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	National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies (NEWWS): Recommendations

Recommendations

National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies: Evaluating Two Welfare-to-Work Program Approaches: Two-Year Findings on the Labor Force Attachment and Human Capital Development Programs in 3 Sites (12/01/97)

"Major programmatic recommendations from the evaluation will be forthcoming as the evaluation progresses. Longer-term follow-up and more cross-site comparisons (building from the random assignment designs within each site) are needed".

National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies: How Well Are They Faring? AFDC Families with Preschool Aged Children in Atlanta at the Outset of the JOBS Evaluation (01/01/95)

“Had the mothers proven to be more uniform in their work attitudes, goals, psychological well-being, skills, and the social support they receive, the JOBS mandate might have more uniform implications for children. However, early results indicating substantial subgroup variation suggest that the JOBS program is likely to elicit varied responses from both mothers and children. Hence, subgroup differences should be a critical component of further analyses. In particular, multiple risk families stand out as a group whose children are especially disadvantaged. On a more positive note, we were also able to identify a set of protective factors, greater numbers of which were associated with more positive child development. The mutual influence of risk and protective factors present at the start of the JOBS program may be an important determinant of both participation in, and impacts of the program.”

“Finally, the data suggest that the JOBS mandate is translating into initial changes in the lives of many AFDC mothers and their children. The effects of these apparent early changes will combine with any later program impacts on maternal education, earnings, and self-sufficiency. Thus, early data suggest that the JOBS mandate has the potential to affect the lives of two generations, and provide strong reason to track the well-being of both generations over time.”

National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies: Impacts on Young Children and Their Families Two Years After Enrollment: Findings from the Child Outcomes Study (06/01/00)

“Given these findings, we must consider it a possibility that the welfare-to-work programs implemented under the 1996 law can have impacts — both favorable and unfavorable — on children's development. It is indeed possible that the intensified obligations and opportunities of the new policy are resulting in stronger or more pervasive impacts on children than were found for the JOBS Program. Furthermore, the variations in impacts suggest the value of research that would examine other policy strategies, for example, child care, health care, and other work supports, to determine how to promote favorable, and avoid unfavorable, child impacts. Thus, it is important to continue to measure the influences of welfare-to-work programs and other policy strategies on both the parent and child generations.”

National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies: Improving Basic Skills: The Effects of Adult Education in Welfare-to-Work Programs (04/01/02)

1. Education-focused interventions for welfare recipients with low basic skills can improve these skills and increase GED receipt. However, improvements in these outcomes may require long spells of participation in adult education programs.

2. For welfare recipients who are within easy reach of earning a GED, pursuit of such a credential is a good program option that produces substantial benefits, increasing welfare recipients’ earnings and their access to postsecondary education or training.

3. Too few adult education students and GED recipients continue on to postsecondary education or training. Links between adult education programs and postsecondary programs could be strengthened, and adult education students should be made aware of the limitations of having just a GED credential as a way to improve one’s employment outcomes.

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