Status of Research on the Outcomes of Welfare Reform, 2000. Update on Other Continuing Projects Funded by the FY 1998 and FY 1999 Appropriations to Study Welfare Outcomes/Leavers

Thirteen states and large counties received funding in September 1998 to study the outcomes of welfare reform on individuals and families who leave welfare. Some of the grants also included studies of families who applied for cash welfare but never enrolled and families who appear to be eligible but not enrolled. See <http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/leavers99/index.htm#background> for individual project descriptions and links to available reports.

Current status: Final reports have been submitted by Arizona, Illinois, and Washington, three of the thirteen grants awarded in September 1998. See Results/Findings section for discussion of these reports, as well as findings from the interim reports submitted by other grantees. Additional final reports are expected throughout the fall of 2000 and winter 2001; three draft final reports were submitted in early Fall 2000 (from the District of Columbia, Florida, and Massachusetts). Although most projects should be complete by spring 2001, three grantees - Arizona, Missouri, and a consortium of San Mateo, Santa Cruz, and Santa Clara counties - received additional funding in FY 1999 to extend the studies and administer a second or third wave of interviews, allowing analysis of longer-term outcomes for former recipients.

Estimated Completion Dates: vary by project

Current status: One of the Congress's major objectives in providing welfare outcomes money to ASPE over the last several years is to measure outcomes for a broad population of low-income families, welfare recipients, former recipients, potential recipients, and other special populations affected by state TANF policies, including diversion practices. To this end, ASPE issued a request for applications from states and large counties in April 1999 with an emphasis on the study of applicants and potential applicants to the TANF program. ASPE awarded seven grants under this announcement, six of which specifically support state efforts to gather a variety of information about individuals and their families who are formally or informally diverted from TANF. In addition, several of the leavers studies funded in FY 1998 have significant applicant components to their projects.

ASPE is particularly interested in learning about the degree to which TANF applicants receive, or are aware of their potential eligibility for, Medicaid, food stamps, and other programs and services that are important in helping low-income families make a successful transition to work. Below are summaries of the grants provided to states and large counties in fiscal years 1998 and 1999 with a particular emphasis on TANF diversion. "Diversion" in this context is not limited to participation in formal diversion programs, but also includes "informal" divertees. These are usually defined as individuals who began the application process but were either deemed ineligible for non-monetary reasons, withdrew voluntarily after completing the process, or failed to complete the process for some other reason. These project updates are current as of September 2000.

FY 1999

Arizona

Arizona is building on the state's FY 1998 study of leavers by looking at informal divertees and entrants to TANF. The study uses a wide range of administrative data (including data on child care subsidies) to track second quarter 1999 divertees and recipients for 12 months, and includes surveys of 400 individuals in both populations at three and nine months after application. Some of the subgroups on which the state will be focusing include urban vs. rural applicants and applicants who are initially denied but eventually reapply for TANF.

Arizona has collected administrative data from a number of different sources, including a data warehouse established as part of the FY 1998 ASPE leavers grant. State researchers have also completed the first wave of surveys, resulting in a response rate of 71 percent. It appears that for the second wave of surveys, which is scheduled to be completed in late 2000, researchers will be able to find 85-90 percent of individuals interviewed during the first wave. The state expects to submit some basic analysis of the first wave of the TANF applicant survey to ASPE by Winter 2001.

Estimated Completion Date: Spring 2001

Contra Costa County and Alameda County (CA)

Contra Costa and Alameda Counties are located in the East San Francisco Bay area of California and contain the cities of Oakland and Richmond. This project is studying TANF leavers from both counties, as well as formal and informal divertees in Contra Costa County. Researchers at the SPHERE Institute have been able to take advantage of these counties' Case Data System (CDS), which includes every TANF application that is initiated in the two counties. The CDS allows SPHERE to uncover the reasons individuals were diverted or left TANF, as well as make comparisons across the two counties. They used the CDS both to link all applicants with other administrative databases and to draw their survey sample of 850 leavers and 150 divertees from the third quarter of 1999.

