The National Evaluation of the Welfare-to-Work Grants Program, Fnal Report

Chapter II:
The WtW Study Sites and Program Enrollees

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Contents

1. The Study Sites
   1. Type of Funding
   2. Organizational Structure
   3. Scale of Operation
   4. Sources of Data on Individual WtW Enrollees
   5. Evaluation Components
2. WtW Enrollees
   1. Labor Market Liabilities
   2. Dependency on Tanf
   3. Recent Work Experience
   4. Comparisons with the General Tanf Population

• Endnotes

The WtW programs and sites discussed in this study, although not statistically representative of all WtW programs, include a broad variety of WtW-funded services and grantee organizations. The sites were purposefully selected to reflect the variation in program structure, approach, and context that was evident among WtW programs across the nation. This chapter provides background for the discussion, in subsequent chapters, of findings from the implementation and outcomes analyses. The first section highlights important features of the localities and programs included in the evaluation. The remainder of the chapter examines the characteristics of the individuals who enrolled in WtW in the study sites and the degree to which they were particularly hard to employ compared with the overall TANF population.

A. THE STUDY SITES

Study “sites” in this evaluation are local grantees whose initiatives were funded fully or mainly by WtW grants. The sites were either WtW competitive grantees funded directly by DOL (and in one case subgrantees of a competitive grantee) or local WIBs that were subgrantees funded through a state’s formula grant. For simplicity, both grantees and subgrantees are referred to as grantees, as both had to adhere to the same administrative requirements. Most local grantees contracted with local service providers — sometimes many of them — for actual service delivery.

The evaluation included 13 sites in the implementation analysis, but only 11 in the outcomes analysis (Exhibit II.1). The 13 sites represented 11 different grantees, since the local programs in three sites — Baltimore County, Maryland; St. Lucie County, Florida; and Long Beach, California — were operated by subgrantees of a single competitive grantee, Johns Hopkins University (JHU). We did not include Southeastern Indiana and Long Beach in the outcomes analysis because their WtW operations were too small-scale to merit the intensive effort of tracking a group of enrollees for follow-up surveys.

Although the estimation of WtW program impacts based on an experimental design ultimately proved infeasible in this evaluation, suitability for impact analysis was a major factor in the selection of study sites.⁽¹³⁾ Other factors were also used to ensure substantial variety among the study sites with respect to the type of grantee, target population, degree of innovation, geographic region, and urbanicity. These last factors led to inclusion of the two sites whose scales of operation made them unsuitable for the impact and outcomes analyses but that were of interest for the implementation analysis.

The sites reflected the flexibility given to WtW grantees under the BBA in terms of program structure, targeting, and service activities. The remainder of this section highlights distinguishing characteristics of the WtW initiatives and programs sponsored by grantees included in the evaluation.(14)

1. Type of Funding

The study site grantees often combined different types of WtW funding, and even that from other sources (Exhibit II.1). In five of the sites, the grantee agency received competitive grants alone, two sites received only formula grants, and four received both competitive and formula WtW grants (but no funding from other sources). Two of the sites received WtW grants plus supplemental funding from other sources: the Wisconsin Department of Corrections contributed funds to Milwaukee’s Nontraditional Opportunities for Work (NOW) program, and the Pew Charitable Trust provided funding to Philadelphia’s Phil@Work program.

2. Organizational Structure

The grantees typically did not directly provide services to WtW enrollees, but rather contracted with one or more for-profit or nonprofit organizations to provide services. Most grantees funded multiple programs operating in multiple locations, with each contractor designing its own program and operating it independently. For example, there were 20 separate WtW programs in Chicago and 7 in Ft. Worth.⁽¹⁵⁾ Some study grantees — for example, Milwaukee and Phoenix — developed a general program model under the implementation of which in-house staff provided basic services and contractors provided additional services.

3. Scale of Operation

Many of the WtW programs in the study sites were operated on a modest scale by community-based organizations or local agencies. Most served only a few hundred enrollees each year. The main exceptions were Philadelphia and Chicago. The Phil@Work program, operated in a single location by the nonprofit Transitional Work Corporation with total funding exceeding $20 million, enrolled about 7,500 individuals during the evaluation period. The contractors providing services for the Chicago Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development enrolled about 8,900.

