateo 96(4) |
9.3 | 15.4 | 13.4 | 14.1 | 27.5 |
|
New York 97(4) |
26.0 | ||||
|
New York 97(4) (month) |
21.0 | ||||
|
D. C. 97(4) |
33.9 | 35.0 | 34.2 | 34.3 | |
|
Illinois 97(3) |
35.5 | 39.4 | 37.5 | 34.5 | |
|
Arizona 96(4) |
38.0 | 37.3 | 36.7 | 34.2 | 67.2 |
|
Cuyahoga |
42.5 | 42.2 | 41.2 | 39.4 | 57.3 |
|
Washington 97(4) ** |
46.0 | 42.0 | 40.0 | 36.0 | |
|
Wisconsin 95-96 |
51.3 | 45.8 | 42.5 | 40.0 | 62.8 |
|
Missouri 96(4) |
57.3 | 46.7 | 42.7 | 40.1 | |
| Administrative Data -- Later Cohorts | |||||
|
Arizona 98(1) |
38.6 | 38.6 | 37.6 | 35.0 | 66.5 |
|
Illinois 98(1) |
34.2 | 35.1 | 34.8 | ||
|
Illinois 7/97-12/98 |
33.0 | 34.8 | 34.2 | 32.8 | 56.0 |
|
Washington 98(4) ** |
47.0 | 42.0 | |||
|
Survey Data |
6-8 mos | 26-34 mos | Ever Since Exit | ||
|
Illinois Dec 98** |
33 | ||||
|
Washington Oct 98 |
50 | ||||
|
Missouri 96(4) ** |
47 | 80 | |||
|
Note: As noted in Table 3, measures of participation by month - reported by New York (second row), DC, Illinois (for all cohorts), and Arizona (for both cohorts) - are likely to be lower than measures of participation over a three-month quarter, and "month of exit" may mean first month without cash assistance or last month receiving cash assistance. |
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leavers (2 to 4 percent) reported $0 in household income, while about half (43 to 54 percent) reported incomes of between $500 and $1,500 per month. In one study, eight percent of leavers had household incomes in excess of $3,000 per month two and a half years after exit from welfare.
Two state reports calculated a poverty rate for former recipients by multiplying monthly incomes by 12 and comparing these annual incomes to the federal poverty thresholds by family size. The estimated poverty rate of former recipients was the same in each state - 58 percent - despite the fact that one state measured poverty six to eight months after exit, and the other measured it two and a half years after exit.
All four studies provided some information about the sources of household income. Earnings were the single largest income source, with the leaver's earnings accounting for 60 to 65 percent of household income across three studies, and earnings of the leaver and/or others in the household accounting for 80 to 86 percent of total household income. Other contributors to aggregate household income included TANF benefits, child support, and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits.
- Material Hardship
Across the three states that measured food insecurity, approximately one-fourth of former welfare recipients reported that they did not have enough to eat, or they cut meal sizes or skipped meals in the period since leaving welfare. Table 7 shows that in two of the sites, food shortages were somewhat more common among leavers than on-going TANF recipients, and of about the same frequency before and after exit in the third site.
Former recipients also reported problems with housing arrangements, although somewhat less frequently than food shortages. The most common problems were loss of utilities (12 to 14 percent of leavers across three studies) and being forced to move (13 to 17 percent across two studies). Less often, former recipients were evicted or went to a homeless shelter. An estimated eight percent of former recipients in two states reported that their children were forced to live elsewhere, and three percent of leavers in one state reported that their children went into foster care. None of the states reported that separations of children from the family occurred more or less frequently after exit than while the families received welfare benefits.
Finally, between one-quarter and one-third (24 to 31 percent) of leavers in two sites reported that since leaving welfare they or someone in their household was unable to get needed medical attention because they could not afford it. This may reflect the fact that 40 and 36 percent of leavers survey respondents in those two states, respectively, reported being uninsured. However, 14 and 26 percent of these same respondents also reported an inability to get needed medical attention during the last six months of welfare receipt, when almost all respondents should have had health coverage through the Medicaid program.
| Illinois Dec 98** | Washington Oct 98 | Arizona 98(1) | Missouri 96(4) ** | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Survey Data | ||||
|
Timing of Interview (Months post exit) |
6-8 mos | 6-8 mos | 12-18 mos | 26-34 mos |
|
Mean (Median) Household Cash Income |
$1,054 ($895) | $1,208 ($1,000) | ~$1,364* | $1,427 ($1,166) |
|
Mean Income, including Food Stamps |
$1,467 | |||
| Income Distribution | ||||
|
0 |
4 | 2 | ||
|
1 to $500 |
24 | 20 | ||
|
$500-$1,000 |
35 | 23 | ||
|
$1,000-$1,500 |
19 | 20 | ||
|
$1,500-$2,000 |
7 | 15 | ||
|
$2,000+ |
11 | 20 | ||
| Poverty Status | ||||
|
<=100% of Poverty Threshold |
58 | 58 | ||
|
Poverty Threshold |
42 | 42 | ||
| Median Household Income, by Number of Earners | ||||
|
No earner households |
$414 | $435 | ||
|
1-earner households |
$1,000 | $1,180 | ||
|
2-earner households |
$2,008 | $2,300 | ||
|
Notes: * The Arizona study reported household income including food stamps as income. Cash income was estimated as 93 percent of total reported income (based on information provided for a similar group of leavers). |
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| Illinois Dec 98** | Washington Oct 98 | Arizona 98(1) ( ) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Since exit (leavers) | 6 mos pre- exit (leavers recall) | Last 6 mos (leaver sample) | Last 6 mos (TANF sample) | Since exit (leavers) | 6 mos pre-exit (leavers recall) | |
| Food Shortages | ||||||
|
Not enough to eat |
24 | 30 | ||||
|
Cut meal size some time or often |
25 | 24 | 30 | 23* | ||
|
Skipped meal some time or often |
23 | 18* | ||||
|
Went without food all day at least once |
14 | 9* | ||||
|
Receive food from shelter or food bank |
35 | 44 | 21 | 29 | ||
|
Received meals/food from shelter |
12 | 15 | ||||
| Housing Problems | ||||||
|
Utilities cut off because could not pay |
14 | 27 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 18 |
|
Had to move because could not pay |
13 | 15 | 17 | 21 | ||
|
Evicted |
7 | 3* | ||||
|
Without a place to live at least once |
13 | 10 | ||||
|
Without a place to live sometime/often |
4.5 | 2.3* | ||||
|
Went to homeless shelter |
3.0 | 3.5 | 1.3 | 1.5 | 4 | 3 |
|
Lived on street/car |
1.0 | 2.1 | ||||
|
Children forced to live elsewhere |
8 | 9 | 8 | 9 | ||
|
Children in foster care at least once |
3 | 2 | ||||
| Medical hardship | ||||||
|
Unable to get needed medical attention |
31 | 26 | 24 | 14 | ||
|
Notes: "Pre-exit" and "post-exit" experiences were based on samples of former and current recipients in Washington, and on "pre-exit" and "post-exit" questions of leaver samples in Illinois and Arizona. |
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ther Outcomes Data
The descriptive statistics highlighted above provide some important insights into the outcomes and well-being of individuals and families leaving welfare. However, they do not represent the sum total of the rich administrative and survey data collected by states and counties under the ASPE-funded grants. Links to most of the individual state and county reports can be found at <http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/leavers99/reports.htm. The forthcoming synthesis report by the Urban Institute will be posted to the same web site. In addition, ASPE is working collaboratively with the grantees and a technical assistance contractor to make the grantees' welfare outcomes data files available to researchers for secondary analyses. As it becomes available, information on how to secure access to these data files can be found on the ASPE-sponsored web page on Welfare Leavers and Diversion Studies at <http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/leavers99/index.htm
Interpreting TANF Leaver Studies: Comparing ASPE Grantee States to the Nation as a Whole
The Conference Report accompanying the 1998 targeted appropriation specified that the Department assess the potential for using food stamp administrative data to look at welfare "leavers" and nonparticipants at the national level. Historically, almost all of the households that received AFDC/TANF also participated in the Food Stamp Program. As reported in "Characteristics and Financial Circumstances of TANF Recipients: July-September 1997," approximately 85 percent of TANF families received food stamp assistance during that period, which was consistent with previous levels under the AFDC program. (By contrast, households with AFDC/TANF constituted just 35 percent of all food stamp households in 1997 because of its broader base of eligibility, e.g., elderly people.) Since so many AFDC/TANF recipients also receive food stamps, the potential for using Food Stamp Program administrative data to examine the status of TANF recipients after they leave the TANF caseload was an important avenue to explore.
ASPE contracted with Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. (MPR) to conduct the study. However, after extensive discussions with USDA's Food and Nutrition Service concerning case information in the National Integrated Quality Control System (NIQCS) and state food stamp administrative records, it became clear that significant technical obstacles would need to be overcome in order to use food stamp administrative data to track welfare leavers and nonparticipants, and that assembling such data would not be feasible. The project was, therefore, re-focused.
The goal of the re-defined project was to explore whether grantee-states have similar characteristics to the nation as a whole, and thus the extent to which welfare outcomes findings from the grantee states (which are summarized at the beginning of this chapter) might be indicative of the national TANF experience. Using early data from the grantee leavers studies, the Current Population Survey, HHS administrative data and the FY1998 Food Stamp Quality Control program, MPR compared 15 study states to the rest of the nation in terms of caseload declines, employment and earnings outcomes, TANF policies and economic and demographic indicators.
In the March 2000 report, Interpreting TANF Leaver Studies: Comparing ASPE Grantee States to the Nation as a Whole, MPR found that the grantee states capture a diverse cross section of the U.S. experience, and thus findings from these studies are helpful in representing the range of potential outcomes associated with welfare reform. However, they also found some important differences and thus conclude that findings for the nation as a whole might differ from those in grantee states. For example, for the nation as a whole:
- TANF exits may be more likely to result from increased earnings,
- families may be less likely to be diverted from collecting benefits,
- families may be better off in terms of material well-being, and
- families may be more likely to continue receiving food stamps after leaving TANF.
Thus, it is possible that in some respects welfare outcomes for families in the nation as a whole may be somewhat more positive than for families in the grantee states.
Follow-up on the Wisconsin Project for Tracking Former Welfare Recipients
In fiscal year 1997, ASPE funded the University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty to conduct an administrative data study of the outcomes of families who left AFDC in Wisconsin during 1995. The reports produced during the first study provided useful early results for the Department on the short-term economic and employment outcomes of women who left AFDC prior to both the enactment of TANF and the implementation of Wisconsin Works (also known as W-2, Wisconsin's replacement for AFDC). For example, almost half (48 percent) of AFDC recipients in 1995 left welfare for at least two consecutive months between August 1995 and July 1996, but 30 percent later returned. Those who left and did not return were not as poor as those who returned; however, most families who left had incomes below poverty and only a small fraction had incomes above 150 percent of poverty.