The first wave of surveys was administered at six months after exit/diversion, with a response rate for informally diverted families in Contra Costa County of 64 percent. Researchers currently are continuing to analyze the administrative data, while also conducting the second round of survey data collection (at 12 months after exit). A preliminary draft of findings from both rounds of survey data and merged administrative data should be available in early 2001.

Estimated Completion Date: Spring 2001

Illinois

Illinois is focusing this study on applicants; the state is particularly interested in learning about families who fail to complete the application process. The population to be studied includes one month of approved, denied, and withdrawn applications. Although the state has no formal diversion policy, the study will assess Illinois' new intake process, which emphasizes employment, assessment, and prompt referral to needed services. Administrative data analysis is planned for the entire population of approximately 6,000 families, and a survey will be administered to the sample of 1,200 divertees approximately two to four months after application. The study also includes surveys of program administrators at six local welfare offices to help evaluate the new intake process.

After receiving the ASPE grant, Illinois issued a request for proposals for contractor assistance in conducting the study. MAXIMUS was recently selected as the contractor, and the applicant study is now in the initial stages.

Estimated Completion Date: Fall 2001

New York

New York, which also received a FY 1998 leavers grant from ASPE, has included divertees, all other denials, and entrants in their sample for this study. Their analysis will focus on comparing TANF applicants who were diverted with those who received cash assistance. Twenty-one local districts are participating in the study, including New York City and other sites ranging from large urban to rural areas. In most districts, the project uses administrative data to track a March 2000 sample of divertees, denials, and entrants for 12 months after the application.

The sample was drawn through intercept interviews with TANF applicants in each of the local districts. This methodology allowed New York to include individuals who entered the TANF office with the intent to apply but who did not submit written applications. Currently, the state's contractor, ORC Macro, is administering the survey to the sample of 864 families, evenly split between diverted applicants and entrants. Their goal is a response rate of 70 to 75 percent. Analysis of the survey data will continue through Fall 2000, and the state expects to report results in early 2001.

Estimated Completion Date: Spring 2001

Texas

This project represents the combined efforts of the Texas Department of Human Services, the Texas Workforce Commission, and the University of Texas-Austin. It focuses not only on informal divertees, but also on potential TANF applicants who are formally diverted by the state, either through a one-time lump sum payment or by redirection into work. The administrative data analysis incorporates a wide variety of sources, and tracks both applicants who are redirected into work or denied for non-financial reasons and participants in the lump-sum diversion program. The state has also recently added leavers to both the survey and administrative samples.

Intercept surveys were conducted with 30 applicants who were denied TANF for non-financial reasons, with a second wave survey to come four months after application (early 2001). The interviews with leavers, redirects, and formal divertees took place in 1999 and early 2000. Follow-up on individuals in these samples will be done using administrative data. The state expects to have some data available in Spring 2001.

Estimated Completion Date: Spring 2001

Washington

Following up on the leavers grant that they received in FY 1998, Washington is studying formal and informal divertees and entrants. The state hopes to compare the experiences of individuals who participated in the state's Diversion Cash Assistance program, those who entered TANF, and those who were diverted and received assistance from neither program. They will be providing an analysis of administrative data for the full populations of each of these groups from the fourth quarters of 1997, 1998, and 1999, including data from up to 12 months prior to and 12 months after the selection quarter. The state has nearly completed administrative data collection.

The state completed its survey of individuals who applied for TANF or Diversion Cash Assistance between July and October of 1999. The survey effort, which was completed in May 2000 and took place between four and eight months after the time of application, resulted in a response rate of 84 percent. The state researchers hope to provide ASPE with a draft report containing both survey and administrative data by Winter 2001.

Estimated Completion Date: Winter 2001

FY 1998

Wisconsin

This study of individuals applying for Wisconsin Works (W-2) assistance in Milwaukee has been undertaken by the Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The project focuses on those who apply for W-2 and either enter the program, are determined to be ineligible, or appear to be eligible but are not enrolled. A six-month cohort of applicants is being tracked through a combination of linked administrative data and two waves of surveys.