4. Program Targeting

Most of the programs included in the evaluation were open to all WtW-eligible individuals. However, in several sites, programs focused on specific subgroups of the eligible population:

• Noncustodial Parents Released from Incarceration. In Milwaukee, the NOW program targeted noncustodial parents on probation or parole or who were inmates in minimum-security facilities and soon to be released.
• Persons Already Employed. The JHU Career Transcript System programs in Baltimore County, Long Beach, and St. Lucie County targeted mainly WtW-eligible persons who had already secured employment, with the aim of helping them stay employed and advance to better jobs.
• Subgroups with Special Needs. Grantees in Chicago, Ft. Worth, and Nashville awarded some of their contracts for the provision of WtW service to organizations that specialized in serving homeless families and persons with mental or physical disabilities, limited education or English language skills, or other types of special needs.
• TANF Recipients Unsuccessful in Other Services. Another targeting strategy involved focusing WtW resources on those TANF recipients who failed to obtain employment through TANF work programs and were thus presumably particularly hard to employ. The WtW programs in Philadelphia, Nashville, and Yakima followed this strategy.

5. Program Approach

All of the grantees in the evaluation study sites emphasized employment, but none provided job search assistance or job readiness skills alone (Chapter III presents additional information on services provided). They typically offered a range of services to help enrollees prepare for and move into the labor market, with some variation in the priority given to moving participants quickly into employment versus providing skills development, and in the emphasis on post-employment services. Several WtW grantees in the study sites, however, stood out for their innovative approaches:

• Philadelphia: Temporary Subsidized Employment. The Transitional Work Corporation’s Phil@Work program was one of a constellation of programs available to WtW-eligible persons in Philadelphia; the evaluation focused on Phil@Work because of its use of subsidized employment on a large scale.⁽¹⁶⁾ The program featured a two-week job readiness class, followed by paid work experience in a government agency or nonprofit organization for up to six months. Once participants were deemed job-ready, they were placed in unsubsidized employment.
• Nashville: A “Pathways” Program. The Pathways case management system, developed by Project Match in Chicago, encourages WtW participants to take “small steps” toward employment with close coaching and support, monthly peer support meetings, individual self-assessment, and ongoing reassessment of progress.⁽¹⁷⁾ A waiver allowed Pathways participants in Nashville to count family-related tasks and volunteer activities toward the 40-hour-per-week work requirement for TANF recipients in Tennessee.
• Boston: Employer Partnerships. The WtW grantee in Boston established “employer partnership” programs to prepare TANF recipients for entry-level jobs. The programs linked one or more employers with a nonprofit service organization to provide occupation-specific pre-employment preparation and internships. Participating employers had to commit to hiring those who completed the program.
• Johns Hopkins University: “Career Transcript System.” The JHU programs in Baltimore County, Long Beach, and St. Lucie County emphasized post-employment skills assessment and improvement. Workplace liaisons worked with the WtW participants and their supervisors to help them retain their jobs and ultimately identify and move up a career ladder.

B. WtW ENROLLEES

The WtW programs in the study sites primarily served current or former TANF recipients, as intended in the authorizing legislation, the BBA of 1997 (amended in 1999). The overwhelming majority of study site enrollees were unmarried African-American women under 40 years old (Exhibit II.2). In Nashville, for example, virtually all WtW enrollees were female, 87 percent were black and non-Hispanic, 88 percent were under 40 years of age, and only 3 percent were married. There were exceptions to this pattern, however. Milwaukee’s NOW program, which served noncustodial parents, had a clientele that was 95 percent male. In the three primarily rural sites — West Virginia, St. Lucie County, and Yakima — enrollees were less likely than their counterparts in the urban sites to be women or African-American. In Boston and Ft. Worth, more than one enrollee in four was Hispanic. In contrast, only 8 percent of WtW enrollees in St. Lucie County were Hispanic, despite a large Hispanic presence in Florida.

