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Enrollees in local programs funded by WtW grants received diverse services and experienced substantial economic progress. Despite that progress, the levels of employment and self-sufficiency two years after program entry were below what policymakers and taxpayers may have anticipated. These broad conclusions are supported by the statistical findings presented in this report, which are based primarily on survey data provided by WtW enrollees in 11 study sites and secondarily on state administrative data for the TANF, Food Stamp, and Unemployment Insurance programs. This chapter summarizes key specific conclusions regarding the implementation of WtW grant-funded programs, the services received by WtW enrollees, and their labor market outcomes and well-being two years after program entry.
The WtW grants program provided local grantees with funding, considerable latitude to design service packages, and some flexibility regarding target populations. The evaluation’s implementation study, along with a baseline survey of WtW enrollees at the time of program entry, provides the basis for three specific conclusions regarding program implementation.
DOL awarded WtW grants totaling about $2.8 billion in fiscal years 1998 and 1999, but low enrollments in grant-funded programs delayed the use of those funds to provide services. Recipient organizations originally had three years to use WtW grant funds. However, many programs funded by the grants experienced difficulty enrolling their target numbers of participants. In response, Congress amended the WtW legislation in 1999 to broaden the criteria under which individuals could qualify to receive services funded by the grants. It also extended to five years the period over which grant funds could be used to provide services. Congress rescinded any state formula grant funds that were unexpended as of January 23, 2004.
Grantee plans for WtW programs in the study sites followed four service models. Programs in 4 of the 11 study sites followed a pre-employment model, which emphasized preparation for employment prior to placement in a job. Activities included group counseling, remedial education, and transitional employment. In another four sites, programs followed an employment model, with the objective of quickly moving participants into jobs. Less common was a post-employment model, which was adopted by the two sites that were operating the JHU Career Transcript System. Designed for employed persons, this program emphasized job retention and career advancement. The rehabilitative model was adopted in just one of the study sites. It was designed to facilitate the transition of noncustodial fathers on probation or parole back into society, prepare them for employment, and place them into jobs.
The individuals who enrolled in WtW programs faced serious employment challenges, but no more so than the general TANF population. WtW enrollees were overwhelmingly female, unlikely to be married, and were typically members of racial or ethnic minority groups. About one-third had failed to complete high school or obtain a GED, and one-third were caring for a child under the age of 3. Their recent employment histories were spotty and similar to those of adult TANF recipients. In sites other than those that had adopted a post-employment model, just one-third to one-half of enrollees were employed in the second quarter prior to program entry.
Given the diversity of program models, it is not surprising that the services enrollees received varied greatly among the study sites. The following conclusions are based on enrollee reports, rather than on the designs of the programs in which they were enrolled.
WtW enrollees were much more likely to receive employment preparation services than skill enhancement services. Consistent with the legislation that authorized the WtW grants program, more than two-thirds of enrollees in each of the study sites received services that were designed to prepare them for and move them into employment. However, there was considerable variability across the sites in the types and duration of these services. Only in the three sites that adopted either a post-employment model (Baltimore County and St. Lucie County) or rehabilitative model (Milwaukee), did more than one-third of enrollees receive services that were designed to enhance their skills so that they could qualify for better jobs.
The employment preparation services that enrollees received were more consistent with rapid job entry in some sites than in others. WtW enrollees in the Phoenix and Yakima sites, which followed an employment model, received employment preparation services that were highly consistent with a rapid transition to employment — primarily brief job readiness training followed by job search assistance. In contrast, enrollees in sites that followed a pre-employment model (Boston, Nashville, Philadelphia, and West Virginia) typically received extended job readiness training — or, in Nashville, education and training — followed by job search assistance. The average amount of time before enrollees became employed was generally lower for the former group of sites than the latter.
Most WtW enrollees found jobs during the first year following program entry. However, they were less likely to be employed during the second year, and the jobs they held at the end of that year tended to pay low wages and offer few fringe benefits.