Both waves of the survey, conducted at six and 12 months after application, are complete, and IRP is currently analyzing the survey results and using state administrative data to supplement the survey data. Preliminary analysis shows that over 40 percent of those families applying for W-2 had previously participated in the program. Wisconsin and IRP received an enhancement grant from ASPE in September 2000 to expand their work on the Milwaukee applicants project.

Estimated Completion Date: Summer 2001

Leavers Studies that also Examine Diverted Populations (Florida, San Mateo, and South Carolina)

Three FY1998 grants that have a primary focus of studying outcomes for families leaving welfare also include research on families that were formally or informally diverted from entering TANF. These three grants are Florida, a consortium of California counties, and South Carolina.

The Florida study, undertaken by researchers at Florida State University, examines three groups of individuals from the second quarter of 1997: TANF leavers, individuals who began the application process but who either withdrew voluntarily after completing the process or failed to complete the process ("diverts"), and individuals who receive food stamps or Medicaid, have minor children, and have income and assets below the cash assistance limit but who do not receive cash assistance ("opt-nots"). Preliminary findings from a report expected to be released in late Fall 2000 indicate that the "diverts" and "opt-nots" look very similar to leavers in Florida in terms of employment rates. However, leavers appear to have slightly higher earnings and slightly lower use of government services than the other two groups.

The study in San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties in California was funded primarily as a leavers study. However, because the administrative system in all three counties includes all applications, and not just those for individuals who receive TANF, researchers at the SPHERE Institute were also able to study informal divertees. Analysis of administrative data is being supplemented by surveys administered at six and 12 months after "case closure" (when either the applicant withdraws from the application process or the TANF recipient leaves the program). The initial administrative data analysis found that children of informal divertees in the third quarter of 1997 were somewhat more likely than adults to use food stamps and Medicaid or return to TANF in the first 12 months following diversion. SPHERE and San Mateo are currently in the process of administering and analyzing a third wave of surveys, made possible by a continuation grant from ASPE in FY 1999. A draft report summarizing the first two waves of survey data along with linked administrative data should be available by December 2000 and a final report incorporating the third wave of survey data will be available in early 2001.

The project in South Carolina also is focused primarily on leavers, but state researchers have also used food stamp records to identify families that appear to be eligible for cash assistance but are not enrolled. They have also looked at applicants for cash assistance that did not enroll in the TANF program. Findings are not yet available.

Estimated Completion Date: Fall 2000 (Florida); February 2001 (San Mateo); Summer 2001 (South Carolina)

Current status: ASPE awarded approximately $807,000 in grants in FY 1999 to support seven researcher-initiated proposals to study important questions related to the outcomes of welfare reform. Through these grants, we are supporting efforts to analyze a variety of information about low-income individuals (both adults and children) and their families, including their economic and non-economic well-being and their participation in government programs. Issues that are being examined under these grants include caseload dynamics, the impact of spatial distribution of economic opportunities, health insurance and health care utilization, the use of food stamps, living arrangements, maternal and child health, domestic violence, and quality-of-life issues. A brief description of each funded proposal follows. When available, final reports from the grantees will be posted on the ASPE website at http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/.

RAND Corporation

This study will analytically and empirically explore the relationship between economic conditions, the flows on and off the caseload, and the welfare caseload at a point in time (stock) in California. The study will address the following questions:

• What is the relationship between economic conditions and the flows on and off aid in California?
• How do these relationships vary by sub-populations?
• How have these changes in flows contributed to changes in the stock of welfare users?
• Under what conditions does modeling the relationship between economic conditions and the stock of welfare users rather than the flow of welfare users give biased conclusions?
• What is the magnitude of the bias for California and the United States when using stock rather than flow data?

Estimated Completion Date: Fall 2000

Resources for Human Development, Inc.

Resources for Human Development, Inc. (RHD) is a large community agency in Philadelphia that operates six Welfare-to-Work (WtW) programs. The goals of the study are to:

• Assess what support factors are associated with WtW program success and failure;
• Identify those quality-of-life indicators that are associated with stable employment;
• Document the extent to which the quality of life for former TANF recipients and families is equal to or better than that which they experienced while on welfare; and
• Document the effects of alcohol and substance abuse on WtW program outcomes.