A follow-up study, funded in FY 1999, builds on the earlier study and includes an examination of longer-term economic outcomes. Based on analyses of linked state administrative data, this study examines the employment and earnings outcomes of mother-headed families who stopped receiving cash assistance for at least two months beginning in the last quarter of 1995 or 1997. The Interim Report, Before and After TANF: The Economic Well-Being of Women Leaving Welfare, was published in May 2000 (see http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/irp/pubs/sr77.pdf). In comparing women who left welfare under early welfare reforms (i.e., in 1995) with those who left under Wisconsin's post-TANF welfare program (i.e., in 1997), the main findings are as follows:
- While 1997 recipients appear to have more barriers to work (e.g., less education, more children, very young children) than those in 1995, the rate of exit is much higher in the second time period (i.e., post-TANF).
- Nearly 70 percent of those leaving welfare in both cohorts left for employment, a somewhat higher employment rate than those found in our other studies (which are summarized earlier in this chapter) of women leaving welfare under recent reforms.
- Over 80 percent of women in both cohorts had at least some earnings during the first year after exit.
- Women in the second cohort who worked have lower earnings, are somewhat more likely to have multiple employers throughout the year, and are somewhat less likely to be employed in all four quarters after exit compared to women in the first cohort. (The data do not distinguish whether the multiple employers represent job changes during the quarter or multiple jobs.)
- Those who left welfare in the last quarter of 1997 were somewhat less likely to return to welfare than those who left in the earlier cohort.
- Participation in the Food Stamp Program is much higher among women who left welfare in 1997 than among those who left in 1995. For example, 82 percent of women who left welfare in 1997 received food stamps at some point during the first year after exit compared to only 57 percent of the earlier cohort.
In addition to pre- and post-TANF cohort comparisons, the study also examined the longer-term outcomes (i.e., three years after exit) of those women who left welfare in 1995. Several main points emerge from this analysis:
- A majority of women who left welfare in 1995 (88 percent) worked at some point in the first three years after exit; however, the percent of women with at least some employment in a given year declined somewhat over the three-year period (from 81 percent in the first year to 77 percent in the third).
- Among those who worked, earnings increased each year; however, three years after exit most of these women have earnings below 150 percent of the poverty line.
- The proportion of families that would be classified as poor based on own earnings, estimated taxes and Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) payments, the cash value
Welfare Reform and the Health and Economic Status of Immigrants and the Organizations that Serve Them
Since 1997, HHS, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Justice have been funding the Urban Institute under a cooperative agreement to study the impact of recent changes in Federal laws on immigrant families and children and to profile immigrants with regard to their health, employment, economic circumstances and participation in government programs. The project includes an examination of existing data combined with intensive primary data collection in Los Angeles and New York - two cities that together account for one-fourth of all the immigrants in the United States. The field work began in spring 1999. Intensive interviews will also be conducted with public and private community organizations that serve immigrants, as well as focus groups with immigrants affected by the new laws. National profiles of immigrant populations are being developed using secondary data and these will be compared with natives. Local administrative data will be used to map out relevant local trends in program participation and, where possible, to develop neighborhood indicators of health and other trends.
Three reports have been released to date, and several additional reports will be completed, culminating with a final report in October 2001. All reports from this project will be posted at <http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/hspother.htm>.
The first report, Declining Immigrant Applications for Medi-Cal and Welfare Benefits in Los Angeles County, analyzed administrative data to compare citizen and non-citizen rates of applications and approvals under AFDC/TANF, SSI, General Assistance, Medicaid, and food stamps in Los Angeles County, between January 1996 and January 1998. Over this period, approved applications for legal non-citizen families under Medi-Cal (California's Medicaid program) and AFDC/TANF fell by 52 percent, while there was no decline in approved applications for U.S. citizens. The number of U.S. citizen children with non-citizen parents applying for AFDC/TANF and Medi-Cal declined by 48 percent during this period, while the number of U.S. citizen children with U.S. citizen parents increased by 6 percent. Fewer immigrant families appeared to be applying for assistance, although the program eligibility rules did not change during this period. Application denial rates in the county remained steady during the period examined. The full report can be found at <http://www.urban.org/immig/lacounty.html>.
A second report, Trends in Noncitizens' and Citizens' Use of Public Benefits Following Welfare Reform: 1994-1997, analyzed Current Population Survey (CPS) data, comparing participation rates for U.S. citizens and non-citizens in cash assistance, food stamps and Medicaid programs. Nationally, overall use of public benefits by the total population declined between 1994 and 1997. However, during this period, the rate of decline within non-citizen households (35 percent) was more than double the rate of decline within citizen households (14 percent). During this time period, relatively few legal immigrants would have been affected by the benefit restrictions directed primarily to newer arrivals. Thus it appears that the steeper drop in overall non-citizen use of cash assistance benefits, food stamps, and Medicaid, reflects the "chilling effect" of welfare and immigration reform more than it does actual program eligibility changes.
Other evidence of the chilling effects is that refugees, who were given greater benefit protections under welfare reform than other immigrants, experienced participation declines at a rate (33 percent) about equal to declines among all non-citizens. Welfare use in non-citizen households with children declined at similar rates (36 percent). Overall, non-citizen households, who in 1994 were 9 percent of all households receiving welfare, comprised 23 percent of the drop in welfare caseloads between 1994 and 1997. The report can be found at: <http://www.urban.org/immig/trends.html>.
The third report is an analysis of the composition of immigrant households using 1998 CPS data. The report, All Under One Roof: Mixed-Status Families in an Era of Reform, found that "mixed status" families (i.e., families where at least one parent is a non-citizen and one or more children are U.S. citizens) are surprisingly prevalent in the United States. One in 10 children in America live in such families. As one might expect, these families are more prevalent in places where immigrants are concentrated. More than a quarter (27 percent) of all California families and 14 percent of all New York families are mixed status. Nearly half (47 percent) of all children in Los Angeles and more than a quarter (27 percent) of all children in New York City live in mixed-status families. Compared to other families, more mixed status families are low-income, and more children living in these families have no health insurance. The report can be found at <http://www.urban.org/immig/all_under.html>.
Understanding the AFDC/TANF Child-Only Caseload
In 1999, 29 percent of TANF cases were child-only families in which only children received the benefits. We know from earlier data (1998) that in about 40 percent of these families the children are living with adult relatives who are not their parents (and benefits are paid only on behalf of the children under their care), while in the remaining 60 percent of the cases, parents are in the household, but ineligible for benefits for reasons such as sanctions, immigration status, or receipt of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits. Before the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) was enacted, the numbers of child-only cases had been increasing steadily. Since then, the absolute numbers of such cases have declined, although the latest 1999 TANF caseload data show an increase in numbers over the previous year. As a proportion of the total TANF caseload, child-only cases have increased steadily. Unlike other TANF cases, child-only cases are exempt from many of the major requirements of the program, including time limits and work requirements, and the children in these families are likely to remain dependent on TANF for longer periods of time than other families.
In 1998, ASPE contracted with The Lewin Group to analyze national trends on child-only cases and, because the prevalence of child-only cases varies widely among states, to look at local characteristics and program practices in three states - California, Florida, and Missouri - and three counties in these states. The study obtained more detailed information about the characteristics of child-only families from administrative data and case files. State and county-level policy staff and caseworkers were interviewed to examine policy and programmatic issues.
The study found varying policy choices being made about sanctions, treatment of aliens, treatment of relative caregivers and treatment of SSI income. Although these policies affect child-only cases, the effects are not often considered in local decision making processes.
Most (two-thirds) non-parental caregivers were grandmothers, and they were substantially older than adults in regular TANF cases. The average age of non-parental caregivers in the three counties visited was 53. Non-parental cases have relatively higher incomes than parental child-only cases, but over a third of the non-parental cases qualified for food stamps. The primary reasons that children come to reside with non-parental caregivers are desertion, substance abuse, incarceration, child abuse and neglect. The report, Understanding the AFDC/TANF Child-Only Caseload: Policies, Composition, and Characteristics in Three States, <http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/child-only-caseload00/index.htm
One of the findings from the Lewin study was that all three states have created alternative programs for relative caregiver families that offer higher payments than TANF programs and have additional requirements for eligibility. These programs generally have less stringent eligibility requirements than foster care. To examine this issue further, ASPE has funded a follow-up project in FY 2000 to identify the types of alternative kinship care programs states have designed to serve relative caregivers outside of the traditional foster care or TANF systems.
Advancing States' Child Indicators Initiatives
This project promoted state efforts to develop and monitor indicators of the health and well-being of children as welfare reform and other significant policy changes occur. Capacity building was the fundamental goal of the project. It has been very successful in getting states to look seriously at their capacity to assess trends in children's well-being, especially for low-income populations, and to make improvements in capacity. ASPE, with additional support from ACF and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, provided grants of approximately $50,000 each to fourteen states in both FYs 1998 and 1999. Each state was required to form a partnership of state government agencies including, at a minimum, the agencies and councils with responsibilities for children issues and services and the state welfare agency. Many states also included universities, community government agencies, or other partners. A brief description of each state's project is available at <http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/cyp/cindicators.htm>. States were provided with opportunities to work with one another, experts in various fields, and federal staff. Working from different starting points, states have designed and carried out a variety of activities, released a variety of reports on indicators, and disseminated other products. All states have indicated specific plans to continue their indicator efforts beyond the project period. Technical assistance has been provided to the grantees by the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago, which plans a final project meeting for Summer 2001. Products from the project will be finalized and disseminated by the technical assistance contractor.
Research Uses of Emergency TANF Report Data
ASPE undertook three related projects using the newly available source of welfare reform data collected through the Emergency TANF Data Report (ETDR): (1) working with the Administration for Children and Families' Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, to improve the collection, storage, and release of these data; (2) doing cross-sectional analyses using all data from all states; and (3) assessing the feasibility of creating a longitudinal database using data from individual states. First we had to resolve technical issues associated with cheaply storing and transferring the large amounts of data required for a comparative analysis of AFDC and TANF, and then build an archive of TANF data for researchers, which is expected to be available on the Internet. Cross-sectional analyses compared AFDC and TANF using a "before vs. after" welfare reform notion, analyzing similarities and differences in the caseloads. Finally, we explored the research potential of developing a longitudinal data set, preferably combined with additional linked data sets for more in-depth analyses. Longitudinal analyses in this early phase of administrative data reporting focused on short-term outcomes, including changes in work participation, child care use, Medicaid, and household composition (especially to child-only cases and conversion of two-parent to one-parent cases). This feasibility work lays the groundwork for creation of state longitudinal databases.
Archiving of AFDC Data
This project organized into a data archive the Characteristics Surveys of AFDC recipients (which were carried out every two years from 1967 through 1979) and the annual AFDC Quality Control administrative data (collected from 1982 through 1996). These data facilitate comparisons between the TANF program and its predecessor AFDC program to analyze changes in the characteristics and size of the caseload over time. The Urban Institute, the contractor, made the data variable names and definitions consistent across years, as well as cleaned, documented, and published these data on the Internet for use by researchers wishing to compare the new world of welfare reform with the old world of AFDC, among other uses. The ASCII (plain text) data files, documentation of files and variables, and commands to create a SAS data set for each year are available at: <http://afdc.urban.org/>.
