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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 (2000)
Alameda County builds on its existing survey of current TANF recipients and TANF leavers who were interviewed at baseline and at 15 months. Under this project, researchers are conducting a 27- month follow-up survey and maintain the same detailed focus on health barriers to employment, 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. The questionnaire has been finalized and is being translated into Spanish and Vietnamese. Data collection is expected to run from early spring to August 2001.
Estimated Completion Date: February 2002
Iowa (2000)
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, which began in September 2000, consists 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.
Thus far, MPR researchers have finalized their research designs for studying a) long-term recipients, b) nonrespondents, and c) vulnerable families. The survey questionnaire for these three studies is nearly complete, and postcards have been sent to sample members as a first step in their contact and location efforts. Next steps include fielding the questionnaire and assembling administrative data on the sample members.
Estimated Completion Date: February 2002
Missouri (2000)
Missouri is building on its ASPE-funded study of former TANF recipients who left the rolls in 1996 and 1997, and is adding 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 (funded in FYs 1998 and 1999) 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. Thus far, the contractor for the study, the Midwest Research Institute, has selected the sample of long-term recipients and developed and pre-tested the questionnaire on barriers to work. Findings from both the leavers and stayers studies will be combined in the final report.
Estimated Completion Date: December 2001
San Mateo County, CA (2000)
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 is being 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. Thus far, researchers have developed their research design, coordinated with various county offices, developed the survey instrument, and determined what administrative data will be needed. Next steps include programming the survey questions into the computerized interviewing system, identifying the population of child-only cases, selecting a sample, and initiating contact and location efforts.
Estimated Completion Date: August 2001
Wisconsin (2000)
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. The study is based on a sample of applicants, and 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.
Estimated Completion Date: December 2001
South Carolina Welfare Outcomes Grant (1998 and 2000)
This project continues ASPE's support of a multi-year effort by 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. The first report on welfare leavers has been received(1), as well as a draft report which focuses on those diverted from cash assistance. A longer-term follow-up (at 24 and 36 months) of welfare leavers and divertees will be the final report of this project.
Estimated Completion Date: May 2002
In FY 1999 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.
In FY 2000 we continued this grant program, 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, employment stability, marriage and family structure, TANF flexibility, barrier identification and service utilization, and entry effects and welfare dynamics. Approximately $1.3 million was 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. Brief descriptions of the ASPE-funded projects follow. When available, final reports from the grantees will be posted on the ASPE website at <http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/> or you may fax us your request c/o Ethel Norris, fax: (202) 690-6562.
RAND: Entry, Exit and the Changing Composition of the Caseload (2000)
This project is exploring 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.
Estimated Completion Date: September 2001
Baruch College, City University of New York: Effects of Welfare Reform on Investments in Human Capital and Family Formation (2000)
This study is investigating 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.
Estimated Completion Date: February 2002
University of Oregon: TANF and Household Savings (2000)
This project studies the impact of new savings incentives offered to participants in the TANF program. Specifically, researchers are addressing 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 uses data from the 1989, 1994, and 1999 wealth supplements of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. A first draft of a paper has been produced.
Estimated Completion Date: August 2001
University of Michigan: Mental Health, Substance Abuse, and Domestic Violence Service Utilization by Welfare Recipients (2000)
This project is analyzing 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.
Estimated Completion Date: Summer 2001
Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC): An Analysis of Caseload Composition and the Non-Working Welfare Leavers (2000)
Researchers are examining 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 uses data from seven evaluation studies of welfare programs (six used random assignment) conducted by MDRC.
Estimated Completion Date: September 2001
Case Western Reserve University: The Effect of Job Accessibility and Neighborhood Characteristics on the Employment Stability of Welfare Leavers in an Urban Labor Market (2000)
The study is examining womencs 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.