The WtW grants program was designed to focus in particular on TANF recipients and other adults at risk for long-term dependency on public assistance. This section describes the individuals who enrolled in WtW in the 11 study sites that participated in the outcomes analysis, based on their characteristics at the time they entered the program. Enrollees are described in terms of their labor market assets and liabilities, previous involvement in the welfare system, and employment history. These characteristics were obtained from the evaluation’s baseline information forms (BIFs) completed by enrollees when they entered the program, state records containing employer-reported data on earnings for jobs covered by Unemployment Insurance (UI), and state records on the receipt of welfare benefits and food stamps.⁽¹⁸⁾

1. Labor Market Liabilities

Most WtW enrollees in the study sites had characteristics often associated with disadvantages in the labor market (Nightingale et al. 2002). These characteristics include being an unmarried parent with a young child, having little education, and experiencing work-limiting health problems.

Working can be a challenge for a single parent with a young child, and many of the WtW enrollees fit this description. In all but four sites, fewer than one in eight enrollees was married or cohabiting at program entry (Exhibit II.2). In general, the enrollees had one or more children, but there was great variation in the percentage who had a child aged 3 years or younger in the household — ranging from 11 percent in Baltimore County to 42 percent in Phoenix (Exhibit II.3).

Lack of education was common among WtW enrollees. In six of the study sites, more than one-third of enrollees were high school dropouts (Exhibit II.3). In Ft. Worth, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Phoenix, dropouts accounted for between 40 and 55 percent of WtW enrollees. The two sites that emphasized career advancement — Baltimore County and St. Lucie County — had the lowest high school dropout rates among WtW enrollees, at 15 percent and 17 percent, respectively. Overall, it was clear that many WtW enrollees had already tried to acquire some form of employment-related credential; between 19 and 47 percent had received some type of vocational or technical degree or certificate by the time they entered the WtW program.

Work-limiting health problems were another factor that may have affected the employment prospects of WtW enrollees. In all but three sites, at least one in five enrollees had a work-limiting medical condition, physical disability, emotional or mental condition, drug or alcohol use, or other problem. This rate varied from 10 percent in St. Lucie County to 31 percent in Yakima.⁽¹⁹⁾ There was substantial variation across the sites in the types of work-limiting health problems but, in general, a medical condition was the most common and drug or alcohol use the least.⁽²⁰⁾ The health problems or disabilities of another household member were a barrier to employment for about one in 10 WtW enrollees. These conditions, while less prevalent than the enrollees’ own health problems, made it difficult for them to work, attend training, or go to school.

2. Dependency on TANF

The WtW sites that participated in this evaluation enrolled primarily individuals who had histories of welfare receipt. In all of the sites except Milwaukee — where the WtW program targeted noncustodial parents — 87 percent or more of WtW enrollees had received TANF or its predecessor AFDC under their own name at some time prior to program entry (Appendix Exhibit E.1). In contrast, only 14 percent of Milwaukee’s enrollees had ever received TANF or AFDC. In most of the study sites, only about one-third of the enrollees who had ever received TANF or AFDC had received those benefits for more than five years (Exhibit II.4).

During the year immediately preceding program entry, rates of TANF receipt among WtW enrollees varied widely across the study sites. In six of the sites, 60 to 90 percent of WtW enrollees were receiving TANF in each of the first three quarters of the year prior to program entry (Exhibit II.5). In four of the other five sites, rates of TANF receipt were lower, ranging from 30 to 45 percent over the same pre-entry quarters. Milwaukee’s very low rates of TANF receipt during this period clearly reflect the unique population (noncustodial parents) served by the NOW program. In most sites, the rate of TANF receipt increased over the year before program entry and was markedly higher during the quarter of program entry than at any point in the year prior.⁽²¹⁾ This observation highlights the fact that, in general, the circumstances of enrollees had taken a turn for the worse shortly before they entered WtW.⁽²²⁾

3. Recent Work Experience

Given their extensive histories of welfare receipt, it is not surprising that WtW enrollees had limited recent work experience. In eight of the nine study sites for which state UI data were available (West Virginia being the exception), just one-third to one-half of WtW enrollees were employed in each of the first three quarters of the year prior to program entry (Exhibit II.6). The West Virginia WtW grantee, the Human Resources Development Foundation (HRDF), served a predominantly rural area where the recent employment histories of enrollees were even more limited. Over most of the year before program entry, fewer than one in five HRDF enrollees was employed. Moreover, very few WtW enrollees in any of the study sites were steadily employed during the year prior to program entry. The share of enrollees with any record of employment during all four quarters before program entry ranged from only 7 percent in West Virginia to 32 percent in Baltimore County (Appendix Exhibit E.3).