Endnotes
1. In FY 1999, an additional $837,000 was awarded for continuations and extensions of several of the FY 1998 projects. Also funded in FY 1999 were leavers studies in Iowa, Texas, and Contra Costa County, California, as well as several applicant/diversion studies.
2. Studies with administrative data findings that are included in this summary are from Arizona, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, New York, Washington, Wisconsin, Cuyahoga County, OH, Los Angeles County, CA, and San Mateo County, CA. Links to most of the reports can be found at <http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/leavers99/reports.htm>.
3. Survey data included in the summary are from Arizona, Illinois, Missouri, and Washington.
4. Cross-state comparisons are affected by a variety of factors, ranging from state sanction policies, maximum benefit levels and earnings disregard policies, to survey sample sizes, time of interview and response rates. They are also affected by the underlying economic, social and demographic conditions of the study sites. In addition, since survey findings reported here are from only four sites, they should not be presumed to be representative of the experiences of welfare leavers across the country. Differences in survey findings are also affected by differences in the questionnaires. See <http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/leavers99/cross.htm#comparing for information about comparing survey instruments.
5. The findings reported here and the accompanying tables are taken from a paper by prepared by ASPE staff, "A Cross-State Examination of Families Leaving Welfare: Findings from the ASPE-Funded Leavers Studies," which was presented at the 40th Annual Workshop of the National Association for Welfare Research and Statistics (NAWRS) in August 2000.
6. Since UI records are based on quarterly earnings, reflecting any covered employment during that quarter. Individuals do not need to be employed in every month of the quarter for an earnings record to be generated.
7. The UI system collects data on aggregate quarterly earnings, without providing underlying information about actual wages, hours worked, or months worked in a quarter. Therefore, the data do not permit us to determine whether increased earnings are due to wage rate increases or increased hours of work. In addition, it should be noted that, since leavers without earnings in the quarter are excluded when calculating mean earnings, the earnings increases could also be due to low earners dropping out of the labor market.
Projects Funded by the FY2000 Appropriation to Study Welfare Outcomes/Leavers
Following are descriptions of projects ASPE funded in FY 2000 from the targeted appropriation to study welfare outcomes.
Major New Projects
Researcher Initiated Grants on Welfare Outcomes
In FY 1999 ASPE funded researcher-initiated grants on various aspects of welfare reform outcomes. We continued this grant program in FY 2000, in cooperation with the Administration for Children and Families, focusing on use of state and federal administrative data, and on current and former TANF recipients and other special populations affected by state TANF policies. Priority research interests centered on issues likely to be of concern during TANF reauthorization discussions, including the composition of the caseload, patterns of government program use, sub-populations, non-working welfare leavers, sanctions, labor market experiences, employment stability, marriage and family structure, TANF flexibility, use of TANF and MOE funds, barrier identification and service utilization, and entry effects and welfare dynamics. Approximately $1.3 million has been awarded to 10 applicants. In general, ASPE funding is supporting research and secondary data analysis efforts that will be completed within 12 months covering a variety of information about adults, children, and families, including economic and non-economic well-being and participation in government programs. ACF awarded an additional $1.2 million in FY 2000 to support continuation of two of the projects beyond this first year and seven other longer-term projects involving primary data collection. The ASPE-funded proposals include:
RAND: Entry, Exit and the Changing Composition of the Caseload
This project will explore the role of the economy in explaining the welfare caseload declines. It will address the following questions: 1) What is the relative importance of changes in the rates of entry, exit, and re-entry in explaining the observed caseload declines? 2) What is the role of expenditures on welfare programs in explaining these declines? 3) To what extent is the caseload becoming harder to serve as the total caseload declines? Researchers will also explore how the answers to these questions vary by race-ethnicity (white, black, Hispanic, Asian), and welfare program (two-parent, one-parent, child-only.) The project will use California administrative data from 1987 through mid-2001.
Baruch College, City University of New York: Effects of Welfare Reform on Investments in Human Capital and Family Formation
This study will investigate whether the behavior of teens and young adults ages 16 to 21 has changed as the result of welfare reform. Researchers will use data from the 1979 and 1997 National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth (NLSY) to compare cohorts (both between and within) that entered these ages prior to and following welfare reform, describing differences in outcomes and behaviors such as high school completion, teenage and non-marital child bearing, employment and welfare receipt. They will then investigate the role of welfare reform in bringing about the observed changes.
University of Oregon: TANF and Household Savings
This project will study the impact of new savings incentives offered to participants in the TANF program. Specifically, researchers will address the following questions: 1) Has saving increased among those low-income households who reside in states that have increased the liquid-asset and vehicle equity limits for program eligibility? 2) Has saving increased among those low-income households who reside in states that have introduced Individual Development Accounts? 3) What is the impact of time-limited benefits on household savings? 4) Are there differences by race, marital status, and poverty status in the response to the new saving incentives? The study will use data from the 1989, 1994, and 1999 wealth supplements of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics.
University of Michigan: Mental Health, Substance Abuse, and Domestic Violence Service Utilization by Welfare Recipients
This project will analyze the impact that spatial proximity to social service providers and individual-level characteristics have on service utilization rates among welfare recipients in the three-county Detroit metropolitan area. The project will address the following questions: 1) How are social service providers spatially distributed in the Detroit metropolitan area? 2) Where do welfare recipients live relative to the location of mental health, substance abuse, and domestic violence services? 3) Are service utilization rates correlated with spatial proximity to providers?
Researchers will use data from the Mother's Well-Being Study (MWS), a survey of welfare recipients in the Detroit metro area, and link data from the MWS to data on the geographic location of mental health and substance providers.
MDRC: An Analysis of Caseload Composition and the Non-Working Welfare Leavers
Researchers will examine three groups of low-income populations (those who leave welfare for work, those who remain on the welfare rolls, and non-working welfare leavers) to address the following questions: 1) In what ways are the families who remain on welfare different than the ones who have left? 2) What are the characteristics and circumstances of people who leave welfare and are not working? The project will use data from seven evaluation studies of welfare programs (six used random assignment) conducted by MDRC.
Case Western Reserve University: The Effect of Job Accessibility and Neighborhood Characteristics on the Employment Stability of Welfare Leavers in an Urban Labor Market
The study will examine women's employment stability, earnings, and wage trajectories over a 13-month period following their exit from TANF in the Cleveland metropolitan area. The following questions will be addressed: 1) What is the geographic distribution of jobs held by women leaving welfare, and do labor market success and job stability differ by whether jobs are located in high job growth or slow job growth sections of the metro area? 2) How residentially mobile are former welfare recipients once they have gained employment, and is that mobility related to the location of their jobs? 3) How do the residential locations of former welfare recipients and their proximity to entry-level job openings and the implied access to public transportation affect their labor market success? 4) How do the social and economic conditions in their residential neighborhood affect labor market outcomes for women leaving welfare?
Researchers will use three data sets: an ongoing longitudinal study of women leaving welfare, a regional labor market data set, and a database containing measures of neighborhood distress.
Urban Institute: How Important is Marriage to Low-Income Family Well-Being?
This project will examine the interactions between marital status, household status, and economic well-being to better understand whether increases in marriage among the low-income population would increase economic security and reduce poverty. The primary research question is: Does marriage among two biological parents, as well as other family forms, bestow economic benefits and other advantages to families with children over other family types, including single parent families and other families headed by individuals with low educational attainment and/or low earnings capacity? The study will examine conventional family types, such as two-natural- parent married family, step-family, cohabiting families and single parent families, as well as an expanded set of family types that include visiting relationships and extended families. Both economic and non-economic outcomes will be considered. Researchers will use the 1997 and 1999 rounds of the National Survey of America's Families.
Columbia University: Fragile Families and Welfare Reform (joint with ACF)
This study will describe the conditions and capabilities of vulnerable mothers and fathers in the first few years following enactment of PRWORA and begin an evaluation of the impact of TANF and child support policies. Specifically, researchers will document the composition of the actual and eligible welfare caseload, how unwed mothers are packaging various forms of support and government programs, and how well families are doing as a result of individual efforts and social policies. Researchers will also conduct subgroup analyses on teenage parents and immigrants. Researchers will use data from the Fragile Families study, a random sample of new unmarried mothers and fathers in 20 large cities across the U.S.
Washington University: Employment, Earnings and Recidivism: How do Entrants to TANF Differ from Entrants to AFDC?
The project will examine factors related to welfare exits, employment stability, earnings mobility, and recidivism among welfare recipients in North Carolina, comparing the experiences of black, white and Hispanic AFDC and TANF participants. Specifically, the study will report on the demographics, welfare participation, employment retention, and post-exit earnings of five cohorts of welfare recipients in North Carolina. It will compare outcomes for those who entered welfare before TANF (1995), in the early implementation of TANF (1996 and 1997) and in the later stages of TANF implementation (1998 and 1999). It will also report on the longer-term labor market outcomes of the earlier cohorts, as well as the types of jobs AFDC/TANF recipients in North Carolina obtain, the range of wages for these jobs, and the potential for on-the-job skill development. The project will use state and county administrative data from North Carolina. UCLA/RAND: A Proposal to Examine the Reporting of Welfare Benefits in the SIPP Using Matched Administrative Records in California (joint with ACF)
This study will examine the accuracy of self-reports of program participation in survey data. In particular, researchers will compare self-reported program participation among Californians interviewed in the Survey of Income and Program Participation with California administrative files of program participation for the same individuals. Researchers will document the degree of misreporting in a variety of programs, including AFDC/TANF, Medicaid, and Food Stamps, and investigate the implications of misreporting for conclusions about the dynamics of welfare participation.
Grants to States and Localities to Enhance Studies of Welfare-Related Outcomes
The purpose of these grants is to enhance state-specific surveys of populations affected by welfare reform, by expanding or improving data collection activities, including efforts to improve cross-state comparability. Grants to states are being used, for example, to add additional survey waves to measure longer-term outcomes, collect data to support greater sub-group analyses, and/or gather more detailed information on non-respondents. To be eligible, states had to have an existing survey that had been administered at least once, so that the grants can facilitate real improvements, without paying for basic startup costs. Survey findings should fill an important knowledge gap that could not be filled with states' existing data, and will cover a variety of welfare reform outcomes, such as measures of family hardship and well-being, barriers to employment, poverty status, and utilization of support programs. When measuring welfare reform outcomes, the surveys and data analyses will focus on subsets of the low-income population including long-term welfare recipients, child-only cases, former recipients, potential recipients, welfare leavers with little or no reported income, and other special populations affected by state TANF policies. The funded proposals include:
Alameda County, CA
Alameda County builds on its existing survey of current TANF recipients and TANF leavers who were interviewed at baseline and at 15 months. The study will conduct a 27 month follow-up survey and maintain the same detailed focus on health barriers, including issues related to mental health and substance abuse. Researchers from the Public Health Institute will conduct in-person interviews and anticipate drawing a sample of 512 cases with a response rate of 72 percent. As with their earlier rounds of this survey, the data will be linked to the state's administrative data systems to gain information on demographics, earnings and program participation.
