This three-year longitudinal study investigated whether low-wage employment was associated with improved psychological and parenting outcomes in a sample of 178 single mothers who were employed and unemployed current and former welfare recipients both before and subsequent to the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity…

This paper summarizes changes in key elements of welfare policy and in closely related policies on child support enforcement and sex education and family planning programs. Drawing on a conceptual framework that highlights how incentives created by public policy can affect demographic behaviors, the paper concludes that, as Congress intended,…

This book analyzes the responses of five states (Florida, Mississippi, New York, Washington, and Wisconsin) to challenges posed by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 to alter state welfare programs and management systems. Using case studies, the book highlights similarities and differences in the states'…

Colorado's welfare reform legislation significantly departs from the state's traditional emphasis on education and training while further embracing a decentralized administrative structure. The state's welfare system has shifted from an education and training model to a work-first model. This report presents findings from data collected in 1999…

This study investigated the potential effects of welfare reform on children in late childhood through adolescence, examining how poverty status and family welfare receipt interacted with current poverty status and welfare receipt during adolescence to influence various outcomes. The study examined how 1998 outcomes varied for adolescents based on…

Michigan is a leader in state efforts to gain more autonomy over social service programs. Many changes, including those made to the child care and child welfare systems, were part of the governor's blueprint for reform, To Strengthen Michigan Families. This report begins with a profile of Michigan's demographic, economic, and political conditions,…

New Jersey has a history of successfully providing a strong safety net to support low-income families on welfare and the working poor. Despite its emphasis on work and responsibility, it has maintained a high level of support for many public assistance programs. The governor changed the emphasis of New Jersey's welfare program from education and…

Alabama has a long history of providing a modest safety net for low-income families and children. This report examines Alabama's cash assistance, workforce development, child care, and child welfare systems for low-income families with children. Information comes from interviews with managers and front-line workers, focus groups with parents and…

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 places vast new information burdens on state and local governments and the nonprofit and private sectors. Three classes of problems confront program and information managers implementing welfare reform: developing information infrastructure, redesigning applications to…

The number of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) cases has fallen in the past 4 years, and there is disagreement over the cause. Credit has been given to "waiver" programs that resembled Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and to the growing economy. This sort of confusion over program effects is partly a…

In response to increased federal requirements for mandated services under child support reforms, several states have begun privatizing child support enforcement services that were traditionally delivered by public agencies. This report to the U.S. House of Representatives examines: (1) states' rationale for full-service privatization; (2) how the…