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Project Description

To encourage welfare recipients to fulfill their obligations, the new federal law include provisions allowing states to terminate benefits to a family for failure to comply with work and other requirements. After no more than 24 months of receiving benefits, parents and caretakers must work for a minimum of 20 hours a week. States are allowed to deny benefits for reasons including failure to pay child support or establish paternity. States may also use their discretion in establishing criteria for exempting families from there requirements. Federal law also states that families may not receive benefits for longer than 5 cumulative years.

Project duration: Apr 1996 - Apr 1997

Sites studied include Iowa
Massachusetts
Wisconsin

Sample Characteristics and Sites Studied

2103 welfare recipient cases that have been terminated.

936 cases in Massachusetts terminated for failure to meet work, school attendance, or teen living arrangement requirements as of the end of June 1996.

408 cases in Iowa terminated for failure to meet Iowa’s Limited Benefit Plan’s Program requirements as of June 1996.

759 cases in Wisconsin terminated for failure to enroll in JOBS program or failure to meet work requirements for 3 consecutive months as of May 1996.

Recent Findings in Brief

05/01/97: Welfare Reform: States' Early Experiences with Benefit Termination

Final Descriptive/Analytical Findings:

"So far, states have seldom used benefit termination provisions. Moreover, of the 18,000 families whose benefits were terminated under waivers through December 1996, more than 99% failed to comply with program requirements. Most terminations took place in Iowa, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin" (p4). "Through June 1996, prior recipients’ failure to comply with new enrollment requirements accounted for over half the terminations nationwide. By the end of December 1996, failure to comply with work requirements increased by one-third and became the most significant reason for termination. Recipients’ explanations for this noncompliance included wanting to stay at home with their children and an unwillingness to do community service or work for low wages"(p4). "Terminating a family’s AFDC benefit represented the loss of a significant source of monthly income. Although more than 80% of the families in the cases GAO studied in Iowa, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin were subsequently found to have some source of support or had returned to welfare, the percentages of such families receiving food stamps and Medicaid declined significantly after termination. Before termination, the percentage of cases receiving these benefits ranged from 84 to 100 percent; after termination, it ranged from 26 to 61 percent. Many families did not take the steps necessary to continue to receive these program benefits after losing AFDC, even though the waivers provided for program eligibility to be unaffected unless other family circumstances changed"(p4). "Officials in the three states studied generally believed their benefit termination provisions had improved program effectiveness by contributing to increases in work activity, job placements, and families moving off welfare more quickly. These officials emphasized that only a small percentage of the cases had been terminated. Nevertheless, they acknowledged that implementing these provisions had been challenging. For example, states had to develop systems to accurately track hours worked to monitor compliance and to correctly and adequately notify recipients of pending termination actions. In addition, states had to provide certain activities and services before they could terminate a family’s benefits. These states experiences with benefit termination provisions under waivers highlight the challenges all states may face in implementing similar provisions of the new welfare reform law"(p4).

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