Iowa
Iowa builds on an existing study of its Family Independence Program (FIP), conducted by Mathematica Policy Research (MPR) and partially funded by ASPE. Their new study will consist of two components, one focusing on vulnerable families and one focusing on longer-term outcomes. The component on vulnerable families focuses on two groups that are not clearly depicted in existing data: survey non-respondents and families who report very low incomes. The study will use intensive search techniques and other methods to conduct interviews with approximately 47 non-respondent cases from Wave 1 of their survey, targeting a response rate of roughly 60 percent. Information from these interviews will be used to assess the representativeness of survey data on welfare outcomes and the implications for interpreting findings. In their study of families with very low incomes, MPR will conduct in-depth interviews of 16 families reporting no more than $500 in total income per month, including those with no TANF and no employment, and those with low levels of TANF and/or employment. These interviews will focus on possible income sources that were missed or incorrectly measured, coping strategies and family well-being. The second component of their analysis will add an additional wave to their existing survey of welfare leavers to observe longer-term outcomes. This wave will gather information on outcomes 20 to 23 months after case closure for approximately 380 cases (assuming a response rate of 85 percent). This component of the project will also incorporate administrative data to track outcomes for approximately 950 cases. MPR has secured significant funding from foundations in addition to the ASPE grant for both components of the project.
Missouri
Missouri will build on its existing ASPE-funded study of former TANF recipients who left the rolls in 1996 and 1997, and will add a cohort of recipients who have remained on TANF for at least 36 months. The study seeks to characterize and contrast the self-sufficiency outcomes and barriers for current and former TANF recipients, and to identify which factors are most predictive of successfully transitioning off welfare, as well as those characteristics most predictive of exhausting the time limit. The existing study follows a sample of 1,200 former recipients, and the new cohort of stayers will consist of 400 cases. Survey data will be linked with administrative data on TANF, food stamps, child care, Medicaid, and some community-based assistance. The contractor for the study will be the Midwest Research Institute.
San Mateo County, CA
This study will use both administrative data and survey data to study child-only cases, including cases that have left TANF and those that remain on the rolls. The study seeks to better understand the characteristics and outcomes of these families, many of whom are headed by immigrant parents. The study will take place in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, and will be conducted by the SPHERE Institute. Their survey targets a response rate of 70 percent among leavers for approximately 430 cases, and 80 percent among stayers for approximately 750 cases. Their study also will draw on administrative data from county case files, wage records and Medicaid eligibility data.
Wisconsin
This project will add a third wave of interviews to the Institute for Research on Poverty's existing study of a cohort of TANF applicants in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The new results will reflect outcomes for this cohort approximately two years after the baseline data were collected. Because the study is based on a sample of applicants, the survey will contain results for those who have left TANF, those still receiving TANF, and some who never received TANF. Adding a third wave to the applicant survey will support analysis of a significant number of cases who have reached the time limit, and a significant number of cases who have cycled off and on the rolls. The researchers will examine a large number of outcomes related to employment, well-being and program participation. They anticipate that of the 1200 respondents from Wave 1, approximately 900 will complete interviews for Wave 3.
Synthesis of Welfare Outcomes Grants
Final reports from several of the FY 1998 State Welfare Outcomes grantees have been released, and research data sets should become available over the next year. There is great Congressional interest in the outcomes of these grants, yet it is a challenge to synthesize findings across the different grantees. Under this project, a contractor, the Urban Institute, is conducting secondary data analyses of welfare outcomes measures, drawing on the state-specific data sets secured under the Technical Assistance on Researcher Access to Data Sets project. The contractor will release an initial synthesis report containing both administrative and survey findings from all available reports in Fall 2000. In addition, the contractor will write a final report, building on both the secondary data analyses of welfare outcomes measures and the grantees' written reports. The final report should be completed by summer 2001, in time for TANF reauthorization, and will add to our ongoing efforts to report reliable state-specific measures of welfare outcomes, including outcomes in the areas of employment and income, family hardship and well-being, recidivism, and utilization of other programs.
Trends in the Economic Well-Being of Low-Income Americans
This book of tables will show trends in income, poverty and other economic measures, such as access to health insurance and food and housing security, with explanatory text and annotated references. Where possible, the book will incorporate tables using alternative measurements of poverty based on recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences. The data book will be composed of five chapters: an overview of income and poverty; children and their families; working-age adults; the elderly; and the impacts of public programs including outcomes of welfare reform. In addition there will be appendices covering basic data from public programs serving low-income and welfare populations and alternative income and poverty measurement issues. Information will come from the CPS, the PSID, the SIPP, and administrative data.
Low-Income/Low-Skilled Workers' Involvement in the Temporary/Contingent Employment Sector
Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that in 1997 a large proportion of workers were employed in alternative or contingent work arrangements, such as work through a temporary help agency, working for a contract company, or working on-call. Compared to other kinds of workers, contingent workers tend to have lower rates of pay, health insurance coverage and pension plan participation, and higher rates of part-time employment. The one percent of workers employed by temporary help agencies are more likely to be young, female and minority than workers in traditional arrangements (or other contingent arrangements). Many welfare recipients and welfare leavers who go to work are likely to be in the temporary worker population. Low-skilled and low-income individuals may turn to temporary employment as a measure of last resort because they can't obtain permanent positions, or by choice to accommodate personal needs such as child care or education. This project will investigate the prevalence of nonstandard employment among low-skilled and low-income populations including current, former and potential welfare recipients; identify the most common forms of temporary positions; and explore the reasons these temporary jobs are taken. The study will involve a literature review and analysis of various data sources including the CPS and data on industries and occupations to determine rates and trends in nonstandard work and overlap with welfare receipt.
Mental Health and Employment
As TANF policies are moving welfare recipients into the labor force, there is growing interest and concern about the barriers that may prevent recipients from gaining and keeping employment. Mental health problems are one such barrier. This project will examine a number of state/local TANF programs in order to: 1) document the methods programs are using to identify, refer and treat welfare recipients with mental health problems; 2) identify approaches that are promising in assisting people with mental health problems to obtain treatment and find and keep employment; 3) highlight the issues and problems that welfare programs are grappling with as they attempt to better serve clients with mental health problems; and 4) assess the challenges and opportunities involved in collaborating with other public systems, such as the public mental health and vocational rehabilitation systems.
Linking State TANF Policies to Outcomes: A Preliminary Assessment
Under this task order, the Urban Institute will critically analyze and synthesize available information on state welfare and related support policies and assess which characteristics of state programs or background characteristics are most significant in predicting outcomes. This project will draw on information on welfare and related support policies collected by the Urban Institute, the Rockefeller Institute, and the State Policy Documentation Project and other key sources. After consulting with an advisory working group, the contractor will develop several possible classification systems that group states according to various characteristics of their welfare programs (e.g., level of benefit, strictness of work mandate) and strategies to support low-income working families. The contractor will then examine which of these approaches is most helpful in understanding the range of outcomes experienced by current and former welfare recipients and other low-income populations. A number of sources including the National Academy of Sciences have recommended that HHS do this analysis. The project will also provide preliminary answers to questions about the relationships between state policy choices and key program outcomes. These answers will be of great interest to policymakers, program operators, and researchers alike.
Alternative Kinship Care Programs Set up Outside of TANF and Foster Care
Families in which a grandparent or another relative has taken over parental responsibilities make up approximately one-third of both the TANF and foster care caseloads. Neither of these service systems have been set up with such families in mind, and, in many ways, the services provided are an inadequate match with families' needs. Several states have set up separate kinship care assistance programs outside the traditional structures of both the child welfare and TANF systems. This project will profile states' efforts in order to compare and contrast the approaches states are using and how these programs help children. It will provide a broad outline of the range and scope of programs operating across the country and in-depth information on programs in six sites. The study will gather information on why the programs were created, how they were designed and implemented - from both a logistical and political perspective, what services they provide, how they are financed, and how they operate in coordination with other state systems.
Implementation of Welfare Reform at the Local Level: Implications for Special Populations
With the implementation of welfare reform, state and local agencies have established a variety of rules and procedures governing enrollment in TANF and Medicaid. As authority for welfare policy has devolved to state and, oftentimes, local levels, local agencies and caseworkers may have more discretion over how individual cases are handled. This study will examine how selected agencies, staff and caseworkers treat special populations, with particular focus on individuals of different backgrounds and limited English language abilities. It will examine the extent to which program services, agency culture and caseworker discretion may differentially affect applicants with diverse backgrounds, possibly leading to differences in approval rates, work assignments, support services, or sanctions. With the complicated new TANF and Medicaid eligibility rules that are based on immigration status, there have been concerns that people for whom English is a second language or who come from specific immigrant communities face more barriers than those explained by eligibility differences. Some of these barriers may be related to lack of language-appropriate application materials, misinterpretation of immigrant and refugee eligibility rules, or other factors. Some of these may help explain how "the chilling effects" of immigrant-based welfare policies are realized at the local level. The results of this project will provide additional information about the effects of program policy and implementation at different levels on program utilization by these special populations. The project will consist of detailed case studies that examine agency policies and practices, as well as caseworker training and discretion, in five (5) metropolitan areas.
Transition Events in the Dynamics of Poverty
This project will study the events associated with people entering and exiting poverty. The project will document the likelihood of entering and exiting poverty for various groups: single working-age adults, children, families, and elderly, and identify how long people remain in poverty. The project also will document the extent to which various transition events or combinations of events account for entries and exits from poverty. This project can help determine whether poverty rates are declining because fewer people are entering poverty or because more people are exiting poverty. We will also measure changes in reasons for poverty exits resulting from welfare reform. The product will be a report with transition rates and reasons by subgroup.
Understanding the Declines in Teen Birth Rate
PRWORA describes several outcomes of concern related to teen pregnancy, including an increased likelihood of dependence on public assistance, and reducing teen pregnancy is viewed as an important aspect of promoting self-sufficiency and family well-being within the context of welfare reform. Yet, as teen birth rates have fallen at an unprecedented rate since 1991, there is a debate regarding factors that have contributed to this decline. This project will use data from the National Survey of Family Growth to describe data on sexual activity, partner characteristics, and contraceptive use for women surveyed in 1995 who were teens at any time during the study period. This data will be used to create simulation models that may clarify which factors are associated with changes in teen pregnancy and births and how possible future changes in these factors might affect teen pregnancy and birth rates. Using monthly event history data, the study will observe trends in behavior between 1991 and 1995. Trend information will be presented for multiple population subgroups, including by race/ethnicity, age, and parity (whether or not they had a prior teen birth).
Young Mothers' Transitions on and off TANF: How do child care assistance, job training, and social supports influence these decisions?
This project will identify the likelihood that "young mothers will go on, stay on, leave, and stay off TANF" given use and/or availability of child care, job training, and other social programs in their community. The research will analyze three subgroups of young mothers (ages 18-24) who lived in the Chicago metropolitan area between January 1, 1997, and June 30, 2000. There are three major components of the study: 1) geographic analyses of local area job-related resources, 2) event history models of TANF participation, and 3) process-oriented models of TANF participation. These components will utilize ZIP-code level data on the availability of child care, job training, and other social services; state administrative data to examine when mothers received TANF; and detailed questionnaire data.