Most individuals who enrolled in WtW subsequently obtained jobs, but their employment tended to be unstable. Only 5 to 25 percent of WtW enrollees in the non-JHU study sites were employed when they entered WtW. In contrast, much larger proportions — between 60 and 80 percent — were employed sometime during the year following program entry. Most WtW enrollees experienced some degree of success in the labor market, but had trouble sustaining it. Their rates of employment sometime during the second post-entry year were lower than during the first by about 10 percentage points. Furthermore, only about 40 percent of enrollees were working for pay at the end of the second year, an employment rate similar to that of adults nationwide who have left TANF.
Employment outcomes varied by program model, but the differences are not indicative of the relative efficacy of the models. Employment rates two years after program entry were highest in the two JHU sites, which followed a post-employment model, and lowest in the Milwaukee site, which followed a rehabilitative model. These outcomes are reflective of the distinctive populations that were served by these programs; the JHU program targeted persons who were already employed and the Milwaukee program targeted ex-offenders. Among the eight other study sites, enrollee employment rates two years after program entry were a few percentage points higher, on average, in those that followed a pre-employment model rather than an employment model. However, this difference does not imply that a pre-employment model is more effective because a similar employment gap existed among enrollees at program entry.
Enrollees who were employed worked a lot of hours but received low wages and few fringe benefits. Across the study sites, enrollees who were employed two years after entering WtW were working an average of 32 to 38 hours per week on their principal job in a typical week. However, they were not necessarily employed consistently week after week over the course of a month. Their hourly wage rate tended to be low, averaging about $10 in three study sites, about $8 in seven sites, and less than $7 in one site. Only about one in every five enrollees who was employed at the end of the second year received health insurance benefits on the principal job, except in Baltimore County, where nearly half had such coverage. Other fringe benefits, such as a pension plan and paid vacation or sick leave, were somewhat more common.
The compensation of employed enrollees edged up over time. In six of the sites, the mean wage on the principal job held by an employed WtW enrollee was higher and/or fringe benefits were more common at the end of the second year after program entry than at the end of the first year. In no site was there deterioration between the two years in any of these elements of labor compensation.
Instability in employment meant that many WtW enrollees who had been employed sometime during the second year following program entry were no longer working at the end of the year. As noted, only about 40 percent of enrollees in the non-JHU sites were employed at that time. The resulting diminished earnings among enrollees as a group forced many to rely on assistance from outside the household and caused end-of-the-year poverty rates to be higher than they would have been had employment been sustained.
Enrollees typically availed themselves of diverse sources of financial and nonfinancial support two years after entering the WtW program. In most of the study sites, TANF participation rates fell dramatically during the two years following enrollment in WtW. However, in nine of the sites, at least seven in ten enrollees continued to receive assistance from other government programs, especially food stamps, as did half of the enrollees in the remaining two sites. During the second year, about two-thirds also received assistance from extended family members or friends, whereas far fewer received help from community organizations.
Few WtW enrollees were self-sufficient one year after program entry. In the Baltimore County and St. Lucie County sites for the JHU program, about two-thirds of enrollees were self-sufficient (employed and not on TANF) two years after they entered WtW. In the other study sites, only about one-fourth to one-third of enrollees were self-sufficient, except in West Virginia, where 44 percent were. However, rates of self-sufficiency edged up by between 4 and 6 percentage points in four of the study sites between the first and second years following program entry.
Poverty was pervasive among WtW enrollees two years after entering the program, but its incidence was lower among those who were employed. Mean household incomes were stable from the end of the first year following program entry to the end of the second, as were poverty rates, which exceeded 60 percent in every site except Baltimore County. In contrast, Loprest (2001) reports a poverty rate of 52 percent among families nationwide that had recently left TANF. Obtaining and maintaining employment was often an important step out of poverty for WtW enrollees. The rate of poverty among enrollees who were employed at the end of the second year was 16 to 43 percentage points lower than that of enrollees who were not employed. But even for this group, the incidence of poverty was high in an absolute sense — in excess of 50 percent in 9 of the 11 study sites.
