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There has been a dramatic decline in welfare caseloads since the early 1990s. The decline has been due in roughly equal measure to increased exits and reduced entries. Some have argued that the most employable welfare recipients have now left the rolls and that the remaining caseload has become harder to employ. But after synthesizing the results of various studies it has been found that most caseload characteristics have not changed substantially. This somewhat counterintuitive result probably reflects the fact that some components of welfare reform, such as sanctions for noncompliance, push the most disadvantaged recipients off the rolls, while other policies, like earnings disregards, induce the more advantaged recipients to stay on the rolls. Most recipients had considerable barriers to employment both before and after welfare reform, although the difficulty of measuring barriers casts some doubt on the accuracy of the indicators used in most studies. Two important changes found across studies are a decrease in long-term welfare receipt and a marked increase in the employment of recipients since the implementation of welfare reform. Those with more barriers are less likely to work than those with fewer barriers, but are more likely to work now than before welfare reform. Finally, a much higher proportion of the caseload now consists of households in which only the children receive welfare. (Source: Brookings Institution)
Selected Summary Findings in Brief
Leavers, Stayers, and Cyclers, An Analysis of the Welfare Caseload (MDRC November 2002):
- Long-term welfare leavers face fewer barriers to employment than
long-term stayers and generally fare better economically. People who
cycle on and off the welfare rolls look more similar to leavers than to
stayers.
- More than one-third of welfare leavers did not work in the months
immediately following their welfare exit. These nonworking leavers
faced more barriers to work than other leavers but had similar incomes.
- People who stayed on welfare while subject to a welfare-to-work program
had similar characteristics and employment barriers as people
who stayed on welfare under the traditional AFDC system.
- People who stayed on welfare while subject to a welfare-to-work program
had more work experience during the follow-up period than people
who stayed under the traditional AFDC system. These differences were found only for the two welfare-to-work programs with the most
generous financial incentives.
Final Synthesis Report of Findings from ASPE Leavers Studies (Urban December 2001):
- Employment and Earnings: No single barrier to work consistently affects a majority of leavers; however, a substantial minority of leavers must overcome child care and health-related problems in order to work.
- Program Participation: About half of leaver families receive food stamps in the first quarter after exit and about about two-thirds receive these benefits at some point in the year after exit.
About three out of five leaver families have an adult enrolled in Medicaid in the first quarter after exit. Medicaid coverage of children is generally higher, ranging from 60 to 90 percent after exit.
- Household Income: Across all leaver families, own earnings are the most important single source of income, and own earnings plus the earnings of other family members together compromise over three-quarters of leaver families' incomes on average.
Average monthly family income for leavers generally hovers near the poverty line.
- Material Hardship: A quarter or more families experience food hardships at some point after exiting TANF such as having enough moneyfor food or having food last until the next paycheck. A similar proportion experience trouble paying rent or utilities.
Although some studies show that leavers experience the same or lower levels of food and housing-related hardship after exit relative to when on TANF, other studies show that hardships increase after exit.
- Child Well-Being: One-tenth to one-quarter of leaver families have children without health insurance.
A substantial percentage of leaver families rely on their parents for child care. Extended family members are by far the most common sources of care for children when parental care is not available.
Post-TANF Food Stamp and Medicaid Receipt(MDRC January 2001):
- Welfare agency staff members, for the most part, followed prescribed policies. As a matter of policy, workers at all sites terminated both the cash and the food stamp benefits of recipients who lost cash assistance because they failed to appear for redetermination of their TANF eligibility. It appears that because of this policy, a significant number of eligible families were dropped from the food stamp rolls.
- Medicaid was handled differently; states had changed their policies and practices, so that failure to attend TANF redetermination no longer resulted in automatic termination of Medicaid benefits.
- Attending redetermination is likely to be especially inconvenient for recipients who are working.
- The evidence strongly suggests another likely explanation, besides inconvenience, for working recipients’ failure to attend redetermination: They may not be aware that nonattendance will result in their loss of food stamp benefits because they may not be aware that they can receive food stamps in the first place.
- Recipients’ lack of awareness of their eligibility for post-TANF benefits is not surprising, because our observations indicate that welfare agency staff members did not routinely inform recipients early on that they might be eligible for food stamps and Medicaid when they left welfare for work.
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