Access to Welfare Outcomes Data Sets
State and county grantees conducting Welfare Outcomes studies are preparing and submitting research data sets that combine the state-specific administrative and survey data they have collected on former, current, and potential TANF recipients. Most of the grantees are expected to request storage of their files in a controlled environment where confidentiality can be protected. The funds in this interagency transfer will support storage of these files at the Research Data Center (RDC) of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). The funds will 1) support NCHS staff time in working with the Welfare Outcomes Grants; and 2) lower the cost to researchers of accessing the files by providing subsidies of not more than 75 percent of the RDC fee usually charged to researchers, up to a total of $2,000 per project.
Other New Projects
How Low-Wage Working Families Cope as Parents and Workers
Low-wage working families face multiple demands as workers and as parents. Besides working, low-income parents in both single and two-parent families need time for training and education, navigating complex health and support services, parenting, and managing their children's needs. Some low-wage working parents are also providing care for family members who are elderly or who have special needs. Employers often require that low-wage workers work non-standard and irregular hours. There are numerous questions about what is going on in the lives of these parents, including those who are teen parents and those leaving TANF assistance and entering the labor force for the first time. This project will look at coping mechanisms and examine a variety of factors that may help or hinder a family's efforts to be self sufficient, including formal and informal support services, social support networks, time management, money management and other life skills. The project will also investigate what is happening to children, and how they are being cared for when parents, for example, have to work changing shifts. The project will commission a set of research papers, convene a conference of researchers and policy makers, and disseminate a conference volume.
From Prisons to Home: The Effect of Incarceration on Children, Families, and Low-Income Communities
A majority of incarcerated men and women are parents, and the impact of incarceration appears to be greatest in poor, minority, urban communities. The toll on children, families, and communities has caused increasing concern, and a growing realization that families served by TANF and other Department of Health and Human Services programs are families who are also more likely to experience the effects of incarceration. This project will produce a literature review, commissioned papers, and a conference in order to develop a research and practice baseline on what is known and knowable about this high-risk, high-welfare use population. Specifically, the project will focus on five issues: 1) support for continued parenting of children, including living arrangements for children during and after incarceration; 2) loss of financial resources, including issues of TANF eligibility, unemployment, and child support payments; 3) the possibility of losing custody or having parental rights terminated because of incarceration, especially when related to drug and alcohol addictions; 4) lack of availability of appropriate treatment programs for substance abuse and mental illness, both within the prison system and post-release; and 5) integration of inmate rehabilitation services with post-release community interventions for the inmate and his/her children and families. Related issues, such as the effect of pre- and post-incarceration interventions on welfare usage, will also be addressed.
The Feasibility of Replicating the Women's Employment Study
Widespread anecdotal evidence suggests that the welfare caseload is becoming increasingly harder to employ, as the more job ready leave or do not enter the caseload. To date, a number of surveys of adult welfare recipients have demonstrated that they have a higher prevalence of multiple barriers to employment than women at large. These include lower levels of education, job skills, work experience, and literacy; higher levels of physical health problems and mental health problems (e.g., depression, post-traumatic stress disorder); and greater experiences with domestic violence. However, these studies are generally small and not representative, and the questions used to assess the prevalence of barriers differ from study to study, making cross comparisons difficult.
This project will build directly on the experience gained from the Women's Employment Study (WES), being undertaken by a research team headed by Sheldon Danziger at the University of Michigan. The purpose of this project is to review what we have learned to date and suggest how we might go about designing surveys that would provide data about multiple barriers to employment. This study will provide a critical assessment of all current studies that are measuring a variety of barriers to employment and the service needs of current and former welfare recipients, e.g., health, mental health, domestic violence, literacy, work skills, etc. It will commission and convene a panel of experts to address a variety of issues that would identify how to frame an optimal caseload survey. A final report will lay out the scope and content of a "model" caseload survey of welfare recipients, focusing on questions such as "What is the optimal survey design?" "What content areas should be included?" "Which specific questions?" and "If such a survey were fielded in a number of states, how would it extend the knowledge we are getting from the current round of leaver studies and other caseload studies that are in process?"
Support to the New Immigrant Survey
Declining program participation rates indicate that immigrants and citizen children in immigrant families continue to face benefit eligibility restrictions or barriers to accessing benefits for which they may be eligible. Because of these declines in program participation, there continue to be concerns about economic, health and other outcomes for these populations. Over the last three years, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the National Institutes of Health (NICHD and NIA) have jointly funded a feasibility/design study for the New Immigrant Survey, a large, longitudinal survey of recently arriving immigrants beginning in 2000. Although ASPE did not provide funding for the design study, we provided significant input to the planning of the study and the development of the pilot instruments. INS and NIH will remain the principal funders of the survey, but are seeking a broader set of funders. ASPE's contribution will help ensure that comprehensive and relevant data are collected and analyzed about program utilization and hardship and well-being over time among newly arriving low-income immigrant families in different states. In particular, ASPE's support will ensure that the study focuses on how children in these families are faring under welfare reform.
Poor Families with Infants and Toddlers
Low-income parents of infants and toddlers are challenged to balance work or school activities with the responsibilities of nurturing their young children. These challenges affect parents who are receiving welfare in the post-PRWORA environment as well as former recipients and the working poor. In order to meet their responsibilities, these families need access to high quality child care that fits their work schedules as well as other supportive services. Despite what we know about the particular challenges facing poor families with infants and toddlers, we know little about how these families are faring in the aftermath of welfare reform and whether states and communities have developed strategies to provide them with high quality child care and other services. This project will study strategies which states and communities are pursuing to provide high quality child care and other support services for welfare and working poor families with infants and toddlers. Some of these strategies are being evaluated. This effort will go beyond the few existing basic descriptions of these strategies to provide analysis of how these initiatives have been structured, promising practices or areas of concern, and key outcomes which have been measured. It will also provide a much needed synthesis of the available research evidence and identify measures which have been used to document improvement for use in future evaluations and monitoring efforts.
Research Design Framework for the FPLS Database
The Federal Parent Locator Service (FPLS) contains the complete national quarterly wage (unemployment insurance and Federal employment) and new hire databases and provides extensive opportunities for doing welfare employment outcomes and child support research using data from these records. The legislation governing the FPLS stipulates that the data contained in the system must be removed after two (2) years, but allows the creation of research samples which endure past that point. ASPE staff have been working with ACF to design a research framework for such samples, which includes matching samples of cases in the system with other administrative data systems in order to get sociodemographic characteristics and program participation data for the samples. ACF has brought a contractor on board to do a research design framework, and ASPE is supporting their project.
The Effects of the Work Pays Demonstration, EITC Expansions and the Business Cycle on the Labor Market Behavior of the California Caseload
This project is will examine the effect of: 1) welfare changes, 2) the 1990 and 1993 expansions of the EITC, and 3) changes in the business cycle on three specific issues concerning the California welfare population. These issues include: 1) how do these factors contribute to the economic well-being of families; 2) how do they affect labor market and transfer program participation; and 3) how do they affect employment changes and earnings trajectories? The project will use California administrative data drawn from the welfare, unemployment insurance, and tax systems.
Enhancement of the Study of Trends in Emergency Assistance Related to TANF
This project, jointly funded with the Office of Program Systems (PS) within ASPE, examines the trends in the demand for emergency assistance services, such as homeless shelters and food banks, from the mid-1990's to 2000. There are two grants, one covering the State of Massachusetts and another in San Mateo County, California. Researchers are collecting information from providers of these services and other socioeconomic data in order to examine the changing patterns of usage during the period of economic expansion and declining welfare caseloads before and after welfare reform. The final reports will provide information on whether welfare reform is associated with any change in the demand for emergency services. Both projects are now in the data collection phase. In order to provide a more extensive evaluation of this policy question, the Office of Program Systems and HSP jointly funded an Intra-Agency Agreement with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) during FY 2000. SAMHSA's Center for Mental Health Services also added funding to the Agreement. SAMHSA has awarded a contract that adds two sites to this analysis, using timeframes and emergency assistance analyses that are consistent with the above grants. The contract is being jointly monitored by ASPE and SAMHSA.
Conference on Developing Public Policy Applications with the American Community Survey and Local Administrative Records
The American Community Survey (ACS) is a new Census Bureau program that will make regular intercensal estimates of the distribution of characteristics of households, families and persons in small areas such as census tracts and for small population groups (for example, specific Asian or Hispanic nationality groups, specific age groups, and so forth). It is currently being conducted in 31 diverse sites across the country. The Census Bureau expects to fully implement the survey in every county starting in 2003. This conference convened a group of researchers, policy makers and local practitioners to explore the potential uses of this new data source and to explore the development of econometric models that combine ACS data with local area administrative data and local business economic data to provide local area data. This conference was jointly sponsored by the Bureau of the Census and ASPE.
Support for use of NDNH for Welfare Outcomes Research
Through an interagency agreement with the ACF's Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE), ASPE provided funds to support statistical research using matched new hire and quarterly wage data from the files of the National Directory of New Hires (NDNH) database. Use of NDNH data improves the quality of the information on employment outcomes, because this database captures employment in other jurisdictions, or with the federal government, which does not appear in state Unemployment Insurance records. ASPE funds are supporting programming time and other one-time infrastructure costs related to linkages between the NDNH data and samples drawn for research projects, such as the ASPE-funded grants to study welfare outcomes of former TANF recipients. OCSE performed this match for the District of Columbia, one of ASPE's FY 1998 welfare outcome grantees, and other grantees are considering requesting additional matches.
Quick Turnaround Analyses under Welfare Reform
The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program will be up for reauthorization in October 2002, as will be the Child Care and Development Block Grant, the Food Stamp Program, and several other programs. It is anticipated that, as in the period before enactment of TANF, ASPE will be called upon to contribute to the expected reauthorization debates by providing analyses of policy issues and options, especially those affecting low-income children and families. Under this project, ASPE has awarded a task order contract to the Urban Institute to have the Institute perform very quick analyses of existing data sets, such as the Current Population Survey (CPS), the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), data from the Urban Institute's National Survey of America's Families (NSAF), administrative data on the TANF program, state policy data, and others. Data analyses will provide information about the characteristics of children and families across a wide range of policy relevant topics, such as the effects of welfare reform on child and family well-being, transitions to employment, immigrants, poverty rates, child poverty, etc. Some of these analyses will inform policy debates on the interactions with food stamps, Medicaid/SCHIP and SSI; others into the impact of state policy changes made as a result of the flexibility of the TANF law. Other questions could be identified during the reauthorization process. Each question is expected to result in a deliverable of a memorandum with detailed tables.
State and Local Telephone Survey to Assess the Incidence of Children with Special Health Care Needs
The devolution of welfare to the states and increased flexibility poses substantial new challenges for data collection and analysis to monitor welfare outcomes. To meet these challenges new and better data are needed at the state and local level. This project supports the administration of a welfare participation question in the state level telephone survey - State and Local Area Integrated Telephone Survey (SLAITS) - sponsored by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and carried out by the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The participation question has been cognitively tested and is the same as that asked on other national surveys (e.g., Current Population Survey, National Survey of Drug Abuse). This data element when combined with other data available from this survey will permit the development of state level estimates of the incidence of special health care needs among children of current and former welfare recipients, as well as the health insurance status (including Medicaid and SCHIP) of current and former recipients.