  Surveys will be administered to program participants at entry and exit and at three months after leaving the program. A separate group of 100 WtW participants self-identified as in need of substance abuse treatment will be compared to a group of 200 participants not so self-identified to examine differences in program attendance rates and outcomes.

Estimated Completion Date: Fall 2000

SPHERE Institute

This study will build upon research the SPHERE Institute is currently conducting under contract

with the Public Policy Institute of California to model caseload dynamics using aggregate county caseload counts. It will explore the role of economic conditions and caseload characteristics on the role of program performance in California. Estimates of the effect on caseloads in the event of an economic downturn will be produced. Other issues that will be analyzed are:

• Trends in the child-only caseload;
• The uptake of transitional Medicaid for families exiting TANF;
• The extent to which certain subgroups experience different rates of TANF entry and exit; and
• How performance-based program incentives could be improved by adjusting for economic and demographic conditions.

Estimated Completion Date: March 2001

University of Kentucky Research Foundation

The goal of this study is to examine the impact of the differential spatial distribution of economic opportunities on the outcomes of current and former AFDC/TANF recipients, including employment and earnings. It will examine both the outcomes of well-being in relation to poverty and participation in associated support programs and the impact of these differential outcomes on the characteristics and composition of the remaining caseload. Differences in outcomes between rural and urban recipients and variations in findings across the diversity of rural areas in the state will be investigated.

Estimated Completion Date: March 2001

University of Michigan School of Social Work

This project will use data from the Women's Employment Survey (WES) to examine the impacts of welfare reform on economic outcomes as well as on measures of non-economic well-being among specific subgroups of recipients, such as racial minorities and women exposed to domestic violence. WES is a longitudinal data set tracking single mother welfare recipients in an urban Michigan county. Specifically, the project will look at the following issues:

• How welfare reform has affected work, wages, income and poverty among recipients with potential barriers to success, such as low levels of education, large families, and physical and mental health problems;
• How transitions from welfare-to-work and income trajectories have affected maternal and child health; and
• How welfare reform affected women who have experienced domestic violence.

Estimated Completion Date: January 2001

University of Wisconsin

This study focuses on the use of Medicaid and food stamp recipiency, and examines some determinants of private health insurance coverage for families who have left AFDC/TANF. Using administrative data and wage record files, the study will examine the apparent eligibility for and uptake of Medicaid, food stamps and, to the extent possible, private health insurance, among two samples of program participants - those who were receiving AFDC during

September 1995, and those who were receiving Wisconsin Works (W-2) during September 1997. Longitudinal use of Medicaid and food stamps through December 1999 will be examined for three groups (leavers, recidivists, and stayers) across a variety of variables. A second component of the study will examine Medicaid and food stamp usage among families in the Wisconsin Child Support Demonstration Experiment, using both administrative data and survey data collected as part of the demonstration.

Estimated Completion Date: June 2001

The Urban Institute

This study aims to examine the inter-relationship between single mothers' decisions regarding welfare receipt, living arrangements, and work. The project will:

• Document the share of single mothers living independently, living with their parents, cohabiting, and living with other adults;
• Describe how the characteristics of single mothers vary by their living arrangements;
• Show how single mothers' work and welfare participation (both past and present) vary by their living arrangements; and
• Undertake a multivariate analysis to examine the factors affecting single mothers' living arrangements and how living arrangements affect decisions regarding work and welfare.

Estimated Completion Date: January 2001

Current Status: ASPE and other federal agencies contributed funds in 1998 and 1999 to award a grant to the Urban Institute to deepen our understanding of the impact of recent changes in Federal laws on immigrant families and children by conducting a large-scale study of immigrants and their communities in Los Angeles and New York City.

See Results/Findings and http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/hspother.htm for information on accomplishments to date.

Estimated Completion Date: October 2001

In a related effort, ASPE funds were also used to support the Urban Institute's updating of the TRIM modeling program (used to simulate welfare caseload changes resulting from changes in various policy variables) to include parameters about immigrants, and as a subset, refugees and non-refugees, using 1995 data as a baseline. This updated model will be used to estimate the rates of participation in TANF, Medicaid, Food Stamps, and General Assistance by children, both citizen and immigrant, who live in immigrant- and citizen-headed households.

