This publication provides an in-depth, systematic description of program implementation, operations, outputs, and outcomes of four Tribal TANF programs (the Navajo Nation Program for Self Reliance, Tanana Chiefs Conference, Athabascan Self-Sufficiency Assistance Project, and South Puget Intertribal Planning Agency).  The publication also identifies promising practices and other areas for further study.

Overall, the study found that tribes use the flexibility of Tribal TANF to create diverse programs that reflect their unique circumstances, opportunities, and cultures.  Elements of tribal culture were evident in the program design, in the way program staff and clients interacted, and in the types of activities in which clients were engaged.  The Tribal TANF programs in the study generally focus on the broad goal of self-sufficiency, beyond the narrower goal of employment.(author abstract)

The Office of Family Assistance hosted a Webinar, "Integrating Comprehensive Case Management Strategies into TANF Programs." The Webinar provided an overview of various methods for creating an efficient and integrated approach to providing case management services with TANF populations. This Webinar also offered TANF-serving organizations information on program models and strategies that address intensive case management, service integration, and barriers to service. Program representatives presented information on their program design and implementation, population served, partnerships, challenges to service delivery, and lessons learned.

Nearly a decade has passed since Indiana began planning its approach to welfare reform. In January 1994 Governor Evan Bayh announced an initial plan, called the “Partnership for Personal Responsibility.” The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services approved a revised plan in December 1994 and, in May 1995, Indiana randomly assigned its entire welfare caseload (more than 60,000 families) to one of two groups for purposes of evaluation. The first was subject to the State’s new welfare reform rules and the other to its previous welfare policies. The goals of the program, as specified in 1995, were to increase clients’ employment and decrease their reliance on welfare, to make work more financially rewarding than public assistance, and to encourage responsible parenting.

Since 1995, Indiana’s welfare reform goals and approach have been consistent. Under Governor Frank O’Bannon, the Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA) made policy changes in 1997 and 2000 intended to strengthen welfare reform, but these changes were consistent with the program’s original goals and most of the original policies remain in place. Relatively minor changes were required as a result of enactment of welfare reform at the federal level, in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA).

Despite the consistency over time in goals and approach, both Indiana’s welfare caseload and the State’s economy have fluctuated substantially since 1995. Indiana’s welfare caseload dropped precipitously in the early phase of welfare reform and continued falling until mid-2000, when it began to increase sharply. The economy has gone from very low levels of unemployment in the early years of welfare reform to a current recession and State budget difficulties.

In the face of these changes, and given the time that has passed, it is important to assess Indiana’s approach to welfare reform. The key question is: How has Indiana’s welfare reform program affected participating families, and have those effects changed over time? Especially relevant given the current budget situation is a second, related question: Has the program been cost-effective?

The answer, provided in this report, is that the program has had real effects on participants, increasing employment and decreasing their use of welfare. The size of these effects is generally in the middle range of impacts found for welfare reform programs in other states. Indiana’s program also has been cost-effective, with the savings in welfare payments outweighing the costs of providing additional child care and employment services. The observed impacts, however, have not on average resulted in increased income for families. By that measure, therefore, the program has not made families substantially better off financially. (author abstract)

*managed by OPRE, funded by Indiana Family and Social Services Administration

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 changed cash welfare from a system of income maintenance as an entitlement to low-income families to one in which assistance to families is both limited and temporary, and in which work and economic self-sufficiency are emphasized. The emerging emphasis on work has led many states to significantly narrow the exemptions from welfare-related work requirements. Under prior Federal law, states could opt to adjust the young-child work exemption from its Federally-mandated level, which exempted parents with a child under three years old, to exempt only parents with a child under one year old. In 1998, 22 states used the new flexibility granted under PRWORA to require parents to work if their youngest child was less than one year old. This report examines the state and local policies and practices that encourage and support the activities of welfare-reliant parents of infants who are required to engage in work and school activities.

Juggling work and family responsibilities is a formidable challenge for two-parent families with young children, but it is even harder for single parents, who make up the majority of the welfare caseload. Even more challenging for single parents who work is the task of caring for an infant because infant care is generally less available, more expensive, and harder to assess in terms of quality. As states seek ways to support families with infants in their transition from welfare to work, many questions emerge for researchers and policymakers alike. How successful is the welfare-to-work transition for parents of infants? What special challenges do these parents face in balancing their parenting activities with required work or school activities? What supportive services are critical to continued participation in work and school activities, and ultimately, to a successful transition from welfare to work? Is continuous, reliable, affordable, and good-quality infant care available to these parents? Have states taken the opportunity to link these families with child care that can promote the health and development of infants?