Support for the Research Forum on Children, Families, and the New Federalism Database and Web Site
This project supports the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) Research Forum database and website. The website is designed to provide the most reliable information to key stakeholders, including researchers, policymakers, administrators, and practitioners concerning welfare reform interventions being tested; populations and geographic areas being assessed; research methods being used; major findings already available; and when future findings will be released. The data base and web site provide valuable information useful to Federal officials and other practitioners regarding research and demonstration initiatives related to welfare reform and the well-being of low-income children and families.
Major Projects Continued from FYs 1998 and/or 1999
National Academy of Sciences Panel Study on Welfare Outcomes
ASPE continues to conduct a Panel Study with the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to evaluate the design of current, proposed and future studies of the effects of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996. The purpose of convening this NAS Panel is to provide the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) with unbiased scientific recommendations for studying the outcomes of recent changes in the welfare system. The Academy's recommendations will provide HHS with a firm, scientific base upon which to pursue the Department's goals of evaluating the effects of this recent reform.
Throughout the course of this study, the Academy has conducted workshops and seminars focused on methodological issues associated with the study of welfare outcomes and published an Interim Report, Evaluating Welfare Reform: A Framework of Current Work. Prepublication copies of the Final Report are expected to be available in December, 2000. Information on the short-run recommendations for welfare evaluation strategies offered by the panel is included in Chapter II. The published Final Report will be disseminated in early 2001.
Estimated Completion Date: Final report March 2001
Devolution and Urban Change
This five-year project (which is primarily foundation-funded) is a multi-disciplinary study by the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC) of the implementation and impacts of welfare reform and welfare-to-work programs on low-income individuals, families and communities in four large urban areas: Cleveland, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami. Other Federal partners include HHS' Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and the Economic Research Service at USDA. The project brings together data from an unusually wide array of sources: longitudinal administrative data for all families receiving AFDC/TANF or Food Stamps dating back to 1992, survey data, an implementation study, neighborhood indicators, an institutional study focusing on local service providers, and an ethnographic study of a limited number of families. The project's first report, Big Cities and Welfare Reform: Early Implementation and Ethnographic Findings from the Project on Devolution and Urban Change, was released in June 1999. A working paper, Food Security and Hunger in Poor, Mother-Headed Families in Four U.S. Cities, was released in May 2000. Both reports are available at <http://www.mdrc.org/PublicationsFull.htm#Project on Devolution and Urban Change>.
Estimated Completion Date: September 2002
Support for Iowa State University SPD Project
The Senate Committee Report for the FY 2000 HHS Appropriations bill included language recommending continued support for Iowa State University's project to develop a mechanism to provide State-based or multi-state information, particularly in less densely populated areas. Iowa State University has been working with ASPE to develop an approach for doing state-level surveys that is relevant for local welfare program design, implementation, and evaluation and can be integrated into the Census Bureau's Survey of Program Dynamics (SPD). ASPE is currently supporting work by Iowa State University to explore the feasibility of extending and expanding the SPD to capture state-level reliable samples for use in exploring the outcomes of federal and state policies, as well as local economic conditions of low-income families. Continued ASPE funding is supporting further feasibility work on the extended survey, which includes a 20-minute telephone survey of Iowa households using a questionnaire that includes a module from the SPD as well as a transportation module to address the needs for data in a rural setting. This project is designed to help meet the need for state-specific questions and data within a national framework.
Estimated Completion Date: September 2001
Use of Social Security Summary Earnings Records to Assess Welfare Reform Outcomes
This project continues ASPE's support of a study to determine the prevalence of job-holding associated with a living wage in the post-1996 period for adults who received AFDC benefits in calendar year 1996. The sample of 1996 adult recipients will be drawn from the 1996 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), the Annual Demographic Supplement (ADS) to the March 1997 Current Population Survey and the 1997 base-line interview sample of the Survey of Program Dynamics. Post-1996 earnings activity will be documented using earnings records obtained from the Social Security Administration (SSA) administrative records matched to the samples for each of these surveys. Initial tracking of job holding and earnings levels via administrative records will be restricted to calendar years 1996, 1997 and possibly 1998. Job holding of female family heads with dependent children who were not receiving means-tested benefits will also be tracked to provide a broader context for interpreting the observed patterns among adult AFDC recipients. Employment and earnings outcomes will be differentiated by both baseline characteristics and earnings patterns established on the basis of the pre-1996 year-by-year lifetime earnings histories stemming from the SSA administrative records files.
Estimated Completion Date: May 2001
Continuation of New Jersey Welfare/Substance Abuse Evaluation
In FY 1998 we began funding, in partnership with ACF, a three year grant to support the evaluation of a New Jersey initiative which aims to improve employment and family outcomes for TANF recipients with substance abuse problems through substance abuse treatment, intensive case management and supportive services. This evaluation will provide important information about the effectiveness of a type of intervention several states are experimenting with to move substance abusing welfare clients toward self-sufficiency. The intervention New Jersey is implementing includes screening of welfare recipients for substance abuse problems, treatment referral mechanisms with enhanced case management, and substance abuse treatment coordinated with employment and training or vocational services. The evaluation, using a random assignment model, compares two models for providing such services, looking at outcomes in several domains including employment and family self-sufficiency, substance use and associated behaviors, child development and family functioning, and child welfare involvement. The intervention being evaluated is intended to improve the post-welfare prospects of TANF recipients with substance abuse problems. The evaluation is being conducted in two New Jersey counties (Essex and Atlantic).
The grantee, the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, will produce three products resulting from the evaluation which are intended for use by ACF and the state to disseminate information about the project. These include: (1) a descriptive profile of the population served by New Jersey's welfare-to-work program, including how many have substance use disorders as well as other barriers to self-sufficiency; (2) an implementation report describing the difficulties encountered and lessons learned about implementing these services, as well as issues to be considered in establishing substance abuse interventions in welfare contexts; and (3) an outcomes report describing outcomes for participants and controls 12 months post-treatment. ASPE and ACF have provided support for this project. Other aspects of the evaluation are being funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Department's National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Estimated Completion Date: Random assignment of clients to the intervention models began in mid-1999. Research Notes on the effectiveness of two approaches to screening and assessment of substance abuse in welfare settings, and on the initial rates of treatment engagement and retention for program participants versus the control group are expected in Winter 2001. We expect the baseline report in mid-2001, the implementation report late in 2001, and the outcomes report in 2002.
Technical Assistance on Researcher Access to Data Sets
Over the next six to twelve months, the states and counties that received FY 1998 and FY 1999 Welfare Outcomes grants will be preparing and submitting research data sets that will combine the state-specific administrative and survey data they have collected on former, current, and potential TANF recipients and other special populations affected by state TANF policies, including diversion practices. Grantees are expected to submit the data sets to ASPE, and also to make them available for research purposes. To improve the quality and comparability of these data sets, ASPE has extended a task order contract with ORC-Macro to provide technical assistance and coordination in the preparation of the data sets, to ensure that they are appropriately documented and accessible to outside researchers.
Estimated Completion Date: September 2001
Research Technical Assistance on State Child Indicators Initiatives
Continuation funding is being provided to researchers at the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago to wrap up technical assistance to the states that received grants to promote child indicator work in the context of better understanding welfare reform outcomes. The technical assistance effort has emphasized collaborative work among the states and peer-to-peer assistance efforts. Technical assistance has been provided, for example, on conceptual and methodological issues in identifying and measuring appropriate sets of child health and well-being indicators within and across states; ways of creating or using survey and administrative data and of combining several data approaches; and ways to involve state policy makers who can help institutionalize data systems for measuring and tracking child indicators and establish procedures for using indicator information to inform policy deliberations. A final project meeting is planned for Summer 2001, and products from the project will be finalized and disseminated. See <http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/hspyoung.htm#ongoing> for summaries of meetings at which assistance has already been provided to grantees.
Estimated Completion Date: September 2001
South Carolina Welfare Outcomes Grant
This project continues ASPE's support of a multi-year effort by the South Carolina's Office of Budget and Control Board's Office of Research and Statistics to link administrative data and additional data from surveys of former welfare recipients. The funds provided through an ACF cooperative agreement will allow South Carolina to continue its contract for the expansion of the follow-up studies.
Estimated Completion Date: Fall 2002
Update on Other Continuing Projects Funded by the FY 1998 and FY 1999 Appropriations to Study Welfare Outcomes/Leavers
Continuation of 1998 Grants to States and Localities to Study Welfare Outcomes (1998 and 1999)
Thirteen states and large counties received funding in September 1998 to study the outcomes of welfare reform on individuals and families who leave welfare. Some of the grants also included studies of families who applied for cash welfare but never enrolled and families who appear to be eligible but not enrolled. See <http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/leavers99/index.htm#background> for individual project descriptions and links to available reports.
Current status: Final reports have been submitted by Arizona, Illinois, and Washington, three of the thirteen grants awarded in September 1998. See Results/Findings section for discussion of these reports, as well as findings from the interim reports submitted by other grantees. Additional final reports are expected throughout the fall of 2000 and winter 2001; three draft final reports were submitted in early Fall 2000 (from the District of Columbia, Florida, and Massachusetts). Although most projects should be complete by spring 2001, three grantees - Arizona, Missouri, and a consortium of San Mateo, Santa Cruz, and Santa Clara counties - received additional funding in FY 1999 to extend the studies and administer a second or third wave of interviews, allowing analysis of longer-term outcomes for former recipients.
Estimated Completion Dates: vary by project
Grants to States and Localities to Study Welfare Reform Outcomes, with an Emphasis on Diversion (1999)
Current status: One of the Congress's major objectives in providing welfare outcomes money to ASPE over the last several years is to measure outcomes for a broad population of low-income families, welfare recipients, former recipients, potential recipients, and other special populations affected by state TANF policies, including diversion practices. To this end, ASPE issued a request for applications from states and large counties in April 1999 with an emphasis on the study of applicants and potential applicants to the TANF program. ASPE awarded seven grants under this announcement, six of which specifically support state efforts to gather a variety of information about individuals and their families who are formally or informally diverted from TANF. In addition, several of the leavers studies funded in FY 1998 have significant applicant components to their projects.
ASPE is particularly interested in learning about the degree to which TANF applicants receive, or are aware of their potential eligibility for, Medicaid, food stamps, and other programs and services that are important in helping low-income families make a successful transition to work. Below are summaries of the grants provided to states and large counties in fiscal years 1998 and 1999 with a particular emphasis on TANF diversion. "Diversion" in this context is not limited to participation in formal diversion programs, but also includes "informal" divertees. These are usually defined as individuals who began the application process but were either deemed ineligible for non-monetary reasons, withdrew voluntarily after completing the process, or failed to complete the process for some other reason. These project updates are current as of September 2000.