Estimated Completion Date: September 2001
Urban Institute: The Link Between Marriage and Low-Income Family Well-Being (formerly How Important is Marriage to Low-Income Family Well-Being?) (2000)
This project, which began in September 2000, is examining 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 between 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 have assembled the data (the 1997 and 1999 rounds of the National Survey of America's Families), constructed the necessary variables, and tabulated basic descriptive statistics regarding the incidence of various family types of family unions and measures of well-being. They are currently working on more complicated analyses and gathering and reading articles for the literature review.
Estimated Completion Date: September 2001
Columbia University: Fragile Families and Welfare Reform (joint with ACF) (2000)
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 United States. Currently, researchers are gathering data and working on the first report under this grant, a baseline report that will provide demographic and descriptive statistics, as well as compare mothers who are receiving public assistance to those who are not. The first report, including baseline data and some descriptive statistics, is expected to be released in Fall 2001.
Estimated Completion Date: Summer 2003
Washington University: Employment, Earnings and Recidivism: How do Entrants to TANF Differ from Entrants to AFDC? (2000)
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.
Estimated Completion Date: December 2001
UCLA/RAND: A Proposal to Examine the Reporting of Welfare Benefits in the SIPP Using Matched Administrative Records in California (joint with ACF) (2000)
This study examines the accuracy of self-reports of program participation in survey data. In particular, researchers are comparing self-reported program participation among Californians interviewed in the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) 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.
Estimated Completion Date: September 2001
University of Illinois: Young Mothers' Transitions On and Off TANF: How do Child Care Assistance, Job Training, and Social Supports Influence These Decisions? (2000)
This project will identify the likelihood that Ayoung 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.
Estimated Completion Date: September 2001
UCLA/University of Wisconsin: The Effects of the Work Pays Demonstration, EITC Expansions and the Business Cycle on the Labor Market Behavior of the California Caseload (2000)
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.
Estimated Completion Date: September 2001
University of Wisconsin: Toward Understanding the Longitudinal Health Insurance and Food Stamp Status of Short- and Long-Term Welfare ALeavers@ (1999)
This study is relying on Wisconsin administrative data to examine the apparent eligibility for and participation in Medicaid and, to the extent possible, private health insurance, among two samples of AFDC and TANF clients: those who were receiving AFDC in September 1995 and those who were receiving Wisconsin Works (W-2) in September 1997. A similar analysis will be done with regard to receipt of food stamps. The research will focus on longitudinal use through December 1999 of Medicaid and food stamps by three groups of AFDC and W-2 participants (AFDC and W-2 Aleavers,@ Arecidivists,@ and Astayers@) across a variety of subgroup definitions, including: location; race; pregnancy; age of children; number of children; SSI recipiency; level of earned income; apparent eligibility for Medicaid and food stamps; and apparent access to private health insurance. Because of the wide range of Medicaid-funded health insurance programs, each with a different set of eligibility criteria (e.g., SCHIP, Medicaid, spenddown), it should be possible to assess how the existence of these programs affects the likelihood of Medicaid uptake among different population subgroups. In addition, for those persons for whom a wage record exists, researchers will obtain information about whether the employer offers health insurance to employees, and construct a variable to estimate the length of continuous employment with the same employer which will permit them to estimate whether a family has access to private health insurance.
Early findings concerning the determinants of food stamp take-up include: families who live in Milwaukee, have mothers with less education, are non-white, have more children, or have a longer welfare history, are more likely to take up food stamps than other families. Selected findings concerning the determinants of health insurance coverage include: children who are older, have younger siblings, moved more frequently, or have mothers who work full time are more likely to be uninsured at some point in the year. The data also indicate that children are more likely to be privately insured if the child's mother has higher educational attainment, is currently married, or works full time. Children from families living outside of Milwaukee, and with family income greater than the poverty threshold are also more likely to be privately insured. Use of public insurance is more likely among children who are young, living in Milwaukee, from families with income below the poverty threshold, hand have unmarried mothers. Future work will attempt to determine which of these characteristics are the most salient.
