Determinants of AFDC Caseload Growth

by David Stapleton, Ph.D., Gina Livermore, Ph.D. and Adam Tucker of The Lewin Group, Inc., for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Department of Health & Human Services, July 25, 1997. Kelleen Kaye and Gilbert Crouse were the Project Officers.

This study has greatly benefitted from the assistance and comments provided by many people. Foremost among these are the Project Officers for the Office of the Assistance Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), Kelleen Kaye, and Gilbert Crouse. Other government staff who contributed substantially to this effort are former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Services Policy, Wendell Primus, Leonard Sternbach (Administration for Children and Families), and Donald Oellerich (ASPE).

We are also are especially grateful to Professor Robert Moffitt (the Johns Hopkins University), who reviewed our analysis plan and provided several helpful suggestions, and for the reviews of preliminary findings provided by five experts on the history of AFDC caseloads in the states we selected for case study: Dr. Thomas Corbett, the Associate Director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Werner Schink, Chief of the Research Branch of the California Department of Social Services; Dr. Steven Thompson of the Regional Economic Studies Institute of Towson State University, Maryland; Donald Winstead, the Welfare Reform Administrator for Florida's Economic Services Program; and Professor Michael Wiseman of The Robert M. La Follette Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

We also received many helpful comments on our preliminary findings from participants at the RAND conference on "New Advances in Welfare Research," (Santa Monica, CA, September 10-21, 1996). Finally, we greatly appreciate the assistance provided by many anonymous individuals in collecting the data and other information that were instrumental to the success of this project.