In most of the study sites, enrollee employment rates decreased over the year prior to program entry (Exhibit II.6). This decrease is to be expected; WtW programs were generally designed to help people who were not working move into jobs, so some enrollees were bound to have been referred to WtW soon after losing a job. For example, in Ft. Worth and Phoenix, quarterly employment rates were initially in the 50 to 55 percent range, and decreased by 5 to 8 percentage points during the year prior to the quarter of program entry. In Philadelphia, Chicago, and Yakima, employment rates were lower — initially in the 35 to 40 percent range — but also decreased over the year prior to program entry. Even in West Virginia, a very low employment rate of 22 percent in the fourth quarter prior to program entry sank even lower, to 12 percent in the quarter prior to program entry.

In three study sites, however, employment rates increased over the year prior to program entry, largely because of the nature of the programs and their target populations (Exhibit II.6). In the two sites offering the JHU program (Baltimore County and St. Lucie County), enrollees’ rates of employment increased by about 10 percentage points over the year prior to the quarter of program entry; not surprising, considering the program was designed primarily to provide retention and advancement support to people already working. In Milwaukee, employment rates also increased, from 37 to 45 percent, reflecting the program’s focus on men who were on probation or parole. These men had little or no access to TANF, and were transitioning from incarceration — which presented no opportunity for UI-covered employment — to an environment wherein employment opportunities existed (although often quite limited and many of the enrollees were unable to take advantage of them).

4. Comparisons with the General TANF Population

Before the 1999 BBA amendments, most WtW enrollees were required to be long-term TANF recipients and to display other employment barriers related to poor education, substance abuse, and limited work history. The amendments simplified the eligibility criteria, but the focus remained on long-term TANF recipients, reflecting the premise that this target population would be especially hard to employ, and therefore needed the extra help that WtW programs were designed to provide.

One issue addressed in this evaluation, therefore, is whether WtW enrollees in the study sites were particularly hard to employ compared with the general population of TANF recipients. To examine this issue, we collected state UI records data on employment for a cross-section of the general TANF population (a “reference sample”) in the WtW study sites where such data were available, except Milwaukee.⁽²³⁾ We then conducted a comparative analysis of trends in employment for WtW enrollees and reference sample members for the period before their program entry, controlling for differences in local unemployment rates that they faced.

The UI data indicate that WtW enrollees were not consistently harder to employ than TANF recipients in general. In Baltimore County and St. Lucie County, enrollees had higher employment rates in the year prior to program entry than reference sample members in the year prior to sample selection, reflecting the focus of the JHU program on individuals who had already found jobs (Exhibit II.7). However, in three of the study sites that did not have that focus — Ft. Worth, Philadelphia, and Phoenix — employment rates for WtW enrollees prior to program entry were still higher than for reference group members. In contrast, enrollees in Chicago and Yakima were less likely to be employed in the year before program entry, as compared with reference sample members in the year before sample selection. Data for reference group members in West Virginia were available only beginning with the final quarter prior to sample selection. In that quarter, reference group members had nearly the same employment rate as enrollees in the quarter prior to program entry. Thus, while many WtW enrollees had significant labor market liabilities, they were not consistently harder to employ than the general population of TANF recipients.⁽²⁴⁾

The difficulty of demonstrating that WtW enrollees were harder to employ than TANF recipients in general may reflect the changes in the TANF population that accompanied the dramatic caseload declines of the late 1990s. WtW program staff often commented that “everyone left on TANF is hard to employ,” because so many of those who could readily find work had left the rolls. Although WtW staff applied the WtW eligibility criteria, these criteria may not have been making meaningful distinctions among TANF recipients with respect to their experiences of employment difficulties.

