Selected Summary Findings in Brief

Rural Welfare to Work Strategies Demonstration Evaluation (Mathematica):

• Child care problems: smaller, dispersed population; longer distances between home, child care, and job sites; fewer choices; more likely to work non-traditional hours; and fewer skilled service providers available.
• Substance abuse: There are virtually no differences in the use of alcohol and illicit drugs 1 among residents of large cities, mid-sized cities, and rural areas.
• Transportation challenges: lack of private vehicle ownership; lack of access to public transportation; and long distances between job sites, child care, and home.
• Microrenterprise businesses: offer low-income rural residents an alternative or a supplement to a salary or wages earned through employment. Along with business training, educational and social support, guidance in accessing capital, and technical assistance, microenterprise offers rural welfare participants an additional means of increasing their income and improving their standard of living and of achieving the long-term goal of attaining economic self-sufficiency.

Review of Current Research (RUPRI, February 2001):

• Rural families have different characteristics than their urban counterparts--the rural poor are more likely to be employed, to be married, and to be non-Hispanic white.
• Rural communities and rural labor markets are also different than the cities, and these differences are likely to influence the effects of PRWORA. For example, the timing and effects of business cycles are likely to differ between rural and urban labor markets. During expansions, urban labor markets are typically tighter, and it is tight labor markets that induce employers to offer amenities to disadvantaged workers. Hence, the 1990s economic expansion that effectively reduced welfare rolls was probably less beneficial to the rural poor.
• Welfare caseloads declined unevenly in rural and urban areas within states in the mid to late 1990s, depending upon the state economy and state welfare policy.
• The decline in dependence on TANF has been more universal, with Food Stamp dependence declining more slowly in rural communities. Even still, there is evidence that a significant number of eligible rural and urban households currently lack access to Food Stamps, perhaps due to PRWORA's policy thrust of limiting welfare receipt.
• Rural welfare "leavers" face mixed employment prospects and receive lower incomes than their urban counterparts. Because many "leavers" are employed in service occupations where earnings are low, a major policy challenge is to make work pay.
• Those remaining on welfare have lower incomes than those that leave the welfare rolls, yet otherwise have similar characteristics. The majority of those that continue to receive welfare, like most that leave welfare, have not graduated from high school, have an average of two children per family, and are female single parents.

Implementing Welfare Reform in Rural Communties (Urban Institute, February 2001):

• Definition of rural: Most data available for research are county-based and use the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) definition of metro and non-metro. The OMB defines counties located inside a metropolitan area as "metropolitan" counties, and counties outside a metropolitan area are considered "non-metropolitan" or "rural." This county-based definition has limitations. Metropolitan counties can include a large "rural" population, and "non-metro" counties can include a large "urban" population. Also, many smaller urban areas are outside of metro areas. Furthermore, this definition does not reflect diversity within the county, especially for counties that cover larger geographic areas.
• Work incentives are somewhat greater in rural areas than urban areas, that single mothers are more likely to work in rural areas, and that welfare reform has had as much of an effect in rural areas as urban areas.
• There is a strong work ethic in rural communities; however, our site visits also captured an appreciation among service providers of the economic difficulties in rural areas that limit job opportunities and earning potential.
• Poverty and low paying jobs are common in rural areas and are not unique to those on public assistance.
• Problems greater in rural areas include limited transportation, economic development, and availability of employment and training services.
• Certain problems we expected to find in rural areas, such as lack of child care and limited supportive services, were not as severe as anticipated.
• We found that state policies were an important factor in determining the availability and location of services (e.g., funding of public transportation, state-funded general assistance, location of welfare and employment service offices). State policies may affect service availability and access to a greater extent in rural areas, with their more dispersed populations and limited local resources, than in urban or suburban areas.