This project will provide quick data on the post-welfare status of Los Angeles County families, and put in place a process to facilitate additional follow-up after the project ends. It will build on an existing welfare reform research project now underway in Cuyahoga County, Los Angeles County, and two other large urban areas: The Project on Devolution and Urban Change, which is being conducted by MDRC. This project focuses on people who leave cash assistance. Cohorts of leaving families will be drawn from the third calendar quarter of 1996 and the third calendar quarter of 1998. Follow-up data on the first cohort would be drawn solely from administrative records, but results would be available quickly, at the beginning of 1999. For the second cohort, administrative data would be supplemented by a mixed-mode survey of a small subsample of individuals. The project will include analysis of up to 10 years of full population administrative data developed for the Urban Change project. This project and the Cuyahoga County project, also by MDRC, will effectively be a two-site study that will allow comparisons while controlling for study design.
Notes
Definition of leavers: all recipients (single parents cases) who left cash assistance for two consecutive months.