The philosophy underlying the WtW grants program was that work is the best preparation for work. The result was a program that encouraged grantees to find creative ways to move enrollees into the labor force quickly, while providing some substantial support if it appears needed for that transition — more than would be typical in a simple job search/placement program. The findings from this evaluation’s nonexperimental outcome analysis do not allow us to draw a firm conclusion regarding whether WtW enrollees made better employment progress than they would have without the program. Although most enrollees worked at some time during the evaluation’s two-year follow-up period, employment problems were still widespread at the end of that period, and the jobs they held often left them in poverty.
Whether a more comprehensive approach, with greater attention to skills development before employment placement, would work better remains an open issue. Congress, responding to views on this issue expressed by grantees, amended the program in 1999 to allow local WtW programs to make some use of job training before job placement. Notwithstanding this design change, the outcomes observed in the 11 study sites suggest that there remains room for considerable improvement in our ability to move welfare recipients into sustainable employment that boosts them out of poverty. Further experimentation and research could address the contributions to that goal that could be made by greater use of job training, as well as the effects of other factors such as health care, child care, other support services, and help with family relationships.
The findings from this evaluation’s implementation study do provide a basis for the following six lessons regarding the design and implementation of employment programs for TANF recipients and individuals with significant labor market liabilities:
Effective inter-agency partnerships are important. The legislation that authorized the WtW grants, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (BBA), required local programs funded by the grants to be implemented within a framework of partnership with local TANF agencies. However, effective partnerships were often slow to develop. In combination with falling welfare caseloads, this often resulted in low numbers of referrals of welfare recipients by TANF agencies to WtW programs, thereby exacerbating the difficulties that many local WtW programs experienced in achieving their enrollment targets. In sites where effective partnerships ultimately did develop, they resulted in improved access for welfare recipients to the workforce development system.
Increased Service Capacity is an Important Legacy. WtW grants afforded many nonprofit community-based organizations their initial opportunity to serve TANF recipients and/or noncustodial parents. Thus, the program increased the pool of qualified organizations with which TANF agencies can contract for employment services in the post-WtW era.
Program Flexibility Encourages Innovative Programming. Flexible rules allowed WtW grantees and their service providers to develop creative program service approaches and administrative practices. These included partnerships with employers, transitional and supported employment, and post-employment case management and job retention services. Some grantees pressed for additional flexibility to provide a broader range of pre-employment services, and Congress responded in 1999 with amendments to the program that permitted up to six months of pre-employment skill-enhancement training.
Stringent eligibility criteria and fiscal requirements may result in low enrollments. The BBA required WtW grantees to spend at least 70 percent of their grant funds on services for enrollees who met very detailed and restrictive eligibility requirements. Up to 30 percent of grant funds could be used to provide services to enrollees who met less stringent eligibility requirements. The former requirement contributed to the widespread problems that grantees experienced in achieving enrollment targets during the early years of the WtW program.
A mid-course correction to a temporary program may be ineffective. The 1999 amendments to the BBA loosened the criteria that defined the enrollees on whom at least 70 percent of grant funds had to be spent. They also expanded the list of allowable pre-employment program activities to include up to six months of vocational education or job training. However, the potential for these changes to have effects were limited because the final program rules reflecting the amendments were published late in the life of the time-limited (five years) grants program and, in that context, grantees were reluctant to revise existing procedures and referral agreements with local TANF agencies.
Temporary funding may accentuate program design and implementation problems. The BBA required that grant funds be spent within three years of their receipt. The 1999 amendments extended that period by two years. Despite the extension, some local WtW administrators continued to believe that temporary funding compounded problems associated with the design and implementation of their programs. These included the reluctance of TANF and other agencies to refer clients to WtW rather than to service providers with whom they had long-term relationships. The administrators also viewed short-term funding as an impediment to identifying and correcting program design problems.
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