Estimated Completion Date: Winter/Spring 2001

Current Status: This project is a supplement to an ongoing four-year study of the implications of welfare reform for low-income families living in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio (a summary of the study is available at <http://www.jhu.edu/~welfare>). The broader study is being undertaken by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, Pennsylvania State University, Harvard University, University of Chicago, and the University of Texas-Austin. Funds are being used to explore how welfare reform is affecting the lives of a particularly vulnerable subset of the welfare population - adults and children with disabilities. This will be accomplished by conducting longitudinal case studies of families with members with disabilities receiving TANF and through a broader survey effort. The purpose of the data collection efforts is to better understand how recent work participation requirements and time limits under welfare reform are affecting service utilization, family member's health and development, support networks, parenting, and child care arrangements.

ASPE, the Administration for Children and Families, and the Administration on Developmental Disabilities are the primary funders of the disability component of the study. The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development is the primary funder of the broader study, along with several private foundations. Andrew Cherlin, Johns Hopkins University, is the principal investigator. The first round of interviews for the main survey were conducted from March 1999 until December 1999. Fieldwork in the ethnography component began in fall 1999 and is ongoing. Results from the project will be available over the course of the study. Listed below are the current publications from the broader study; results from the ethnographies focused on disability will be available later.

Accomplishments to date:

What Welfare Recipients Know About the New Rules and What They Have to Say About Them - Policy Brief 00-1 <http://www.jhu.edu/~welfare>

The Diversity of Welfare Leavers - Policy Brief 00-2 <http://www.jhu.edu/~welfare?>

Estimated Completion Date: 2003

Current Status: ASPE, along with the Administration for Children and Families, the Health Care Financing Administration and USDA, contributed funding to a major $5.9 million initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to provide technical assistance and grants to states and large counties to improve their enrollment and redetermination processes for Medicaid, the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and Food Stamps. Under the Supporting Families program, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation will provide funding for assistance to states or counties to work on Medicaid and SCHIP, while federal funding will provide assistance to work on Food Stamps, Medicaid, and SCHIP. The expert technical assistance may take the form of analysis of performance data, identification of the root causes of problems in their enrollment processes, and/or development of specific implementation plans to solve the problems and increase the participation rates in Medicaid, SCHIP, and Food Stamps. Information on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's overall initiative to solve problems in eligibility processes that make it difficult for low-income families to access and retain Medicaid, SCHIP or Food Stamps - particularly families moving from welfare to work - can be found at under "Supporting Families after Welfare Reform" at <www.rwjf.org/main.html>.

Federal funding supported a literature review and synthesis on the recent drop in participation in the Medicaid and Food Stamp programs, including the reasons underlying the changes in participation, and the potential strategies for increasing participation among eligible families. The report, Access to and Participation in Medicaid and the Food Stamp Program - A Review of the Recent Literature, was released in March 2000, and can be found at <www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/opre/med-fs.htm>. It includes findings from government- and privately sponsored research projects, studies of participation in the Food Stamp Program (FSP) and Medicaid at the national and state level, studies of low-income families who have left welfare, reviews of research, and ongoing analysis and data collection efforts. Federal funding is also supporting reviews of promising practices sites and a report describing the practices that appear to enhance or facilitate participation in the Medicaid/SCHIP and Food Stamp programs by former TANF and low-income families.

Estimated Completion Date: September 2001

Current status: The L.A. FANS is a four-year longitudinal study by RAND of children, their families, and their neighborhoods in Los Angeles. While designed to answer broader research questions about the effects of neighborhoods on children, the study also is examining the effects of welfare reform at the neighborhood level. The study design includes both extensive household surveys and collection of detailed longitudinal information on neighborhoods through interviews with families, key informants, and service providers, on-site observation, and extensive administrative data. ASPE is providing support to enhance information about health insurance coverage and health status among children and families. For more information, see The Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey on RAND's website at <http://www.rand.org/lafans/>.