Estimated Completion Date: September 2001
Thirteen states and large counties(2) were awarded approximately $2.9 million in grants in FY 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. 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. For individual project descriptions and links to available reports, see <http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/leavers99/index.htm#background>.
As of March 2001, all 15 studies had released preliminary reports based on administrative data findings, and 12 of the 15 also had released reports with more detailed findings from follow-up surveys. Highlights from these reports are presented in Chapter II, with a focus on outcomes in employment and earnings, recidivism and program participation, and household income and family well-being.(3) Despite some methodological differences in study design, as noted below, these reports show a surprising amount of consistency among findings across sites and different TANF programs, particularly in the areas of employment and recidivism.
ASPE's research strategy combined local flexibility in study design with some national direction and coordination. Most of the projects used administrative data to track an early cohort of individuals who left welfare around 1996 or 1997. Projects also used a combination of administrative and survey data to track the economic status and general well-being of at least one cohort who left welfare one to two years later, after the transition from AFDC to the TANF program. Projects varied in the number and types of administrative data sets examined and the design of the surveys of former recipients. Final survey sample sizes varied from 277 to over 3,500 cases, response rates ranged from 23 to 81 percent, and approximate time of interview varied from 6 to 30 months after exit. All researchers were encouraged to collect data across multiple dimensions, including employment, program participation, economic status, family structure, child well-being, material hardship, barriers to employment, etc. Grantees designed their own survey instruments, however, which differed in wording and emphasis. While this diversity poses challenges for summarizing results nationally, it has allowed states to meet the demands of elected officials for timely information on families leaving their state's welfare program.
Estimated Completion Dates: vary by project
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.(4) 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.(5)
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" 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 March 2001.
Arizona (1999)
Arizona is building on their 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 the application period (second quarter of 1999). 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. The first wave of the survey resulted in a response rate of 71 percent. In the second wave of surveys, completed in September 2000, researchers were able to find 85-90 percent of individuals interviewed during the first wave. The state expects to submit a draft of the final report, as well as the public use data files for the project to ASPE in Summer 2001.
Estimated Completion Date: Summer 2001
Contra Costa County and Alameda County, California (1999)
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 research plan calls for comparisons between divertees and leavers and between the two counties.
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. The second round of survey data collection was completed in November 2000, with a response rate of 54 percent. A preliminary draft of findings from both rounds of survey data and merged administrative data should be available in Summer 2001.
Estimated Completion Date: Summer 2001
Illinois (1999)
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 ongoing for the entire population of approximately 6,000 families, and a survey is being 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 and selected MAXIMUS as the contractor. Survey administration is currently ongoing, and initial findings from the project are expected by Fall 2001.
Estimated Completion Date: Fall 2001
New York (1999)
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. The state' s contractor, ORC Macro, is currently 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. The state expects to report results in Summer 2001.
Estimated Completion Date: Summer 2001
Texas (1999)
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 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 currently being administered at four months after application. 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. A preliminary report was issued in early April 2001, with a final report anticipated in late Summer 2001.
Estimated Completion Date: Summer 2001
Washington (1999)
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 Summer 2001.
Estimated Completion Date: Summer 2001
Wisconsin (1998)
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 at Madison. This portion of the study focuses on three subgroups of applicants: those who request assistance and subsequently participate in the W-2 program, those who request assistance but are determined to be ineligible for program participation, and those who request assistance, appear to be eligible, but do not participate in W-2. A six-month cohort of applicants is being tracked through a combination of linked administrative data (e.g., public assistance, quarterly earnings, child support, foster care, and mental health data) and three waves of surveys, the third being funded by ASPE in FY 2000.
The first two waves of the survey, conducted at the time of application and 12 months afterward, are complete, and IRP is currently analyzing the survey results and using state administrative data to supplement the survey data. A report detailing findings from the first wave of the survey has been completed and will be posted at <http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/leavers99/index.htm>.