FY 1999
Arizona
Arizona is building on the state's FY 1998 study of leavers by looking at informal divertees and entrants to TANF. The study uses a wide range of administrative data (including data on child care subsidies) to track second quarter 1999 divertees and recipients for 12 months, and includes surveys of 400 individuals in both populations at three and nine months after application. Some of the subgroups on which the state will be focusing include urban vs. rural applicants and applicants who are initially denied but eventually reapply for TANF.
Arizona has collected administrative data from a number of different sources, including a data warehouse established as part of the FY 1998 ASPE leavers grant. State researchers have also completed the first wave of surveys, resulting in a response rate of 71 percent. It appears that for the second wave of surveys, which is scheduled to be completed in late 2000, researchers will be able to find 85-90 percent of individuals interviewed during the first wave. The state expects to submit some basic analysis of the first wave of the TANF applicant survey to ASPE by Winter 2001.
Estimated Completion Date: Spring 2001
Contra Costa County and Alameda County (CA)
Contra Costa and Alameda Counties are located in the East San Francisco Bay area of California and contain the cities of Oakland and Richmond. This project is studying TANF leavers from both counties, as well as formal and informal divertees in Contra Costa County. Researchers at the SPHERE Institute have been able to take advantage of these counties' Case Data System (CDS), which includes every TANF application that is initiated in the two counties. The CDS allows SPHERE to uncover the reasons individuals were diverted or left TANF, as well as make comparisons across the two counties. They used the CDS both to link all applicants with other administrative databases and to draw their survey sample of 850 leavers and 150 divertees from the third quarter of 1999.
The first wave of surveys was administered at six months after exit/diversion, with a response rate for informally diverted families in Contra Costa County of 64 percent. Researchers currently are continuing to analyze the administrative data, while also conducting the second round of survey data collection (at 12 months after exit). A preliminary draft of findings from both rounds of survey data and merged administrative data should be available in early 2001.
Estimated Completion Date: Spring 2001
Illinois
Illinois is focusing this study on applicants; the state is particularly interested in learning about families who fail to complete the application process. The population to be studied includes one month of approved, denied, and withdrawn applications. Although the state has no formal diversion policy, the study will assess Illinois' new intake process, which emphasizes employment, assessment, and prompt referral to needed services. Administrative data analysis is planned for the entire population of approximately 6,000 families, and a survey will be administered to the sample of 1,200 divertees approximately two to four months after application. The study also includes surveys of program administrators at six local welfare offices to help evaluate the new intake process.
After receiving the ASPE grant, Illinois issued a request for proposals for contractor assistance in conducting the study. MAXIMUS was recently selected as the contractor, and the applicant study is now in the initial stages.
Estimated Completion Date: Fall 2001
New York
New York, which also received a FY 1998 leavers grant from ASPE, has included divertees, all other denials, and entrants in their sample for this study. Their analysis will focus on comparing TANF applicants who were diverted with those who received cash assistance. Twenty-one local districts are participating in the study, including New York City and other sites ranging from large urban to rural areas. In most districts, the project uses administrative data to track a March 2000 sample of divertees, denials, and entrants for 12 months after the application.
The sample was drawn through intercept interviews with TANF applicants in each of the local districts. This methodology allowed New York to include individuals who entered the TANF office with the intent to apply but who did not submit written applications. Currently, the state's contractor, ORC Macro, is administering the survey to the sample of 864 families, evenly split between diverted applicants and entrants. Their goal is a response rate of 70 to 75 percent. Analysis of the survey data will continue through Fall 2000, and the state expects to report results in early 2001.
Estimated Completion Date: Spring 2001
Texas
This project represents the combined efforts of the Texas Department of Human Services, the Texas Workforce Commission, and the University of Texas-Austin. It focuses not only on informal divertees, but also on potential TANF applicants who are formally diverted by the state, either through a one-time lump sum payment or by redirection into work. The administrative data analysis incorporates a wide variety of sources, and tracks both applicants who are redirected into work or denied for non-financial reasons and participants in the lump-sum diversion program. The state has also recently added leavers to both the survey and administrative samples.
Intercept surveys were conducted with 30 applicants who were denied TANF for non-financial reasons, with a second wave survey to come four months after application (early 2001). The interviews with leavers, redirects, and formal divertees took place in 1999 and early 2000. Follow-up on individuals in these samples will be done using administrative data. The state expects to have some data available in Spring 2001.
Estimated Completion Date: Spring 2001
Washington
Following up on the leavers grant that they received in FY 1998, Washington is studying formal and informal divertees and entrants. The state hopes to compare the experiences of individuals who participated in the state's Diversion Cash Assistance program, those who entered TANF, and those who were diverted and received assistance from neither program. They will be providing an analysis of administrative data for the full populations of each of these groups from the fourth quarters of 1997, 1998, and 1999, including data from up to 12 months prior to and 12 months after the selection quarter. The state has nearly completed administrative data collection.
The state completed its survey of individuals who applied for TANF or Diversion Cash Assistance between July and October of 1999. The survey effort, which was completed in May 2000 and took place between four and eight months after the time of application, resulted in a response rate of 84 percent. The state researchers hope to provide ASPE with a draft report containing both survey and administrative data by Winter 2001.
Estimated Completion Date: Winter 2001
FY 1998
Wisconsin
This study of individuals applying for Wisconsin Works (W-2) assistance in Milwaukee has been undertaken by the Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The project focuses on those who apply for W-2 and either enter the program, are determined to be ineligible, or appear to be eligible but are not enrolled. A six-month cohort of applicants is being tracked through a combination of linked administrative data and two waves of surveys.
Both waves of the survey, conducted at six and 12 months after application, are complete, and IRP is currently analyzing the survey results and using state administrative data to supplement the survey data. Preliminary analysis shows that over 40 percent of those families applying for W-2 had previously participated in the program. Wisconsin and IRP received an enhancement grant from ASPE in September 2000 to expand their work on the Milwaukee applicants project.
Estimated Completion Date: Summer 2001
Leavers Studies that also Examine Diverted Populations (Florida, San Mateo, and South Carolina)
Three FY1998 grants that have a primary focus of studying outcomes for families leaving welfare also include research on families that were formally or informally diverted from entering TANF. These three grants are Florida, a consortium of California counties, and South Carolina.
The Florida study, undertaken by researchers at Florida State University, examines three groups of individuals from the second quarter of 1997: TANF leavers, individuals who began the application process but who either withdrew voluntarily after completing the process or failed to complete the process ("diverts"), and individuals who receive food stamps or Medicaid, have minor children, and have income and assets below the cash assistance limit but who do not receive cash assistance ("opt-nots"). Preliminary findings from a report expected to be released in late Fall 2000 indicate that the "diverts" and "opt-nots" look very similar to leavers in Florida in terms of employment rates. However, leavers appear to have slightly higher earnings and slightly lower use of government services than the other two groups.
The study in San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties in California was funded primarily as a leavers study. However, because the administrative system in all three counties includes all applications, and not just those for individuals who receive TANF, researchers at the SPHERE Institute were also able to study informal divertees. Analysis of administrative data is being supplemented by surveys administered at six and 12 months after "case closure" (when either the applicant withdraws from the application process or the TANF recipient leaves the program). The initial administrative data analysis found that children of informal divertees in the third quarter of 1997 were somewhat more likely than adults to use food stamps and Medicaid or return to TANF in the first 12 months following diversion. SPHERE and San Mateo are currently in the process of administering and analyzing a third wave of surveys, made possible by a continuation grant from ASPE in FY 1999. A draft report summarizing the first two waves of survey data along with linked administrative data should be available by December 2000 and a final report incorporating the third wave of survey data will be available in early 2001.
The project in South Carolina also is focused primarily on leavers, but state researchers have also used food stamp records to identify families that appear to be eligible for cash assistance but are not enrolled. They have also looked at applicants for cash assistance that did not enroll in the TANF program. Findings are not yet available.
Estimated Completion Date: Fall 2000 (Florida); February 2001 (San Mateo); Summer 2001 (South Carolina)
Research Grants on Welfare Outcomes (1999)
Current status: ASPE awarded approximately $807,000 in grants in FY 1999 to support seven researcher-initiated proposals to study important questions related to the outcomes of welfare reform. Through these grants, we are supporting efforts to analyze a variety of information about low-income individuals (both adults and children) and their families, including their economic and non-economic well-being and their participation in government programs. Issues that are being examined under these grants include caseload dynamics, the impact of spatial distribution of economic opportunities, health insurance and health care utilization, the use of food stamps, living arrangements, maternal and child health, domestic violence, and quality-of-life issues. A brief description of each funded proposal follows. When available, final reports from the grantees will be posted on the ASPE website at http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/.
RAND Corporation
This study will analytically and empirically explore the relationship between economic conditions, the flows on and off the caseload, and the welfare caseload at a point in time (stock) in California. The study will address the following questions:
- What is the relationship between economic conditions and the flows on and off aid in California?
- How do these relationships vary by sub-populations?
- How have these changes in flows contributed to changes in the stock of welfare users?
- Under what conditions does modeling the relationship between economic conditions and the stock of welfare users rather than the flow of welfare users give biased conclusions?
- What is the magnitude of the bias for California and the United States when using stock rather than flow data?
Estimated Completion Date: Fall 2000
Resources for Human Development, Inc.
Resources for Human Development, Inc. (RHD) is a large community agency in Philadelphia that operates six Welfare-to-Work (WtW) programs. The goals of the study are to:
- Assess what support factors are associated with WtW program success and failure;
- Identify those quality-of-life indicators that are associated with stable employment;
- Document the extent to which the quality of life for former TANF recipients and families is equal to or better than that which they experienced while on welfare; and
- Document the effects of alcohol and substance abuse on WtW program outcomes.
Surveys will be administered to program participants at entry and exit and at three months after leaving the program. A separate group of 100 WtW participants self-identified as in need of substance abuse treatment will be compared to a group of 200 participants not so self-identified to examine differences in program attendance rates and outcomes.
Estimated Completion Date: Fall 2000
SPHERE Institute
This study will build upon research the SPHERE Institute is currently conducting under contract
with the Public Policy Institute of California to model caseload dynamics using aggregate county caseload counts. It will explore the role of economic conditions and caseload characteristics on the role of program performance in California. Estimates of the effect on caseloads in the event of an economic downturn will be produced. Other issues that will be analyzed are:
- Trends in the child-only caseload;
- The uptake of transitional Medicaid for families exiting TANF;
- The extent to which certain subgroups experience different rates of TANF entry and exit; and
- How performance-based program incentives could be improved by adjusting for economic and demographic conditions.
Estimated Completion Date: March 2001
University of Kentucky Research Foundation
The goal of this study is to examine the impact of the differential spatial distribution of economic opportunities on the outcomes of current and former AFDC/TANF recipients, including employment and earnings. It will examine both the outcomes of well-being in relation to poverty and participation in associated support programs and the impact of these differential outcomes on the characteristics and composition of the remaining caseload. Differences in outcomes between rural and urban recipients and variations in findings across the diversity of rural areas in the state will be investigated.