In an effort to answer these questions and, ultimately, to address the issue of providing infant care for single, working, low-income parents, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services contracted with Mathematica Policy Research (MPR) to conduct the Study of Infant Care Under Welfare Reform. The study was designed to provide information about the strategies states and communities are using to help parents of infants make the transition to school or work while promoting the health and development of their infants, and about the policy and program challenges states and communities are facing in this effort. The information is intended both to inform policymakers about the experience of several communities and to build a foundation for future research on the effectiveness of particular programs, policies, and strategies in supporting the transition to work or school while promoting infant health and development.

The study has three phases:

A general information-gathering phase, focusing on the work-, school-, and child care-related policies and programs in 22 states that required parents of infants to work in 1998, when the study was launched.

An in-depth study phase, focusing on welfare and child care program policy and practice in eight communities, and on the experiences of welfare-reliant parents of infants in these sites.

A research design phase, focusing on the evaluation of programs, policies, and strategies designed to support parents’ transitions to work and their infants’ health and development.

This report presents the findings from the first two phases of the study, with an emphasis on the second phase. We end with a summary of research directions, which will be expanded upon in a forthcoming report. (author abstract)

Helping low-income families in rural areas find gainful employment and achieve economic self-sufficiency is an ongoing policy concern. The Rural Welfare-to-Work Strategies demonstration is using rigorous experimental designs to build knowledge about how to help low-income families in rural areas strive toward sustained employment and self-sufficiency. This report examines an employment-focused case management initiative deployed in southern Illinois. Despite a lack of impacts on employment, earnings, and self-sufficiency, the findings imply a need for stronger interventions in rural areas and demonstrate the challenges inherent in designing, implementing, and evaluating programs in these types of settings.(author abstract)

This report summarizes the final impact results for the national Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) project. This project tested, using a random assignment design, the effectiveness of numerous programs intended to promote steady work and career advancement. All the programs targeted current and former welfare recipients and other low-wage workers, most of whom were single mothers. Given that earlier retention and advancement initiatives studied for these groups were largely not effective, ERA sought to examine a variety of programs that states and localities had developed for different populations, to determine whether effective strategies could be identified. In short, nine of the twelve programs examined in this report do not appear to be effective, but three programs increased employment levels, employment stability, and/or earnings, relative to control group levels, after three to four years of follow-up.

Key Findings:

 - Out of the twelve programs included in the report, three ERA programs produced positive economic impacts; nine did not. All three programs increased employment retention and advancement. Increases in employment retention and earnings were largest and most consistent over time in the Texas ERA program in Corpus Christi (one of three sites that operated this program); the Chicago ERA program; and the Riverside County, California, Post-Assistance Self-Sufficiency (PASS) ERA program. These programs increased annual earnings by between 7 percent and 15 percent relative to control group levels. Each of them served a different target group, which suggests that employment retention and advancement programs can work for a range of populations. However, three-fourths of the ERA programs included in this report did not produce gains in targeted outcomes beyond what control group members were able to attain on their own with the existing services and supports available in the ERA sites.

 - Increases in participation beyond control group levels were not consistent or large, which may have made it difficult for the programs to achieve impacts on employment retention and advancement. Engaging individuals in employment and retention services at levels above what they would have done in the absence of the programs was a consistent challenge. In addition, staff had to spend a lot of time and resources on placing unemployed individuals back into jobs, which made it difficult for them to focus on helping those who were already working to keep their jobs or move up.

Before the ERA project began, there was not much evidence about the types of programs that could improve employment retention and advancement outcomes for current or former welfare recipients. The ERA evaluation provides valuable insights about the nature of retention and advancement problems and it underscores a number of key implementation challenges that a program would have to address. In addition, it reveals shortcomings in a range of common approaches now in use, while identifying three distinct approaches that seem promising and worthy of further exploration. (author abstract)

This report represents the first step in the process of identifying initiatives intended to assist TANF recipients living with disabilities to obtain and maintain employment that may be worthy of further study. The outcomes and impacts of such initiatives are of substantial interest to program administrators and policymakers for several reasons. First and foremost is the concern over the well-being of these recipients and their families. Second, these initiatives often require considerable staff effort and intensive services and, therefore, can be costly to implement. Third, states and localities are under growing pressure to meet increased federally mandated work participation rates and recipients living with disabilities are one of many groups that program administrators and policymakers may consider targeting to increase those rates. To assist program administrators and policymakers in deciding how they should spend limited resources, it is critical to know whether the initiatives are, indeed, producing their desired effects. The time may be ripe for rigorously testing the impact of employment initiatives for low-income families living with disabilities and this report presents some potential options for doing so. (author abstract)