EXHIBIT II.2
DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF WELFARE-TO-WORK ENROLLEES AT PROGRAM ENTRY
(Percentages)

EXHIBIT II.3
LABOR MARKET ASSETS AND LIABILITIES OF WELFARE-TO-WORK ENROLLEES AT PROGRAM ENTRY.
(Percentages)

EXHIBIT II.4
CUMULATIVE YEARS OF WELFARE RECEIPT BY WtW ENROLLEES AT PROGRAM ENTRY
(if ever received)

EXHIBIT II.5
RATES OF TANF RECEIPT BY WtW ENROLLEES DURING THE YEAR PRIOR TO PROGRAM ENTRY

EXHIBIT II.6
EMPLOYMENT RATES FOR WtW ENROLLEES DURING THE YEAR PRIOR TO PROGRAM ENTRY

EXHIBIT II.7
COMPARISON OF EMPLOYMENT RATES PRIOR TO PROGRAM ENTRY FOR WtW ENROLLEES AND ALL TANF RECIPIENTS

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Endnotes

(13) Grantees were given favorable consideration as potential study sites if they appeared likely to meet the following requirements for a random assignment study: likelihood of serving substantial numbers of participants, ability to identify more WtW referrals than they could serve, feasibility of integrating random assignment into their intake process, clarity of the distinction between WtW services and those available to a control group, and experience working with the WtW population.

(14) Detailed descriptions of the WtW study sites are provided in Appendix A of the evaluation’s implementation study report (Nightingale et al. 2002). Also, detailed descriptions of selected programs sponsored by the grantees in the study sites can be found in Appendix A of the evaluation’s cost analysis report (Perez-Johnson et al. 2002).

(15) In Chicago, there were 24 contractors in all, but 4 delivered support and specialized services to participants enrolled in other contractors’ programs rather than enrolling caseloads of their own. The situation was similar in Ft. Worth, where 5 of the 12 contractors provided a variety of special support or data services.

(16) In their 2004 report (summarized in Appendix G of this report), VanNoy and Perez-Johnson provide a side-by-side analysis of participant outcomes in two WtW programs in Philadelphia: Phil@Work and Regional Service Centers. These programs differed in their target populations and their service delivery approaches. Together, however, they captured the main elements of the overall WtW strategy developed by the local WIB and WtW grantee, the Philadelphia Workforce Development Corporation.

(17) For a description of the Project Match’s Pathways case management system, see Herr and Wagner (2003).

(18) State data on UI-covered earnings could not be obtained for the Boston and Nashville study sites.

(19) These findings should be taken with caution given that a sizable portion of enrollees did not answer the BIF question related to their work-limiting health problems. In 9 of the 11 study sites, response rates for this item were in the range of 65 percent to 85 percent.

(20) This pattern may also reflect respondents’ unwillingness to acknowledge certain types of health problems.

(21) The quarterly TANF participation rates presented in this report are derived from monthly state TANF administrative data. The rates for the quarter of program entry (Appendix Exhibit D.2.a) are generally higher than those based on data from enrollee’s BIFs in the evaluation’s baseline survey (Appendix Exhibit E.1). The differences between these two methodologies — which range in absolute value from 7 to 32 percentage points — are probably due to one or more of the following: (1) rates based on baseline survey data reflect participation at a specific time, whereas those based on state administrative data reflect participation at any time during the quarter of enrollment; (2) in some sites, enrollees may not have recognized “TANF” because the program is known by its local program name; (3) the baseline survey asked whether the enrollee had received TANF or AFDC in his or her own name; enrollees who received TANF under another’s name may have reported no receipt; and (4) in some sites, the administration of BIFs was delayed until after enrollment, so some enrollees may have left TANF before completing a baseline form.

(22) Enrollees in the Baltimore County JHU program present a sharp contrast to the general pattern of a higher rate of TANF receipt in the quarter of program entry than in preceding quarters Exhibit III.5). This is consistent with the program’s focus on employed individuals. Enrollees in Baltimore County were moving into employment during the immediate pre-entry period. With relatively high wages (discussed in Chapter IV), many of these individuals had worked their way off TANF before they entered WtW.

(23) Because Milwaukee’s NOW program targeted noncustodial parents rather than TANF recipients, we excluded the site from the comparative analysis of WtW enrollees with all TANF recipients. In addition, we were unable to obtain UI data for the Boston and Nashville sites.

(24) This finding should be taken with caution because data on employment and TANF receipt for WtW enrollees and/or reference sample members were not available or were incomplete in some sites. Specifically, there was no reference sample for Milwaukee, employment data were unavailable for both enrollees and reference sample members in Boston and Nashville, and only one quarter of employment data was available for reference group members in West Virginia prior to the sample selection month.

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