Evaluating Welfare Reform A Framework and Review of Current Work, Interim Report (1999) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
3 ASPE Leaver Studies and Other Current Research on Welfare Reform
3 ASPE Leaver Studies and Other Current Research on Welfare Reform
Pages 50-78
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 50... ...
The second part discusses some conceptual and technical issues raised by the proposed studies, including issues raised during a workshop held with researchers and administrators from the states and counties. Here we also use the principles of good evaluation design reviewed in Chapter 2 to draw lessons for leaver studies.
|
From page 51... ...
The grantees are: Arizona, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, South Carolina, Washington, Wisconsin, Cuyahoga County, Ohio (Cleveland) , Los Angeles County, and a group of counties in Northern California (Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and San Mateo counties the San Mateo county group)
|
From page 52... ...
include: economic well-being (overall economic status, food security, housing security, child support receipt, other sources of support such as support from emergency shelters or support from other family members, and health insurance coverage) ; program participation (reason for leaving TANF, recidivism, reason for returning to TANF, and other assistance program participation such as food stamps or public housing)
|
From page 53... ...
, Missouri, those who apply for TANF and who are participating in Work First, a job placement program, will also be studied. Florida, the San Mateo County group, and South Carolina will study families who started the application process but never finished or who finished the application process but then voluntarily withdrew without receiving any cash assistance.
|
From page 54... ...
Data Sources All the grantees proposed to use administrative data supplemented with survey data for their studies. Most states have proposed using only administrative data to track the first cohort of welfare leavers and to use both administrative data and survey data to track the second cohort.
|
From page 55... ...
Some states proposed using administrative data for all leavers defined in a quarter, while others proposed using administrative data for only a subsample of the leavers in a quarter. In order to obtain information about outcomes not available in administrative records, all the states proposed conducting surveys of a subsample of the leavers, most often a subsample of the second cohort of leavers.
|
From page 56... ...
The studies will also be of generally higher quality and have more cross-state comparability than welfare leaver studies that have been completed to date. At the same time, using the general principles of welfare reform evaluations we outline in Chapter 2, there are several issues raised by the grantees' plans that the panel believes should be addressed for the studies to yield their maximum potential.
|
From page 57... ...
defines a welfare leaver as someone who leaves all assistance programs (both cash and noncash benefits) , while other states define those who leave cash assistance only as leavers, meaning the recipients could still be receiving other benefits.7 In principle, survey data should be capable of standardization across states.
|
From page 58... ...
Monitoring can also help states understand what transitional services former recipients are using, the extent to which they are using them, and what other social programs the recipients use (such as food stamps) , in order to plan future programs and policies and to allocate resources.
|
From page 59... ...
Yet data on welfare recipiency history over longer periods of time are needed to assess changes in caseload composition. It might also be helpful to understand the use of other social programs (such as food stamps, Welfare to Work, Medicaid, and job training programs)
|
From page 60... ...
While estimating the total effect of a program bundle rightly deserves first priority, states should begin thinking of ways in which modifications and incremental reforms could be tested and evaluated as well. TANF Entry Rates A third issue raised by the state grantee studies is the need for an examination of the TANF entry rates of those who apply and, more broadly, of the entire 9Nine states are continuing waiver plans unmodified under PRWORA.
|
From page 61... ...
There is a research community with considerable experience in developing linked administrative data sets that is a potential resource for state grantees. The states face challenges in their surveys as well.
|
From page 62... ...
The survey research community has addressed many of these issues for the last 3 or 4 decades, and a substantial body of knowledge has been accumulated on which the states could capitalize. Much is known about strategies for encouraging response by households, the effects of incentive payments on response rates, statistical methods for adjusting for nonresponse, the accuracy of recall in retrospective questions, and the accuracy of income and welfare receipt reporting (see Andranovich and Riposa, 1993; Fowler, 1993; Groves and Couper, 1998; and Lavarakas, 1993, for guidance)
|
From page 63... ...
B&L and the GAO both restricted their reviews to studies which had adequate response rates in their surveys and other data collection mechanisms, and thus do not cover all leaver studies that have been completed. According to these two reviews, the leaver studies show that over half the former recipients were working at the time the data were collected and employment outcomes were measured, which was usually several months to a year after exit.
|
From page 64... ...