Estimated Completion Date: March 2001
University of Michigan School of Social Work
This project will use data from the Women's Employment Survey (WES) to examine the impacts of welfare reform on economic outcomes as well as on measures of non-economic well-being among specific subgroups of recipients, such as racial minorities and women exposed to domestic violence. WES is a longitudinal data set tracking single mother welfare recipients in an urban Michigan county. Specifically, the project will look at the following issues:
- How welfare reform has affected work, wages, income and poverty among recipients with potential barriers to success, such as low levels of education, large families, and physical and mental health problems;
- How transitions from welfare-to-work and income trajectories have affected maternal and child health; and
- How welfare reform affected women who have experienced domestic violence.
Estimated Completion Date: January 2001
University of Wisconsin
This study focuses on the use of Medicaid and food stamp recipiency, and examines some determinants of private health insurance coverage for families who have left AFDC/TANF. Using administrative data and wage record files, the study will examine the apparent eligibility for and uptake of Medicaid, food stamps and, to the extent possible, private health insurance, among two samples of program participants - those who were receiving AFDC during
September 1995, and those who were receiving Wisconsin Works (W-2) during September 1997. Longitudinal use of Medicaid and food stamps through December 1999 will be examined for three groups (leavers, recidivists, and stayers) across a variety of variables. A second component of the study will examine Medicaid and food stamp usage among families in the Wisconsin Child Support Demonstration Experiment, using both administrative data and survey data collected as part of the demonstration.
Estimated Completion Date: June 2001
The Urban Institute
This study aims to examine the inter-relationship between single mothers' decisions regarding welfare receipt, living arrangements, and work. The project will:
- Document the share of single mothers living independently, living with their parents, cohabiting, and living with other adults;
- Describe how the characteristics of single mothers vary by their living arrangements;
- Show how single mothers' work and welfare participation (both past and present) vary by their living arrangements; and
- Undertake a multivariate analysis to examine the factors affecting single mothers' living arrangements and how living arrangements affect decisions regarding work and welfare.
Estimated Completion Date: January 2001
Welfare Reform and the Health and Economic Status of Immigrants and the Organizations that Serve Them (1998 and 1999)
Current Status: ASPE and other federal agencies contributed funds in 1998 and 1999 to award a grant to the Urban Institute to deepen our understanding of the impact of recent changes in Federal laws on immigrant families and children by conducting a large-scale study of immigrants and their communities in Los Angeles and New York City.
See Results/Findings and http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/hspother.htm for information on accomplishments to date.
Estimated Completion Date: October 2001
In a related effort, ASPE funds were also used to support the Urban Institute's updating of the TRIM modeling program (used to simulate welfare caseload changes resulting from changes in various policy variables) to include parameters about immigrants, and as a subset, refugees and non-refugees, using 1995 data as a baseline. This updated model will be used to estimate the rates of participation in TANF, Medicaid, Food Stamps, and General Assistance by children, both citizen and immigrant, who live in immigrant- and citizen-headed households.
Estimated Completion Date: Winter/Spring 2001
Welfare Reform and Its Implications for Persons with Disabilities (1998)
Current Status: This project is a supplement to an ongoing four-year study of the implications of welfare reform for low-income families living in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio (a summary of the study is available at <http://www.jhu.edu/~welfare>). The broader study is being undertaken by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, Pennsylvania State University, Harvard University, University of Chicago, and the University of Texas-Austin. Funds are being used to explore how welfare reform is affecting the lives of a particularly vulnerable subset of the welfare population - adults and children with disabilities. This will be accomplished by conducting longitudinal case studies of families with members with disabilities receiving TANF and through a broader survey effort. The purpose of the data collection efforts is to better understand how recent work participation requirements and time limits under welfare reform are affecting service utilization, family member's health and development, support networks, parenting, and child care arrangements.
ASPE, the Administration for Children and Families, and the Administration on Developmental Disabilities are the primary funders of the disability component of the study. The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development is the primary funder of the broader study, along with several private foundations. Andrew Cherlin, Johns Hopkins University, is the principal investigator. The first round of interviews for the main survey were conducted from March 1999 until December 1999. Fieldwork in the ethnography component began in fall 1999 and is ongoing. Results from the project will be available over the course of the study. Listed below are the current publications from the broader study; results from the ethnographies focused on disability will be available later.
Accomplishments to date:
What Welfare Recipients Know About the New Rules and What They Have to Say About Them - Policy Brief 00-1 <http://www.jhu.edu/~welfare>
The Diversity of Welfare Leavers - Policy Brief 00-2 <http://www.jhu.edu/~welfare?>
Estimated Completion Date: 2003
Supporting Families After Welfare Reform: Access to Medicaid, S-CHIP and Food Stamps (1999)
Current Status: ASPE, along with the Administration for Children and Families, the Health Care Financing Administration and USDA, contributed funding to a major $5.9 million initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to provide technical assistance and grants to states and large counties to improve their enrollment and redetermination processes for Medicaid, the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and Food Stamps. Under the Supporting Families program, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation will provide funding for assistance to states or counties to work on Medicaid and SCHIP, while federal funding will provide assistance to work on Food Stamps, Medicaid, and SCHIP. The expert technical assistance may take the form of analysis of performance data, identification of the root causes of problems in their enrollment processes, and/or development of specific implementation plans to solve the problems and increase the participation rates in Medicaid, SCHIP, and Food Stamps. Information on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's overall initiative to solve problems in eligibility processes that make it difficult for low-income families to access and retain Medicaid, SCHIP or Food Stamps - particularly families moving from welfare to work - can be found at under "Supporting Families after Welfare Reform" at <www.rwjf.org/main.html>.
Federal funding supported a literature review and synthesis on the recent drop in participation in the Medicaid and Food Stamp programs, including the reasons underlying the changes in participation, and the potential strategies for increasing participation among eligible families. The report, Access to and Participation in Medicaid and the Food Stamp Program - A Review of the Recent Literature, was released in March 2000, and can be found at <www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/opre/med-fs.htm>. It includes findings from government- and privately sponsored research projects, studies of participation in the Food Stamp Program (FSP) and Medicaid at the national and state level, studies of low-income families who have left welfare, reviews of research, and ongoing analysis and data collection efforts. Federal funding is also supporting reviews of promising practices sites and a report describing the practices that appear to enhance or facilitate participation in the Medicaid/SCHIP and Food Stamp programs by former TANF and low-income families.
Estimated Completion Date: September 2001
Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (L.A. FANS) (1999)
Current status: The L.A. FANS is a four-year longitudinal study by RAND of children, their families, and their neighborhoods in Los Angeles. While designed to answer broader research questions about the effects of neighborhoods on children, the study also is examining the effects of welfare reform at the neighborhood level. The study design includes both extensive household surveys and collection of detailed longitudinal information on neighborhoods through interviews with families, key informants, and service providers, on-site observation, and extensive administrative data. ASPE is providing support to enhance information about health insurance coverage and health status among children and families. For more information, see The Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey on RAND's website at <http://www.rand.org/lafans/>.
Estimated Completion Date: 2003
Follow-up on the Wisconsin Project for Tracking Former Welfare Recipients (1999)
Current status: In fiscal year 1997, ASPE funded the University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty to conduct an administrative data study of the outcomes of families who left AFDC in Wisconsin during 1995. The reports produced during the first study provided useful early results for the Department on the economic and employment outcomes of women who left AFDC prior to both the enactment of TANF and the implementation of Wisconsin Works (also known as W-2, Wisconsin's replacement for AFDC). In this follow-up study, the Institute is tracking the outcomes for women in the first study further and the outcomes of a second group of women who left AFDC closer to the time of the implementation of Wisconsin Works (fourth quarter, 1997). As in the original project, the continuation analysis uses linked administrative data from the state including: (1) AFDC data, food stamp data, and Medicaid data from the Client Assistance for Re-Employment and Economic Support administrative database (CARES), and (2) earnings and employment data from the Unemployment Insurance records database (UI). Interim results focused on economic well-being, indicating that over 80 percent of women in both cohorts had at least some earnings during the first quarter after leaving welfare; women in the second cohort, however, were somewhat less likely to be employed in all four quarters after exit compared to women in the earlier cohort. (Information from the interim report is summarized in the Results/Findings section.) The Final Report will include longer-term outcomes for women who left welfare in 1995, and will examine receipt of food stamps and Medicaid upon leaving the welfare system for both cohorts. By documenting the employment and program outcomes of former recipients who were exposed to the comprehensive welfare reform programs in Wisconsin, this follow-up project will offer a useful analysis of the well-being of individuals who left welfare during a time of immense policy change.
Estimated Completion Date: Fall 2000 (Final Report)
Technical Assistance to Welfare Outcomes Grantees (1999)
Current Status: In FY 1999, ASPE procured a contractor, ORC Macro, to assist ASPE staff in providing technical assistance to both the FY 1998 and FY 1999 welfare outcomes grantees. The contractor's major task was to work with ASPE staff to coordinate two meetings of the grantees, held in Washington, DC, in Fall 1999 and Fall 2000. In carrying out this task, the contractor prepared background materials, coordinated sessions, and assisted with the logistics, planning, and registration for both of the meetings. In addition, ORC Macro has helped disseminate findings from the ASPE grants and other resources related to the study of welfare outcomes by assisting in the development of the ASPE web site for the leavers and diversion studies. Through a contract modification in FY 2000, ORC Macro has helped coordinate the ASPE public use data file work group, and released a technical assistance guide for the grantees in Fall 2000 on procuring and documenting researcher-access data files.
Estimated Completion Date: September 2001
Trends in the Demand for Assistance Services (1999)
Current status: People being removed from public assistance who have not found jobs or achieved self-sufficiency may become clients of emergency services such as soup kitchens and homeless shelters. In some cities, there are well-developed networks of private human services providers that collect data about their clients. This project studies the trends in the demand for emergency assistance services, such as homeless shelters and food banks, between 1993 and 1998. The two grantees for this project have collected data from providers of these services in order to examine the changing patterns of usage during the period of economic expansion and declining welfare caseloads before and after welfare reform. The final reports will provide an indicator of whether welfare reform has had any effect on the demand for emergency services.
Estimated Completion Date: California report - December 2000; Massachusetts report - March 2001
The Working Poor Population: Data Analysis on Definitions, Composition and Outcomes (1999)
Current status: This data analysis project compares different definitions of the working poor population based on variations in the definition of worker, definition of the poverty threshold, and definition of total income. The project, conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., uses data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) that allow analysts to vary the definition of poverty threshold to include several of the alternative definitions for poverty measurement proposed by the National Academy of Sciences. The implications for understanding the composition of the working poor population will also be explored.
Estimated Completion Date: December 2000
Rural Working Poor (1999)
Current status: This project will help us understand welfare outcomes in rural labor markets by studying the labor market characteristics of the rural working poor population and the impacts of various economic and public policy developments. The study examines the impacts on the rural working poor of welfare reform and economic expansion during the 1990's. The study seeks to identify how these changes have impacted employment and wages among the working poor population in several non-metropolitan areas around the country. Results from economic analyses are compared to administrative welfare caseload data to determine how the decline in welfare caseloads has affected the working poor. Results are also used to predict future changes in employment and wages under two scenarios: moderate growth and economic downturn.
Estimated Completion Date: January 2001