Estimated Completion Date: Spring 2002
Leavers Studies that also Examine Diverted Populations (Florida, San Mateo, and South Carolina) (1998)
Three FY 1998 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"). Findings from Florida' s final report, released in November 2000, indicated that the "diverts" and "opt-nots" look very similar to leavers 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 able to also study informal divertees. Analysis of administrative data is being supplemented by surveys administered at six, 12 and 18 months after "case closure" (when either the applicant withdraws from the application process or the TANF recipient leaves the program). A draft report summarizing the first wave of survey data along with linked administrative data was released in December 2000. At six months after case closure, leavers were better off than informal divertees in terms of household earnings, receipt of health insurance, and returns to cash aid. However, divertees had fewer barriers to employment and incidences of other hardships, such as food insecurity and child risk behaviors, than leavers. A final report from SPHERE incorporating the second and third waves of survey data is expected in Summer 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 appeared to be eligible for cash assistance but were not enrolled. Surveys were conducted with families who went on food stamps between October 1998 and March 1999 and who did not apply for TANF at any time in the following one year period. Each of these families had dependent children and was eligible for TANF based on gross income, but did not enroll in the TANF program. The state and their contractor, MAXIMUS, achieved a response rate for the surveys of 71 percent. A report detailing South Carolina' s findings has been completed and will be posted at <http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/leavers99/index.htm> .
Estimated Completion Dates: Complete (Florida and South Carolina); Summer 2001 (San Mateo)
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Widespread anecdotal evidence suggests that the welfare caseload is becoming increasingly harder to employ, as the more job ready individuals 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. A workshop was held in March 2001 which brought experts from the fields of health, mental health, domestic violence, and worker skills together with survey developers and state and local program administrators to identify how best to measure these potential barriers to employment in a telephone survey. A summary report of the workshop is expected by summer 2001. 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?"
Estimated Completion Date: September 2001
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. The National Institutes of Health (NICHD and NIA) are the principal funders of the New Immigrant Survey, a large, longitudinal survey of recently arriving immigrants beginning in 2000. ASPE provided input to the planning of the study and the development of the instruments. INS and National Science Foundation are other funders of the survey. ASPE funding 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.
Estimated Completion Date: 2005
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. The survey is currently being fielded in the states with an expected completion date of this phase in November 2001. Following the completion of data collection, the data will be processed and released for analysis.
Estimated Completion Date: April 2002
This project, funded jointly by ACF and ASPE, supports the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) Research Forum database and web site. The web site 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.
Estimated Completion Date: On-going activity
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
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. We expect to receive an initial report on welfare and former welfare recipients in February 2002.
Estimated Completion Date: December 2002
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.
States and counties that received FY 1998 and FY 1999 Welfare Outcomes grants are now or will soon 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 modified and extended the task order contract with ORC Macro in FY 2000 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. 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
Continuation funding was 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
State and county grantees conducting Welfare Outcomes studies have been preparing, documenting, and submitting research data sets that combine the state-specific administrative and survey data they have collected on former, current, and potential TANF recipients. As of April 2001, documented data sets on families who left TANF were available for further analysis from six grantees. An additional six to ten data sets are expected to be submitted over the next six months. Most of the grantees are expected to request storage of their files in a controlled environment where confidentiality can be protected. Through an interagency transfer, ASPE funds are supporting storage of these files at the Research Data Center (RDC) of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). The funds are being used to: 1) support staff time in working with the Welfare Outcomes Grants data base; 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. Information on procedures for gaining access to welfare outcomes data sets is posted on the "Data Files" section of the ASPE-sponsored "Leavers and Diversion" web page at <http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/leavers99/datafiles/index.htm>.
Estimated Completion Date: Indefinite
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Final reports from most of the FY 1998 State Welfare Outcomes grantees have been released, and research data sets are becoming available. We understand that there is great Congressional interest in the results from the studies funded by these grants, yet it is a challenge to synthesize findings across the different grantees. Under this project, 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 released an initial synthesis report containing both administrative and survey findings from all available reports in January 2001. In addition, the contractor is writing 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 September 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.