Estimated Completion Date: 2003

Current status: In fiscal year 1997, ASPE funded the University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty to conduct an administrative data study of the outcomes of families who left AFDC in Wisconsin during 1995. The reports produced during the first study provided useful early results for the Department on the economic and employment outcomes of women who left AFDC prior to both the enactment of TANF and the implementation of Wisconsin Works (also known as W-2, Wisconsin's replacement for AFDC). In this follow-up study, the Institute is tracking the outcomes for women in the first study further and the outcomes of a second group of women who left AFDC closer to the time of the implementation of Wisconsin Works (fourth quarter, 1997). As in the original project, the continuation analysis uses linked administrative data from the state including: (1) AFDC data, food stamp data, and Medicaid data from the Client Assistance for Re-Employment and Economic Support administrative database (CARES), and (2) earnings and employment data from the Unemployment Insurance records database (UI). Interim results focused on economic well-being, indicating that over 80 percent of women in both cohorts had at least some earnings during the first quarter after leaving welfare; women in the second cohort, however, were somewhat less likely to be employed in all four quarters after exit compared to women in the earlier cohort. (Information from the interim report is summarized in the Results/Findings section.) The Final Report will include longer-term outcomes for women who left welfare in 1995, and will examine receipt of food stamps and Medicaid upon leaving the welfare system for both cohorts. By documenting the employment and program outcomes of former recipients who were exposed to the comprehensive welfare reform programs in Wisconsin, this follow-up project will offer a useful analysis of the well-being of individuals who left welfare during a time of immense policy change.

Estimated Completion Date: Fall 2000 (Final Report)

Current Status: In FY 1999, ASPE procured a contractor, ORC Macro, to assist ASPE staff in providing technical assistance to both the FY 1998 and FY 1999 welfare outcomes grantees. The contractor's major task was to work with ASPE staff to coordinate two meetings of the grantees, held in Washington, DC, in Fall 1999 and Fall 2000. In carrying out this task, the contractor prepared background materials, coordinated sessions, and assisted with the logistics, planning, and registration for both of the meetings. In addition, ORC Macro has helped disseminate findings from the ASPE grants and other resources related to the study of welfare outcomes by assisting in the development of the ASPE web site for the leavers and diversion studies. Through a contract modification in FY 2000, ORC Macro has helped coordinate the ASPE public use data file work group, and released a technical assistance guide for the grantees in Fall 2000 on procuring and documenting researcher-access data files.

Estimated Completion Date: September 2001

Current status: People being removed from public assistance who have not found jobs or achieved self-sufficiency may become clients of emergency services such as soup kitchens and homeless shelters. In some cities, there are well-developed networks of private human services providers that collect data about their clients. This project studies the trends in the demand for emergency assistance services, such as homeless shelters and food banks, between 1993 and 1998. The two grantees for this project have collected data from providers of these services in order to examine the changing patterns of usage during the period of economic expansion and declining welfare caseloads before and after welfare reform. The final reports will provide an indicator of whether welfare reform has had any effect on the demand for emergency services.

Estimated Completion Date: California report - December 2000; Massachusetts report - March 2001

Current status: This data analysis project compares different definitions of the working poor population based on variations in the definition of worker, definition of the poverty threshold, and definition of total income. The project, conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., uses data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) that allow analysts to vary the definition of poverty threshold to include several of the alternative definitions for poverty measurement proposed by the National Academy of Sciences. The implications for understanding the composition of the working poor population will also be explored.

Estimated Completion Date: December 2000

Current status: This project will help us understand welfare outcomes in rural labor markets by studying the labor market characteristics of the rural working poor population and the impacts of various economic and public policy developments. The study examines the impacts on the rural working poor of welfare reform and economic expansion during the 1990's. The study seeks to identify how these changes have impacted employment and wages among the working poor population in several non-metropolitan areas around the country. Results from economic analyses are compared to administrative welfare caseload data to determine how the decline in welfare caseloads has affected the working poor. Results are also used to predict future changes in employment and wages under two scenarios: moderate growth and economic downturn.

Estimated Completion Date: January 2001