Food stamp usage by former recipients also varied widely. The studies reviewed by the GAO show that between 38 to 60 percent of former recipients received food stamps while the studies reviewed by B&L show that between 31 and 66 percent received food stamps after leaving cash assistance.
|
From page 65... ...
The Indiana study considers leavers at one time, although the leavers could have returned to welfare and subsequently left welfare again by the time the outcomes were measured. The South Carolina studies do not include leavers who return to welfare in the study population, which makes it difficult to compare outcomes with those studies that do include those who return to welfare, since it is likely that those who did not return to cash assistance are doing better than those who did.l4 The range of employment rates for leavers from 53 percent to 88 percentis quite wide across the five studies.
|
From page 66... ...
66 a' a' a' o a' Cq a' a' a' VO to Cq a' Cq o o VO ¢ ED ~ ~.^ ,, in, `; 7 c ~ ~ ~' a ~ · e · O ~ ~ it, ~ e ' ~ ~ ~;~ E; ~ ~ ~ O e -~ ° ~ a ~by, g Id == e i O ,~ ..
|
From page 69... ...
The Indiana study also compared leavers to stayers by past welfare receipt and work experience histories of recipients, but did not compare employment outcomes or any other outcomes of leavers by past welfare receipt or work history characteristics. 16A separate component of the Indiana study did show trends in AFDC caseloads and state unemployment rates for several years before and after the study.
|
From page 70... ...
The brief report of the Indiana study we used to gather information about this study did not show how the response rate of the survey was defined or if responders differed from nonresponders. The Maryland study uses only administrative data, which, as we discussed in Chapter 2, does not cover the entire population of interest, as many welfare leavers may not show up in any administrative data sets.
|
From page 71... ...
External evaluations of child and youth well-being funded by ASPE include projects on abstinence education programs, child welfare, child support enforcement, and child care policies for low-income families. ASPE and the Administration for Children and Families are jointly sponsoring a project, Measurement of the Impacts on Children in Evaluations of State Welfare Reforms, which seeks to improve states' abilities to measure child outcomes for welfare reform evaluations.
|
From page 72... ...
One major internal ASPE project is creating an historical baseline of data on welfare receipt, starting with AFDC and including TANF. Other internal projects include: analyzing administrative data from the Food Stamp Program to learn more about low-income individuals not receiving welfare, assessing the research capabilities of the New Hires Database, matching data from the Social Security Administration with national-level survey data, and working on strategies for ensuring that former welfare recipients and persons diverted from TANF are enrolled in Medicaid when they are eligible.
|
From page 73... ...
A new core SPD questionnaire was developed for the 1998 survey (with the assistance of Child Trends, Inch. This survey included a self-administered adolescent questionnaire and retrospective questions on the core topics of jobs, income, and program participation for all persons over the age of 15.
|
From page 74... ...
The individual-level study includes, for each county, a sample of households that used food stamps, AFDC/TANF, or, possibly, Medicaid at any time between 1992 and 1999 and whose head is under age 65. From this universe, cohorts of AFDC/TANF recipients and nonrecipients will be selected and tracked over time with administrative data from unemployment insurance records and survey data.
|
From page 75... ...
The longitudinal survey will interview families and collect information on adult and family well-being, employment and welfare outcomes, and child outcomes and the home environment, three times over a span of 4 years. Over the study period, information about children of almost all ages will be collected as the children grow into older age ranges.
|
From page 76... ...
The second cohort will be compared to the first to assess how the progress of welfare reform over time affects succeeding cohorts of families. Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study The Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study is a study of parents and newborns being conducted by a team of researchers from Columbia University and Princeton University (see McLanahan and Garfinkel, 1999~.
|
From page 77... ...
In the latter category, only a few have explicitly outlined comparison groups (Urban Change, Three-City Study) , and those studies will need to assess the threats to cohort comparison designs that we have discussed.
|
From page 78... ...
While the cross-state comparability in these 14 studies will be much greater than among the welfare leaver studies conducted previously, thus strengthening their findings as a whole, many improvements in such comparability need to be made. The grantee designs also have thus far not proposed to identify the most important subgroups in the welfare recipient population, namely, long-term and short-term recipients and those with strong and weak work histories.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.