Maternal and Child Health/Family Wellness

Enhancing the Well-Being of Young Children and Families in the Context of Welfare Reform

By Jane Knitzer and Nancy K. Cauthen National Center for Children in Poverty The Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health Columbia University In Collaboration with Ellen Kisker Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.

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21 Million Children's Health: Our Shared Responsibility

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Moving People from Welfare to Work. Lessons from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies.. Appendix: NEWWS Program Summaries

Appendix Table. Summary of NEWWS Program Activities, Environments, and Results Program Activities Sample and Site Characteristics Five-Year Net Cost per Program Group Member ($) Year Control Group Impact SOURCES: Hamilton et al., 2001; Michalopoulos and Schwartz, 2001.

Moving People from Welfare to Work. Lessons from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies.. 8. Conclusion

The Family Support Act of 1988 sent a strong signal to states and localities — a signal that was amplified in the 1996 welfare reform law — that it was important to move people from welfare to work. States responded by developing welfare-to-work programs that were more complex, offered a wider spectrum of services, were implemented on a broa

Moving People from Welfare to Work. Lessons from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies.. Costs Relative to Benefits: What is the government's financial return on its investment in welfare-to-work programs?

The programs' five-year benefits were also calculated in NEWWS. Benefits included the increases in earnings and decreases in welfare and food stamp payments discussed earlier, as well as dollar valuations of the programs' estimated effects on Medicaid, job fringe benefits, taxes paid, and the costs of administering transfer programs such as food s

Costs: What contributes to the cost of welfare-to

Moving People from Welfare to Work. Lessons from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies.. Costs: What contributes to the cost of welfare-to-work programs?

Different types of five-year costs were estimated for the NEWWS programs. The gross cost per program group member is a comprehensive measure of all the costs associated with providing employment services and related support services to people while they were enrolled in a welfare-to-work program as well as after they left the program and/or the

Moving People from Welfare to Work. Lessons from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies.. 7. Costs and Benefits

FSA pushed administrators to operate more complex welfare-to-work programs, involve a larger share of the caseload (including the most disadvantaged), and provide more intensive and expanded services -- changes that were likely to increase the costs of the programs relative to those of programs operated in the early to mid-1980s.

Mandate Enforcement: What role does enforcing

Moving People from Welfare to Work. Lessons from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies.. Mandate Enforcement: What role does enforcing mandates play in program effectiveness?

Participation mandates in welfare-to-work programs are intended to change welfare recipients' perceptions and behavior in several ways. First, they send the message that receipt of welfare is not an unconditional entitlement. Second, owing to the time investment required by program activities, they reduce the perceived value of welfare grants rela

Participation Standards: What does it take to

Moving People from Welfare to Work. Lessons from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies.. Participation Standards: What does it take to engage a substantial proportion of people in welfare-to-work program activities?

Despite the fact that participation in welfare-to-work activities is generally required in exchange for welfare receipt, welfare agencies often have a difficult time engaging a large share of their caseloads in program activities. Reacting in part to low participation rates in welfare-to-work programs, FSA broke new ground in requiring states to e

Case Management: Do different strategies yield

Moving People from Welfare to Work. Lessons from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies.. Case Management: Do different strategies yield different results?

As mentioned in the description of the NEWWS programs operated in Columbus, there are two general approaches to welfare case management: traditional and integrated. Although each can be argued to have advantages and disadvantages, some policymakers and program operators have speculated that integrating the roles of income maintenance and employmen

Income: How can welfare-to-work programs increase

Moving People from Welfare to Work. Lessons from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies.. Income: How can welfare-to-work programs increase family resources?

The administrators of all the welfare-to-work programs studied in NEWWS hoped that their programs' preemployment services, mandates, and messages would enable welfare recipients eventually to increase their income and move out of poverty, but their relative emphasis on and methods of achieving this goal differed. The education-focused programs emp

Moving People from Welfare to Work. Lessons from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies.. 6. Other Lessons

Moving People from Welfare to Work. Lessons from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies.. Children's Well-Being: How might programs that have mandates and services but leave income unchanged affect children in the long run?

During the two decades before FSA's passage, mothers receiving welfare who had children under age 6 were generally not subject to the participation and work requirements of welfare-to-work programs. With FSA's passage came the advent of mandatory participation in welfare-to-work activities for mothers with young children. Because the new mandate's

Family Circumstances: Can programs have long-term

Moving People from Welfare to Work. Lessons from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies.. Family Circumstances: Can programs have long-term spillover effects on family outcomes such as marriage and fertility?

Welfare reform is often seen as a tool that can be used to do much more than raise earnings and reduce dependence on government assistance. FSA, for example, sought to bring about a sea change in people's attitudes toward welfare receipt. Some policymakers believe that reducing welfare use will have positive spillover effects on poor families, suc

Moving People from Welfare to Work. Lessons from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies.. 5. Effects on Families and Children

Moving People from Welfare to Work. Lessons from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies.. Endnote

5 In these sites, the starting of the welfare time-limit clock necessitated allowing control group members to access welfare-to-work program services.

Education and Training Reconsidered: Can they be

Moving People from Welfare to Work. Lessons from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies.. Education and Training Reconsidered: Can they be made more effective?

The NEWWS findings should not be taken as a general indictment of the benefits of education and training in welfare-to-work programs.

Subgroup Findings: Which types of programs work

Moving People from Welfare to Work. Lessons from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies.. Subgroup Findings: Which types of programs work best for which groups of welfare recipients?

Evaluations of welfare-to-work programs operated before FSA's passage found that the programs were most effective for the moderately disadvantaged and least effective for the most disadvantaged and the least disadvantaged (to learn how these groups were defined in NEWWS, read the first finding below).

Moving People from Welfare to Work. Lessons from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies.. The Most Effective Program: What were its distinguishing features?

As already discussed, the most rigorous findings about the relative effectiveness of different program approaches come from the analyses that directly compare the LFA and HCD programs within each site that operated both types of program. Viewed with appropriate skepticism, however, cross-site comparisons can suggest what other program approaches o

The LFA Approach Versus the HCD Approach: In head

Moving People from Welfare to Work. Lessons from the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies.. The LFA Approach Versus the HCD Approach: In head-to-head tests, which is more effective?

Compared with the LFA approach, the HCD approach did not produce additional long-run economic benefits.

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