Estimated Completion Date: Fall 2001
This statistical report will show trends in income, poverty and other economic measures, such as food security and access to health insurance, with explanatory text and charts. Where possible, the book will incorporate tables using an alternative measurement 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 various sources, including the Current Population Survey (CPS), the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), and administrative data.
Estimated Completion Date: October 2001
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, including single working-age adults, children, families, and elderly. 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.
Estimated Completion Date: March 2002
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 is investigating the prevalence of nonstandard employment among low-skilled and low-income populations including current, former and potential welfare recipients; identifying the most common forms of temporary positions; and exploring the reasons these temporary jobs are taken. The contractor, the Urban Institute, has produced a literature review and is conducting analysis of various data sources including the CPS, SIPP and data on industries and occupations to determine rates and trends in nonstandard work and overlap with welfare receipt.
Estimated Completion Date: Summer 2001
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. Under this task order, Mathematica Policy Research 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.
Estimated Completion Date: July 2001
ASPE has funded the Urban Institute to analyze and synthesize available information on state welfare and related support policies. Based on the recommendations of an advisory working group, the contractor will develop several possible classification systems that summarize and group welfare and related policies according to various characteristics (e.g., level of benefit, strictness of work mandate, generosity of work supports) expected to affect outcomes for welfare recipients and other low-income families. The resulting database will be made available to researchers interested in studying the relationships between state TANF policies and the range of outcomes experienced by current and former welfare recipients and other low-income populations.
Estimated Completion Date: August 2001
The 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 the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), ASPE will be called upon to contribute to the expected TANF 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.
Estimated Completion Date: Spring 2002
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 is profiling 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 is gathering 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.
Estimated Completion Date: Summer 2001
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 is examining the implications for special populations, particularly individuals of different backgrounds and limited English language abilities. 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 consists of detailed case studies that examine agency policies and practices, as well as caseworker training and discretion, in six metropolitan areas, which are in the process of being identified.
Estimated Completion Date: Spring 2002
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). Estimates based on event history data are being created. Work is beginning on setting up a base model to assess factors associated with a continued decline in the teen birth rate.
Estimated Completion Date: December 2001
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, jointly sponsored by ASPE and ACF, 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 also will 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. The working conference will be held November 13-14, 2001, and the conference volume should be completed by February 2002.
Estimated Completion Date: Winter 2002
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. An interagency, multi-disciplinary Technical Review Group met in February 2001 to provide recommendations for the project. Planning for the commissioned papers and the conference are now underway.
Estimated Completion Date: June 2002
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. In this project, we are studying 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. The result of 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.
Estimated Completion Date: Spring 2002
The 1999 funded project, Trends in the Demand for Assistance Services, 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 (conducted by the University of Massachusetts) and the other in San Mateo County, California (conducted by the SPHERE Institute). 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 drafting final reports.
In order to provide a more extensive analysis of changes in demand for emergency services, 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 to the Gallup Organization that adds two sites to this analysis — Spokane, Washington and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The sites are using timeframes and emergency assistance analyses that are consistent with the above grants. The contract is being jointly monitored by ASPE and SAMHSA. Preliminary data are expected by late Summer 2001.
Estimated Completion Date: Fall 2001
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 could be used to estimate the rates of participation in TANF, Medicaid, and Food Stamps by children, both citizen and immigrant, who live in immigrant- and citizen-headed households.
Estimated Completion Date: Summer 2001
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:
Sanctions and Case Closings for Noncompliance: Who is Affected and Why?, February 2001 — Policy Brief 01-1
The Diversity of Welfare Leavers, September 2000 — Policy Brief 00-02
What Welfare Recipients Know About the New Rules and What They Have to Say About Them, July 2000 — Policy Brief 00-1
Estimated Completion Date: 2003
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ASPE continues its support of the National Academy of Sciences' Panel on Data and Methods for Measuring the Effects of Changes in Social Welfare Programs. The purpose of convening this NAS Panel was 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, and 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 panel's conclusions and recommendations on research questions and populations of interest, evaluation methods and issues, and data needs and issues were presented in its report, Evaluating Welfare Reform in an Era of Transition, and are discussed in Chapter II. The published Final Report will be disseminated in Summer 2001.
Throughout the course of this study, the Academy has conducted workshops and seminars focused on methodological issues associated with the study of welfare outcomes. Papers presented and discussed at the Workshop on Data Collection for Low-Income and Welfare Populations will be published in a companion volume, Data Collection and Research Issues for Studies of Welfare Populations, and are scheduled to be released in September 2001. These papers by welfare outcomes research experts discuss the current state of knowledge for surveying low-income populations; preparation and use of and access to welfare program-relevant administrative data systems; and measuring important outcomes for welfare studies.
Estimated Completion Date: September 2001
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.
Accomplishments to date: (These reports are available at <http://www.mdrc.org/>)
The Project on Devolution and Urban Change: Social Service Organizations and Welfare Reform, February 2001.
The Project on Devolution and Urban Change: Post-TANF Food Stamp and Medicaid Benefits: Factors That Aid or Impede Their Receipt, January 2001.
Assessing the Impact of Welfare Reform on Urban Communities: The Urban Change Project and Methodological Considerations, November 2000.
The Project on Devolution and Urban Change: Food Security and Hunger in Poor, Mother-Headed Families in Four U.S. Cities, May 2000.
Big Cities and Welfare Reform: Early Implementation and Ethnographic Findings from the Project on Devolution and Urban Change, June 1999.
Estimated Completion Date: September 2002
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. ASPEand 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 were published in January 2001. We expect the baseline characteristics report in Summer 2001, a three-month outcomes report in Fall 2001, the implementation analysis report in Winter 2002, and a 15-month outcomes report in Summer 2002.
ASPE, along with the Administration for Children and Families, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services 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 under "Supporting Families after Welfare Reform" at <http://www.rwjf.org/app/rw_about_our_grantees/rw_gra_npo_detail.jsp?id=SFW>.
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. Some promising practices site visits have been completed; the remainder should be completed by Summer 2001. Visits to program improvement sites, as part of the larger project, should also be completed by Summer 2001. The final reports will synthesize findings across all promising practices and program improvement sites.
Estimated Completion Date: December 2001
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
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1. Findings from South Carolina' s study of welfare leavers have been incorporated with the Findings from ASPE-Funded Leavers Studies (Grants to States and Localities to Study Welfare Outcomes), which are summarized in Chapter II and presented in more detail in Appendix B.
2. As noted in Chapter II, the 1998 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 comparable studies were also funded in Iowa (with FY 1999 funding) and South Carolina (in FY 1998 and 2000, as part of a longer-term project) resulting in a total of 15 studies with findings on former recipients as of spring 2001. (Findings from all 15 studies, including Iowa and South Carolina, are highlighted in Chapter II and detailed in Appendix B.)
3. Findings presented here are based on an Initial Synthesis Report of the Findings From ASPE' s "Leavers" Grants (prepared by the Urban Institute and available at <http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/leavers99/synthesis01/index.htm>; "A Cross-State Examination of Families Leaving Welfare: Findings from the ASPE-Funded Leavers Studies," prepared by ASPE staff and available at <http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/leavers99/cross-state00/index.htm>; and ASPE staff analyses of reports submitted between November 2000 and March 2001.
4. Diversion programs include formal efforts to address the immediate needs of families seeking cash assistance in ways that avoid enrolling these families in TANF. Examples of formal diversion programs include lump sum payment programs, mandatory applicant job search programs and the exploration of alternative means of support.
5. Findings from state diversion studies have just begun to become available. As studies are completed and reports finalized, ASPE plans to summarize and synthesize the information across studies as appropriate, similar to our syntheses of findings from leavers studies.
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