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National Academy of Sciences Panel Study on Welfare Outcomes

Researcher Initiated Grants on Welfare Outcomes

Following are descriptions of projects ASPE funded in FY 2000 from the targeted appropriation to study welfare outcomes.

1. In FY 1999, an additional $837,000 was awarded for continuations and extensions of several of the FY 1998 projects. Also funded in FY 1999 were leavers studies in Iowa, Texas, and Contra Costa County, California, as well as several applicant/diversion studies.

This project organized into a data archive the Characteristics Surveys of AFDC recipients (which were carried out every two years from 1967 through 1979) and the annual AFDC Quality Control administrative data (collected from 1982 through 1996). These data facilitate comparisons between the TANF program and its predecessor AFDC program to analyze

ASPE undertook three related projects using the newly available source of welfare reform data collected through the Emergency TANF Data Report (ETDR): (1) working with the Administration for Children and Families' Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, to improve the collection, storage, and release of these data; (2) doing cross-sectional

This project promoted state efforts to develop and monitor indicators of the health and well-being of children as welfare reform and other significant policy changes occur. Capacity building was the fundamental goal of the project. It has been very successful in getting states to look seriously at their capacity to assess trends in children's well

In 1999, 29 percent of TANF cases were child-only families in which only children received the benefits. We know from earlier data (1998) that in about 40 percent of these families the children are living with adult relatives who are not their parents (and benefits are paid only on behalf of the children under their care), while in the remaining 6

Since 1997, HHS, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Justice have been funding the Urban Institute under a cooperative agreement to study the impact of recent changes in Federal laws on immigrant families and children and to profile immigrants with regard to their health, employment, economic circumstances and participation in gove

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 short-term economic and employment outcomes of

The Conference Report accompanying the 1998 targeted appropriation specified that the Department assess the potential for using food stamp administrative data to look at welfare "leavers" and nonparticipants at the national level. Historically, almost all of the households that received AFDC/TANF also participated in the Food Stamp Program.

Welfare caseload numbers released in August showed that the number of welfare recipients has decreased from 14.1 million in January 1993 to 6.3 million in December 1999 - a drop of 56 percent, or 7.8 million. Nearly three-quarters of this overall decline has occurred since the welfare reform law (the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Re

Conference Report language accompanying the targeted welfare outcomes research funding for Fiscal Years 1998 and 1999 urged the Department to submit its research plan to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to receive guidance on research design and recommendations for further research. Accordingly, we have provided over $1 million to the NAS to

A substantial proportion of our FY 1998 and 1999 welfare outcomes funding went to partnering with states and counties through grants to study the experiences of people who left the TANF program ("leavers") or were diverted from welfare. While most of the studies funded with the targeted Policy Research funds are still on-going projects, including

1.   Information on ACF's welfare-related activities can be found at < http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/news/welfare/index.htm >. Information on ACF's welfare-research activities can be found at < http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/opre/ >. 2.   The NAS Panel Study and the short-run recommendations included in the Interim Report are discuss

Collection and Use of State-Specific Surveys and State and Federal Administrative Data

Building and enhancing state and local capacity for data collection and monitoring studies remains integral to our welfare reform research efforts. We hope to continue supporting state-level data collection efforts, administrative data linking, and the creation of public-use and restricted-access data files. Because TANF is a state-driven program,

Significant provisions included in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996, and most notably the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, are subject to reauthorization in 2002. The upcoming reauthorization process adds a sense of immediacy to understanding the effects of welfare reform w

In its report for the FY 2000 Appropriation for the Department of Health and Human Services, the Conference Committee added funds for the third year to the Policy Research account in the Office of the Secretary and directed in its report that the funding support studies of the outcomes of welfare reform: