# XIII. TANF Research and Evaluation

This chapter highlights a number of the Department of Health and Human
Services' (HHS) key research and evaluation initiatives pertaining to
welfare reform and summarizes findings from recent research reports. The
Department's research agenda in this area has two main goals:

-   To contribute to the success of welfare reform by providing timely,
    reliable data to inform policy and program design and management,
    especially at the State and local levels where much of the
    decision-making has taken place.

-   To inform the nation of the effects of policies and programs on
    low-income children, families, and communities, and the nation as a
    whole.

The research undertaken to achieve these goals is done primarily by the
Administration for Children and Families' (ACF) Office of Planning,
Research and Evaluation (OPRE) and the Office of the Assistant Secretary
for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), also in the Department. OPRE and
ASPE carefully coordinate their research agendas with each other and
with other government agencies and private foundations. Many projects
involve collaboration and partnerships.

The National Academy of Sciences convened a Panel on Data and Methods
for Measuring the Effects of Changes in Social Welfare Programs to
provide HHS with unbiased scientific recommendations for studying the
outcomes of recent changes in the welfare system. The panel's
conclusions and recommendations on research questions and populations of
interest, evaluation methods and issues, and data needs and issues were
presented in its 2001 report, Evaluating Welfare Reform in an Era of
Transition. The Academy applauded the Department's broad-based welfare
reform research agenda, while recommending improvements and expansions
in data collection and the development of research questions and
methodology, particularly with respect to evaluating the effects of
welfare reform, i.e., how welfare reform has changed the outcomes for
families and individuals relative to what would have happened in the
absence of reform.

This chapter summarizes recent research and evaluation findings and
provides an overview of additional research and evaluation initiatives
related to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program
undertaken by HHS. The following section highlights results from four
major research and evaluation projects designed to improve understanding
of programs and policies serving low-income families, and the section
after that provides an overview of additional HHS projects in this area.
Major research and evaluation initiatives include a study by RAND
synthesizing the current state of knowledge about the net effects of
TANF, a comprehensive summary of what has been learned to date about
time limits, the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies
(NEWWS, formerly known as the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills
Training program (JOBS) Evaluation), and grants to States and localities
to study welfare reform outcomes.

## Highlights of Major Research and Evaluation Findings

### Consequences of Welfare Reform: A Research Synthesis

To inform public debate on issues pertaining to reauthorization of the
TANF legislation, and to help States improve their TANF programs, ACF
contracted with RAND to synthesize the current state of knowledge
regarding the effects of the TANF legislation and the programs of
individual States. The report considered a range of outcomes, including
TANF caseloads, employment and earnings, use of other government
programs, fertility and marriage, household income and poverty, food
security and housing, and child well-being. The primary focus was on the
net effects of TANF, after taking into account other factors such as the
economy and other policy changes. As does the literature on which it was
based, the synthesis considered both the effects of specific policies,
such as benefit structures, time limits, work requirements, and sanction
policies, as well as the effect of the TANF reforms as a whole. Key
findings are as follows:

-   *The effect of welfare reform on the use of welfare has been well
    studied*. Over a dozen econometric studies have attempted to
    estimate the effects of welfare reform as a whole, and all but a few
    conclude that reform had substantial effects on reducing the
    caseload. Most of the reforms that were introduced in the 1990s had
    positive effects on employment and earnings. Thus, it is likely that
    welfare reform is responsible for a portion of the increase in work
    and earnings among single mothers during the last decade, as nearly
    all of the experimental and econometric evidence suggests. Some
    welfare reform components raise incomes and reduce poverty, although
    this does not occur with all policy components, and there is reason
    to believe that some favorable effects will not persist over time.
    Generous financial work incentives -- high earned income disregards
    inside the welfare system or earnings supplements outside the
    welfare system -- generate the strongest income gains and
    anti-poverty effects.

-   *There is little information available about the effects of welfare
    reform on the use of other government programs or on family
    structure*. Research generally indicates that welfare reform has
    caused part of the recent decline in participation in the Food Stamp
    Program, but it does not explain the mechanisms underlying this.
    Only a few studies analyze the effects of welfare waivers on the use
    of school nutrition programs, and fewer still have considered
    housing subsidies. Existing evidence does not determine whether
    welfare reform caused part of the initial decline in Medicaid
    enrollment that followed the implementation of TANF. Similarly,
    evidence from both experimental and econometric studies is
    insufficient to draw firm conclusions regarding the effects of
    welfare reform on marriage or fertility.

-   *There is evidence of both favorable and unfavorable effects of
    various components of welfare reform on child well-being*. Such
    effects were observed for indicators that capture socio-emotional
    behavior, academic performance, and health. The most favorable
    effects are associated with financial work incentives, most likely
    due to the increase in family income that results from combining
    work and welfare. Even for these programs, there is evidence of
    unfavorable impacts for some subgroups of participants, particularly
    for adolescent children and for younger children of parents who do
    not experience large income gains. Work requirements do not appear
    to have strong impacts on children, although here, too, there is
    evidence of unfavorable impacts for adolescents, especially in
    school performance.

### Welfare Time Limits: State Policies, Implementation, and Effects on Families

ACF contracted with the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation
(MDRC) and the Lewin Group to survey State welfare administrators,
conduct site visits in five States, and synthesize existing research on
time limits. The report provides a comprehensive summary of what has
been learned to date about time limits, including State policies and
their implementation, their effect on employment and welfare receipt,
and the circumstances of families whose welfare cases were closed once
time limits were reached. It also provides the first national summary of
the early experience of individuals reaching the 5-year Federal time
limit. Key findings are as follows:

-   *States have developed widely varying approaches to time limits*.
    This is because States have broad flexibility in designing
    time-limit policies and because the Federal 60-month time limit does
    not apply to State-funded benefits. As a result, States can continue
    to provide TANF or other cash benefits to families, or to the
    children in these families, using State-only funds. Currently, 40
    States have time limits that can result in the termination of
    families' welfare benefits; 17 of those States have limits of less
    than 60 months. However, nearly half of the national welfare
    caseload is in a State that either has no time limit (Michigan and
    Vermont) or a time limit that reduces or modifies benefits when the
    limit is reached (Arizona, California, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, New
    York, Rhode Island, Washington, and Washington, D.C.).

-   *Only a small fraction of those who could have reached a time limit
    have done so.* Nationally, as of December 2001about 231,000 families
    had reached a time limit, of which approximately 54,000 had reached
    the Federal time limit; at least 93,000 families had their welfare
    case closed due to a time limit, and another 38,000 have had their
    benefits reduced. Most of the case closures have been in States that
    have time limits of less than 60 months. In December 2001, families
    began reaching the Federal time limit in fewer than half the States.
    Even in States where families began to reach the 60-month time
    limit, relatively few families had actually reached it, as most
    recipients do not remain on welfare for 60 consecutive months.
    Eighty one percent (44,000) of the families nationwide who have
    reached the Federal time limit reside in New York.

-   *When combined with work requirements and generous earnings
    disregards, time limits increased employment in the period prior to
    reaching the time limit*. While this combination of requirements and
    services did not reduce welfare receipt in this period, some
    evidence suggests that time limits, by themselves, would have
    reduced welfare receipt. Approximately the same number of recipients
    worked immediately after reaching time limits as worked immediately
    prior.

-   *All States allow exemptions (which stop the time-limit clock),
    extensions, or both*. Child-only cases, which now account for about
    one-third of all welfare cases nationwide, are not subject to the
    Federal time limit, and no State has chosen to impose a time limit
    upon them. Disability, caring for a disabled family member and
    domestic violence are other common bases for an exemption. In many
    States, recipients who comply with work requirements but are unable
    to obtain employment can receive extensions, although States define
    and assess compliance in different ways. As a result, some States
    routinely grant extensions to recipients reaching time limits, while
    others close most of these cases.

-   *The circumstances of families who left welfare due to time limits
    are diverse and depend on States' policies*. In some States, most
    recipients whose cases have been closed due to time limits were
    already working while on welfare. In other States, time limit
    leavers are more heterogeneous. Most studies find that time-limit
    leavers do not consistently experience more or fewer hardships than
    those who left welfare for other reasons. Large proportions of
    time-limit leavers continue to receive food stamps and other
    assistance.

### National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies: How Effective Are Different Welfare-to-Work Approaches? Five-Year Adult and Child Impacts for Eleven Programs

ACF and ASPE, with support from the Department of Education, funded The
National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies (NEWWS), a
comprehensive study, with a five-year follow-up period, of the
effectiveness of 11 mandatory welfare-to-work programs, with MDRC and
the Child Trends as evaluation contractors. The study compared the
effects of two strategies to help welfare recipients move toward
self-sufficiency: programs that emphasize short-term job search
assistance and encourage people to find employment quickly (known as
Labor-Force Attachment or LFA), and programs that emphasize basic
education and skill-building activities (known as Human Capital
Development or HCD). The effects of the two strategies were estimated
through the random assignment of individuals to one or more program
groups (with services) or to a control group (who were eligible for
welfare as usual).

The evaluation studied programs in seven locations (Atlanta, Georgia;
Columbus, Ohio; Detroit and Grand Rapids, Michigan; Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma; Portland, Oregon, and Riverside, California). Data were
collected on over 40,000 single parents (mostly mothers) and their
children. The in-depth study of young children in three sites (Atlanta,
Grand Rapids and Riverside) was conducted by Child Trends. Key findings
are as follows:

-   HCD, which is more expensive to administer, did not produce added
    economic benefits for clients. Moreover, LFA moved welfare
    recipients into jobs more quickly than the training approach. The
    LFA approach did not affect parents' financial well-being or that of
    their children any differently than the HCD approach. Overall, there
    were few indications of harm or benefit to the well-being of
    children, but effects varied by the age of the child.

-   The most successful program, implemented in Portland, Oregon, used
    an approach that was strongly employment-focused while emphasizing
    both HCD and LFA. This finding, along with other past research,
    suggests that a "mixed" approach may be most effective.

-   Over a five-year follow-up period, approximately three-quarters of
    single-parent welfare recipients who did not participate in a NEWWS
    program (the control group) nevertheless found jobs, and more than
    half left the welfare rolls. Few of the NEWWS programs improved on
    this already-high rate of finding a job, but nearly all programs
    helped single parents work during more quarters of the follow-up
    period and earn more than they would have in the absence of any
    program. Family income, however, was not affected by the presence or
    absence of a program, as increased earnings were offset by decreased
    receipt of welfare benefits. Moreover, the programs did not show any
    significant effects on such family measures as marriage and
    household composition.

### Grants to States and Localities to Study Welfare Reform Outcomes, with an Emphasis on TANF Applicants and Diversion

In fiscal years 1998 and 1999, ASPE funded ten separate studies that
looked at applicants and/or potential applicants to the TANF program and
included individuals who were diverted from applying for TANF assistance
by receiving other assistance or referrals. ASPE provided technical
assistance to grantees as they determined the cohorts to be studied and
the administrative data measures to be used, and developed surveys
specific to their State or locality. The ten grantees were Arizona,
Florida, Illinois, New York, South Carolina, Texas, Washington,
Milwaukee County in Wisconsin, and two consortia of counties in the Bay
Area of California (Contra Costa and Alameda Counties, and San Mateo,
Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz Counties). Eight of these grantees (all
except New York and Washington) have released final reports detailing
their findings.

Cross-study comparisons have been difficult because there was not a
common definition of "applicant" or "diverted" populations across States
or grantees. Depending on the grantee, "applicants" or "divertees" were
defined as individuals who either: (1) participate in the State or
county's formal diversion program; (2) begin the application process but
fail to complete it; (3) complete the application process and are deemed
eligible for but are not enrolled in TANF; (4) are ineligible for TANF
for non-financial reasons; or (5) receive food stamps and/or Medicaid
and appear to be eligible for TANF but do not receive it. Despite the
differences in the definitions of the study populations among the ASPE
grantees, a number of themes have emerged across these studies:

-   There appears to be a significant dip in earnings immediately prior
    to application to TANF. While this dip and the decision to apply for
    TANF might be related, the drop in the employment rate during this
    period is much less pronounced than the dip in earnings.

-   There is moderate use of food stamps and Medicaid among this
    population, decreasing gradually in the year following the
    application to or diversion from TANF.

-   A significant number of diverted applicants reapply for TANF and
    eventually receive cash assistance in the year following the initial
    diversion.

## Overview of Additional Research and Evaluation Efforts

### Evaluating Welfare Reform

Over the past decade, HHS has made significant investments in research
and evaluation focussed on the implementation and impacts of State
welfare reform initiatives. These have included projects focussed on
reforms carried out to test welfare-to-work strategies under the Job
Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS) program, a variety of
policies to promote work and personal responsibility implemented by
individual States under waiver demonstrations, assessments of reforms
enacted under TANF, and the projects described above.

Prior to the passage of TANF, 43 States and the District of Columbia
obtained waivers of certain program requirements in title IV-A of the
Social Security Act (the Act), as authorized under section 1115 of the
Act. ACF required an evaluation component as a part of each approved
waiver. Continuation of evaluations begun under waivers was permitted
but not required under the TANF statute. Twenty States were funded to
complete ongoing evaluations, either as originally planned or modified.
Only one of these projects (Minnesota) continued to receive funding in
FY 2002, while other states carried out the process of completing
evaluations with prior year funds. During 2001, Arizona, Florida, and
Iowa released interim or final reports under this series of grants.
Through September 2002, Connecticut, Iowa, Maryland, Nebraska, Vermont
and Virginia have released final reports, Montana released an interim
report, and Indiana released a report on the impacts of welfare reform
on children. These reports outline lessons learned regarding the
implementation of welfare reform programs in terms of work requirements,
time limits, and enhanced earnings disregards. Additional State reports
are expected to be released in late 2002 or early 2003 (California,
Indiana, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Texas).

Findings from reports on the waiver evaluations are particularly
relevant to TANF, since these demonstrations first implemented many of
the policies now incorporated under State TANF plans. Of particular note
are findings from the Florida and Connecticut studies, since both States
instituted short time limits for cash assistance and earnings disregards
to promote work. Both States also augmented their evaluations to focus
more directly and consistently on appropriate measures of child health
and well-being. Iowa and Indiana also augmented their evaluations to
capture information on child well-being. Both of the latter states
released reports in 2002 of their findings on child outcomes (Iowa as
part of the final report on their waiver evaluation). Vermont, which
also released the final report of their waiver evaluation this year, had
no time limits on the receipt of cash assistance, but did provide a
demonstration of the potential impacts of financial work incentives.

Findings from Florida are as follows:

-   Over the four-year follow-up period, Florida's *Family Transition
    Program* (FTP) increased employment and earnings, reduced welfare
    receipt, and modestly raised participants' income. The pattern of
    FTP's impacts on employment, welfare receipt, and income shifted
    significantly over the four-year follow-up period. FTP's impact on
    employment emerged early in the follow-up period, peaked in years
    two and three, and then disappeared in year four. In the last few
    months of follow-up, the FTP group was less likely to receive
    welfare than the control group, but no more likely to work, and the
    two groups had about the same total income. Employment and earnings
    gains were concentrated among less disadvantaged sample members, and
    FTP had little or no impact on employment or earnings for more
    disadvantaged groups.

-   FTP had no impact on a range of measures of family structure and
    economic well-being, although, on a few indicators, living
    conditions appeared to be slightly better at the four-year point for
    the FTP group compared to the control group. Levels of material
    hardship were high for both groups. Most of the employed people in
    both the FTP group and the control group worked full time or close
    to full time in jobs that paid low wages and offered few fringe
    benefits.

-   More than three-fourths of the FTP group received benefits for less
    than the 24 or 36 months allowed under their time limit, while
    two-thirds of those who received 24 or 36 months of benefits - one
    sixth of the participants - had their welfare grants canceled due to
    the time limit. The FTP participants who reached the time limit were
    a diverse group, and were not necessarily the most disadvantaged
    participants. The post-welfare experiences of families whose grants
    were canceled varied considerably. Most struggled financially, but
    no more than families who left welfare for other reasons.

-   Overall, FTP had few effects across a range of measures of parenting
    and child well-being for 5- to 12-year-olds. There were a few
    negative impacts on school-related outcomes for adolescents,
    however. Surprisingly, FTP generated some negative effects for
    children in the least disadvantaged families - the subgroup with the
    largest earnings impacts. FTP children spent more time in child care
    than their control group peers, and were more likely to have contact
    with their non-custodial fathers.

In Connecticut's *Jobs First* demonstration, findings are as follows:

-   The majority of the treatment group reached the time limit during
    the study period, but half of these received benefit extensions.
    During the study, about one-third of the treatment group cases, most
    of whom were working, were closed due to the time limit.

-   The program significantly increased employment and earnings, with
    the largest impacts among individuals facing the greatest barriers
    to employment. Income was increased significantly prior to
    individuals reaching the time limit, but these gains disappeared
    after large numbers of cases were terminated upon reaching the time
    limit.

-   Over the follow-up period *Jobs First* did not affect cash
    assistance receipt, since generous income disregards allowed working
    recipients with income below the poverty level to remain on the
    rolls until their time limit expired. However, the *Jobs First*
    group derived more of its income from earnings.

-   The program had no consistent effect on a range of indicators of
    material well-being for either group. During the entire study
    period, absolute levels of hardship (defined as at least one
    material hardship in the past year, such as unmet medical needs)
    remained high for the majority of both the treatment and control
    group cases.

-   *Jobs First* generated some positive effects on behavior among
    elementary school-age children, but no consistent impacts on school
    performance or engagement. Effects on adolescents were mixed, with
    the treatment group doing worse in school than their counterparts,
    but less likely to have been convicted of a crime.

-   During the study, savings from decreased welfare payments did not
    offset government costs.

The Iowa *Family Investment Program (FIP)* combined program changes
designed to ease a family's transition from welfare to work, such as
more generous earnings disregards, with strict requirements that
recipients participate in the development and execution of a social
contract, the Family Investment Agreement (FIA), which details the steps
parents will take to achieve economic self-sufficiency, the financial
assistance and services that the State will provide to facilitate that
process, and the time frame for doing so. Families that opt not to
develop a FIA or fail to follow through with the agreement are placed on
a 6-month Limited Benefit Plan (LBP) followed by the complete loss of
cash assistance for the subsequent 6-month period. Findings from the
evaluation are as follows:

-   Welfare reform resulted in higher rates of participation in the
    employment and training program and higher rates of combining
    employment with the receipt of cash assistance. For cases on
    assistance when Iowa's welfare reform began, it increased the
    earnings of the heads of households in the long run, which was
    accompanied by reductions in FIP and Food Stamp benefits. Welfare
    reform also instilled in FIP participants greater responsibility for
    the well-being of themselves and their families.

-   The findings also indicate significant negative impacts on cases
    that applied for assistance after FIP was implemented. Welfare
    reform raised the rates of participation in FIP, Medicaid, and
    public/subsidized housing, while it reduced household income
    earnings and total income, the latter by \$200 per month. Welfare
    reform had a negative impact on marriage, which may have led to this
    reduction of household income.

-   In addition, FIP also had negative impacts on a number of other
    measures of family and child well-being, such as financial strain,
    doubling up of households, domestic abuse, school engagement of
    children and the proportion of children in foster care.

Indiana\'s welfare reform program included a strong work-first focus,
combined with a 24-month time limit on adults\' receipt of assistance
and a family cap policy. In addition, adults were required to comply
with a number of personal responsibility provisions. Findings on family
and child well-being effects were as follows:

-   Overall, Indiana\'s welfare reform program did not have large
    impacts on elementary school age children (those between 5 and 12
    years old at the time of the survey). There were no statistically
    significant impacts on education or health outcomes. With respect to
    behavioral outcomes, there was only one statistically significant
    impact ‑ an increase in arrest rates among 10 to 12-year-olds; it is
    not clear, however, whether this is a real effect of welfare reform
    or only a chance artifact of multiple significance tests.

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-   Although the survey focused primarily on 5 to 12-year-olds, it did
    include some questions pertaining to adolescents (i.e., those 13 to
    17 years old at the time of the survey). For all but one of the
    small number of outcomes available for adolescents, the study found
    no statistically significant impacts of welfare reform. The
    exception was a small adverse effect on adolescents\' school
    performance. This finding is consistent with other recent studies
    showing some modest adverse effects of welfare reform on
    adolescents.

To achieve its aim of increasing employment and reducing reliance on
welfare, Vermont\'s *Welfare Restructuring Project* *(WRP)* provided
financial incentives to encourage and reward employment, as well as
requiring single-parent welfare recipients to work in a wage-paying job
after 30 months of benefit receipt (after 15 months for two-parent
families). The State helped recipients find work and provided
subsidized, minimum-wage community service positions to those who could
not find regular jobs. Vermont\'s policies differed from the welfare
reform policies in other States and at the Federal level in two major
ways. First, WRP did not have a time limit on welfare receipt and did
not require single-parent recipients to participate in any work-related
activities during their first 30 months on the rolls. Second, when a
recipient failed to comply with the work requirement, the State did not
lower the welfare grant. Instead, it took control of the grant, using
the money to pay the recipient\'s bills, and required the recipient to
attend frequent meetings at the welfare office. Findings from the
evaluation were as follows:

-   WRP increased employment and reduced reliance on cash assistance for
    single-parent families. The WRP group was more likely to work than
    the control group. The WRP group earned an average of \$500 (9
    percent) more per year than the control group and received \$300 (12
    percent) less per year in cash assistance. WRP had few effects for
    two-parent families, who make-up a small percentage of Vermont\'s
    welfare caseload.

-   The program\'s work requirement was needed in order to generate
    impacts. WRP\'s financial incentives alone did not lead to increases
    in employment or income.

-   WRP had little effect on family income, material hardship, or child
    well-being. The WRP group\'s higher earnings were largely offset by
    their lower welfare payments; as a result, average income for the
    WRP group was about the same as average income for the control
    group. However, members of the WRP group derived a greater share of
    their income from earnings and a smaller share from public
    assistance. Because WRP did not raise family income, it is not
    surprising that it also had few effects on hardship. WRP also had
    few effects on child outcomes.

-   WRP saved money for taxpayers. The WRP group received few services
    that were not also available to the control group. Thus, the
    program\'s net cost was low and was more than offset by the public
    assistance savings it generated.

Wisconsin also released a report in 2001 based on a waiver demonstration
that allowed the State to "pass-through" to TANF families the entire
Federal and State share of child support collected rather than some of
the funds collected in order to offset the costs of providing welfare
benefits. The evaluation provided substantial evidence of the expected
direct effects of the child support policy. Findings are as follows:

-   Mothers eligible for a full pass-through received about \$150 to
    \$200 more per year than did those in the control group, and a
    significantly higher percentage of nonresident fathers paid child
    support on behalf of experimental group families than control group
    families.

-   The experimental group experienced significantly higher rates of
    paternity establishment.

-   Evidence was less consistent for secondary effects. For example,
    although child support reduced the need for cash payments, and
    experimental group fathers tended to have less informal earnings,
    there were few differences in mothers' employment or earnings, child
    well-being, and relationships between parents.

ACF and ASPE are also attempting to understand better welfare reform in
urban areas by supporting *The Project on Devolution and Urban Change*,
a multi-disciplinary, longitudinal study of the implementation and
impacts of welfare reform in four large urban areas - Cleveland
(Cuyahoga County), Ohio; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Los Angeles,
California; and Miami, Florida. All of the sites applied work
participation requirements to a larger proportion of the welfare
caseload than they had prior to TANF, and succeeded in engaging a higher
proportion of recipients in welfare-to-work program activities. The most
common work activity was unsubsidized employment. Recent findings are as
follows:

-   The combination of employment and welfare status was the most
    consistent predictor of respondents' health-related outcomes, even
    after controlling for site differences and demographic
    characteristics. Women who were employed at the time of the
    interview were substantially less likely to have physical or mental
    health barriers, or to experience material hardships than those who
    were not working. In addition, children of working women were also
    more likely than children of women not working to be healthy. Yet
    nearly all the women who worked faced one or more challenges, such
    as health problems (theirs or a child's), lack of education, or
    depression. This suggests that these characteristics are not
    absolute barriers to employment, but they reduce the probability of
    stable employment.

-   MDRC surveyed prior welfare recipients in neighborhoods with high
    concentrations of poor and welfare-dependent households. Surveys
    found this to be a disadvantaged population, as respondents and
    their children consistently did poorly on a range of health outcomes
    compared to national comparison samples. Nonetheless, about half of
    the survey respondents were working at the time of the interview,
    and another quarter had worked at some point in the past two years.
    However, most had low-wage jobs with earnings that left their
    families below the poverty level.

-   Welfare status was closely associated with access to health care.
    Welfare leavers, especially those who were not working, had
    significantly greater problems with health care access than current
    recipients. The most important reason for loss of non-welfare
    benefits, including food stamps and Medicaid, was failure to appear
    for TANF eligibility redetermination.

-   The most recent report synthesized data on welfare reform in
    Cuyahoga County from all of the components of the Urban Change
    study: longitudinal administrative data, survey data, an
    implementation study, neighborhood indicators, and an ethnographic
    study. Similar synthesis reports on the other three sites in Urban
    Change (Miami-Dade County, FL; Los Angeles, CA; and Philadelphia,
    PA) will follow over the next year.

### Promoting Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood

ACF and ASPE have developed a multi-pronged approach to increasing
knowledge in this important subject area. In FY 2001, ACF awarded a
contract to Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., to develop a conceptual
framework for interventions that promote positive family functioning
among unwed parents and, for those who wish to marry, offer services to
help them enter and sustain healthy marriages. The contract also
provides for technical assistance to State and local agencies interested
in developing interventions and for process evaluations or case studies.
In late 2002, ACF intends to use the above findings to launch a
large-scale evaluation of demonstrations of alternative strategies to
increase child well-being by helping unwed couples with newborns who
wish to marry, enter into and sustain healthy marriages; increase
positive family functioning for all families; and help new parents
address their life-course objectives. These demonstrations will examine
the opportunities for strengthening family connections and support
earlier in a couple's relationship than in previous demonstrations
conducted under the Parents' Fair Share (PFS) program. Two final reports
on the impact of PFS on paternal involvement and low-income fathers'
employment were released in early FY 2001.

In addition, ASPE funded the Lewin Group to produce an inventory of
State-level policies that support or promote marriage through various
means, including media campaigns, special commissions, marriage and
relationship preparation and education, youth education and development,
divorce laws and procedures, court initiatives, State tax policies,
welfare and other related policies, and specialized programs. The
report, *State Policies to Promote Marriage: A Preliminary Report*, was
released in May 2002. Findings are as follows:

-   All States have undertaken work in at least one of these areas and
    some States have activities underway in multiple areas.

-   More work has been undertaken in some areas than others. For
    example, 33 States provide TANF benefits to two-parent families
    using the same eligibility rules as for single-parent families. Four
    States include marriage or relationship education and skill building
    as part of their home visiting programs for high risk families.

-   Approaches to promoting and strengthening marriage include creating
    incentives for participation in pre-marital education, providing
    marriage education for adults, and using TANF funds for marriage and
    relationship preparation for low-income and other families.

-   Seven States are undertaking improvements in their State-level
    divorce and marriage data in order to better measure outcomes
    relating to strengthening marriage.

-   Other activities include school-based marriage education, marriage
    emphasis in fatherhood programs and in programs for incarcerated
    parents, respite care programs for parents of children with
    disabilities, and relationship strengthening components in
    home-visiting and other mentoring and counseling programs for
    high-risk families.

ASPE also funded a project with the Urban Institute, which began in
September 2000, entitled *The Link Between Marriage and Low-Income
Family Well-Being*. This study will examine the interactions between
family formation status and economic well-being, and the extent to which
marriage is a protective factor against economic hardship. The study is
examining various types of family formation, including single, married
and cohabiting parents, and observe measures of poverty as well as
material hardship. Utilizing various data sources, the project will
produce four reports. The first report, *Marriage as a Protective Factor
Against Economic Hardship* was completed in August 2001 and found that,
overall, marriage reduced the likelihood that parents would experience
poverty or material hardship. The second and third reports*, Married and
Unmarried Parenthood and the Economic Well-Being of Families and The
Relationship Between Marriage and Other Family Structures and the
Material Hardship Experienced by Households with Children*, were
completed in August 2002.

ACF and ASPE also are jointly funding evaluation of the Partners for
Fragile Families demonstrations in nine States in order to document the
effects of interventions on poor, young, unwed parents. ASPE and ACF
also have funded additional analysis of data from the Fragile Families
and Child Well-Being Survey, a longitudinal survey of new unwed parents
beginning at the birth of their child. To build the knowledge base
further, ACF awarded a contract to Abt Associates, Inc., in FY 2001 to
conduct an in-depth review of the literature on the patterns,
determinants, and correlates of marriage and cohabitation to family
formation decisions among low-income populations, including quality and
stability of relationships. Work under the contract will also focus on
knowledge gaps and areas in which further research is most needed.

In FY 2002, ACF expects to award a contract that will provide a
comprehensive examination of a broad spectrum of marriage-related
services, from premarital counseling and assessment and marriage
enrichment services to divorce prevention services. The project will
explore the potential for evaluating such services by identifying
relevant funding streams, examining alternative organizational missions,
and assessing receptivity to evaluation among key stakeholders and
opinion leaders. To address a broader range of issues, ACF will fund a
contract to provide technical assistance, performance measurement, and
community impact assessment for a demonstration initiative on marriage,
fatherhood and family formation. The demonstration will be designed to
develop comprehensive, community-level intervention strategies that
promote and maintain healthy marriages, fatherhood, and family
formation, and that reduce the number of non-marital births.

### Employment Retention and Advancement

Over the last eight years ACF has committed research funds to address
varied issues related to increasing employment among welfare recipients.
ACF's latest major initiative in this area*, The Employment Retention
and Advancement Evaluation* (ERA), builds on earlier experience in order
to test experimentally a new generation of approaches to promoting
employment retention and advancement.

The goal of this multi-year demonstration and evaluation project is to
gain knowledge about how best to help low-income families sustain
attachment to, and advancement in, the labor market. ACF and the
contractor, MDRC, have worked with participating development sites to
fully implement their programs. By the end of 2002, we expect a total of
15 intervention strategies in nine States (California, Illinois,
Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas)
to have begun operations. A first report on the ERA project was released
in October 2002.

All sites are randomly assigning participants to control and
experimental groups, and several important variations on the retention
and advancement themes are being tried:

-   Cleveland is experimenting with a cooperative effort between
    employers and the TANF agency that offers career progression.

-   New York will attempt to enhance employment retention and
    advancement among substance abusers.

-   Texas is offering significant cash incentives to increase
    participation in its post-employment services program.

-   Minnesota is providing enhanced services for participants with acute
    mental health problems.

-   Portland, Oregon is targeting participants who experience repeated
    employment loss and cycle through the welfare system multiple times.

-   South Carolina is aggressively reaching out to former welfare
    recipients who have been off the rolls for at least nine months,
    attempting to locate and work with ex-TANF recipients who may need
    employment-related assistance in order to avoid recidivism.

-   Los Angeles, California is testing a variation of "work first" in
    the form of enhanced job club activities.

### Effective Strategies for Serving the Hard-to-Employ

State and local TANF officials and other service providers have
expressed the need for more information and guidance as they develop
employment-focused strategies to work more effectively with TANF
recipients who face substantial barriers to employment. These include
adults with substance abuse and/or mental health problems, physical or
developmental disabilities, learning disabilities or very low basic
skills, who have experienced domestic violence, or have a general
history of low and intermittent employment. In many instances, agencies
will need new methods and strategies to meet the needs of individuals
facing one or more of these barriers in order for them to enter and
succeed in the labor market.

ASPE, ACF, and the Department of Labor are funding a major evaluation
project that builds on lessons from earlier work and is intended to
increase knowledge about the most effective strategies for helping
hard-to-employ parents find and sustain employment and improve family
and child well-being. The project is a multi-year, multi-site effort
that will begin by identifying agencies and organizations already
working or interested in working with such parents and helping those
agencies design and implement programs that address barriers to
employment by using state-of-the art methods and approaches. The
evaluation will utilize an experimental design to assess program
effectiveness and will document the implementation and operational
lessons from the perspective of program operators, administrators, and
participants.

### Rural Welfare-to-Work Strategies

ACF is investing resources to learn how best to help TANF and other
low-income rural families enter into and sustain employment. This study
will help identify effective rural welfare-to-work strategies,
operational challenges, and solutions that can be used by State and
local TANF agencies and others.

In FY 2000, ACF awarded a contract to Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.,
for an evaluation of rural welfare-to-work strategies employing random
assignment, experimental design. Illinois, Nebraska, and Tennessee have
been selected to participate in the evaluation. The evaluation will
highlight promising models and determine the effectiveness and
cost-benefits of various welfare-to-work strategies in rural areas.

-   The *Illinois Future Steps Program*, implemented in five counties in
    southern Illinois beginning in July 2001, has an intensive
    employment and case management program tailored to people with low
    incomes.

-   The *Building Nebraska Families Program* is an education-based
    developmental program that began in March 2002 and will work with
    participants in 37 rural counties throughout the State. It provides
    one-on-one instruction and assistance in clients' homes focused on
    helping Nebraska's TANF/Employment First clients who have not found
    or sustained employment through regular program activities get
    enhanced services.

-   In the *Tennessee First Wheels Revolving Car Loan Program*,
    beginning in October 2002, current and former TANF Families First
    participants will have the opportunity to apply for an interest-free
    loan to purchase a vehicle needed for transportation to work, so
    that caretakers can become self-sufficient and improve the quality
    of life for their families.

### Addressing the Needs of Other Special Populations

In FY 1999, ACF and ASPE contracted with the Urban Institute to examine
critical issues in the screening and assessment of TANF and/or
Welfare-to-Work recipients who experience barriers to employment, with a
focus on substance abuse, mental health or illness, low basic skills,
physical or developmental disabilities (including learning
disabilities), and domestic violence. The March 2001 report, *Screening
and Assessment in TANF/Welfare-to-Work: Ten Important Questions TANF
Agencies and Their Partners Should Consider*, discusses the important
issues and challenges faced by TANF agencies and administrators as they
develop screening and assessment strategies for identifying TANF
recipients with significant barriers to employment. Three regional
meetings were held in 2000 and 2001 to further discuss these issues, and
site visits to six States and localities were undertaken to describe
local approaches to screening and assessment and service delivery.
Discussion of the site visits is contained in *Screening and Assessment
in TANF/Welfare-to-Work: Local Answers to Difficult Questions*,
published in December 2001.

In order to learn more about the mental health services developed by
State and local welfare offices to address the mental health needs of
welfare recipients, the options for delivering these services, and the
key implementation challenges and lessons learned in this area, ASPE
contracted with Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., to study the
approaches taken in Florida, Oregon, Tennessee, and Utah. The final
report, *Providing Mental Health Services to TANF Recipients: Program
Design Choices and Implementation Challenges in Four States*, identified
key program design elements such as the types of services provided, the
population targeted for services, the range of personal and family
challenges addressed, strategies for identifying clients in need of
assistance, integration of mental health and employment services,
administrative and service delivery structure, and funding. The sites
provided mental health services in a variety of ways, and there was no
evidence that a single model for providing these services is better than
any other. Across program designs, the sites shared many of the same
challenges:

-   Encouraging employment case managers to refer clients to mental
    health services;

-   Integrating mental health services into work activities and
    encouraging client participation;

-   Creating a professional support network for mental health staff and
    maintaining client confidentiality; and

-   Monitoring and tracking client participation in mental health
    services.

### Evaluation of the Welfare-to-Work Grants Program

While the welfare reform law of 1996 heralded a new emphasis on work
first and time limits, policy makers also acknowledged that those most
likely to remain on welfare would be those with the greatest barriers to
employment. Congress created a temporary program, the Welfare-to-Work
(WtW) Grants Program administered by the Department of Labor, to provide
additional resources targeted at getting the hardest-to-serve members of
the TANF population, including the non-custodial parents of children on
TANF, into work. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 authorizing the WtW
grants program also required HHS to evaluate the program's effectiveness
and report findings to Congress. ASPE, the lead for HHS on this project,
has worked closely with the Office of Management and Budget, the
Departments of Labor and Housing and Urban Development, and ACF in
designing and implementing the five-year study which began in August
1998.

The evaluation consists of a description of the implementation status
and structure of the grantees' programs; an enhanced process and
implementation study that describes implementation and operational
realities and examines administrative and survey data for a sample of
WtW program participants, in order to measure changes in their
employment and well-being outcomes over time; and a separate process and
implementation study of Tribal WtW programs. The evaluation also focuses
on sub-populations of particular interest, such as non-custodial
parents. Of the two evaluation reports to Congress required under the
law, one has been completed and the other, a report on participant
outcomes, will be published in 2003. Additional reports will provide
information on program costs and effective program designs. Findings to
date are as follows:

-   *Program Structure and Service Delivery in Eleven Welfare-to-Work
    Grant Programs*: This interim implementation report shows that WtW
    grant programs have been innovative despite initial delays in
    start-up and enrollment; that most WtW services are delivered
    through highly decentralized systems; that most programs serve all
    WtW-eligible individuals, but some focus on particular subgroups,
    such as non-custodial parents or those with particularly difficult
    barriers to work; that activities are primarily work-focused; and
    that most WtW administrative agencies are workforce development
    agencies but often have formal ties with TANF.

-   *Serving Non-custodial Parents: A Descriptive Study of
    Welfare-to-Work Programs*. This study examines 11 WtW grants
    programs with a focus on serving non-custodial parents, and finds
    that such programs tend to be more successful when recruitment
    activities are well-designed, multiple agencies collaborate in
    service provision, a combination of positive inducements and
    pressures for participation are present, and a variety of employment
    support services are made available.

-   *Learning from Tribal Experience: The Evaluation of the Tribal
    Welfare-to-Work Grants Program*. This report describes ways in which
    Tribes are implementing welfare reform and WtW welfare-to-work
    programs, including integration of services, partnerships with State
    TANF agencies, provision of support services such as transportation
    and child care, and responding to low education levels and substance
    abuse on reservations.

-   *The Evaluation of the Tribal Welfare-to-Work Grants Program:
    Initial Implementation Findings.* This report from the Tribal
    component of the evaluation documents the socioeconomic
    circumstances of Tribes, their approaches to implementing WtW and
    welfare reform, the kinds of work support services offered, and the
    ways in which WtW funding can help support child care,
    transportation and economic development for Tribes.

-   *Understanding the Costs of DOL Welfare-to-Work Grants Programs*.
    This report examines the costs of 18 WtW programs in nine in-depth
    evaluation sites to identify the cost structure of these programs
    and the factors that influenced their costs. The costs per
    participant in these programs ranged from \$1,887 to \$6,641,
    reflecting differences in the package of services that participants
    received.

-   *Implementation of the Welfare*-*to-Work Program*. The report
    describes the implementation of the WtW program in 11 sites based on
    information collected through two rounds of site visits in 1999 and
    2001, and management information system data maintained by the
    programs. The programs fell into three general models for delivery
    of services: Enhanced Direct Employment, Developmental/Transitional
    Employment, and Intensive Post-Employment Skills Development.