# Presentation: 751028

## Leaving Welfare in Vermont:  Employment, Recidivism and Use of Other Supportive Programs for 2003 Leavers

- ACF’s 10th Annual Welfare Research and Evaluation Conference
- June 4 – 6, 2007
- Diverse State Approaches Session

## Presenters 

- Leslie Black-Plumeau,
- Black-Plumeau Consulting, LLC
- Robert McIntyre,
- Vermont Department for
- Children and Families

## Presentation Goal 

- To demonstrate how a meaningful, replicable study that addresses central welfare issues can be done with limited resources.

**Notes:**
Many states have already conducted leavers studies, either with surveys, administrative data, or both.  
How many folks here are from a state that has already conducted a leavers study? 

Overview:
Vermont  
Brief description of study 
Our results
Why study was useful
How to replicate & limitations 
Further analyses

## Vermont

- NH

- Poverty rate estimates for VT range from 8 to 11.5% (compared to US rate of about 13%)

- Racially homogenous (no other state has less racial diversity)

- VT’s population is about 622,000.
- Chittenden County contains 24% of the total population.

- High housing costs relative to income for many low-income households.  Tightest rental housing market in the US in 2006.

**Notes:**
All estimates are from the 2005 ACS.  Range for poverty rate includes CPS 3 year rolling average rate of 8 and 11. 5 from ACS. Rental vacancy rate was 3.6 percent (Census).   

20% of Reach Up cases are in Chittenden County. 

## Evolution of Welfare Reform in Vermont 

**1994**:  Began federal waiver program (Welfare Restructuring Program).
**2001**:  Current program  (“Reach Up”) implemented.
**2007**:  Program revisions responding to federal TANF reauthorization, including new diversion and leavers transition programs passed (“Reach First” and “Reach Ahead”).

**Notes:**
MDRC evaluation of WRP. 

## Program Characteristics

- Average caseload size last year – about 4,800 families and 12,000 people.
- 60-month time limit with extension beyond this for families qualifying for hardship exemption.
- Two-parent families may participate
- About 200 participants in Post Secondary Education program (not TANF funded)

**Notes:**
PSE was funded with MOE, now a “solely state funded program.”

## Why a Leavers Study? 

- Caseload was clearly declining
- But we didn’t know how families were faring after leaving the caseload.
- Were they “successful”?

## Why This Leavers Study?

- Administrative data on employment and program usage was readily available.
- Once conducted, easily replicable.
- Not a resource-intense study.
- This data could be used to answer some basic questions about the experiences of families during their first year leaving welfare.

## Outcome Measures

- ASPE guidelines developed in late 1990s for ASPE-funded leavers studies (on ACF website)
- Separate measures for each quarter after the exit month
- Adjusted several of the generic  measures to meet unique state needs

**Notes:**
ASPE outcome measure matrix and guidelines on variables and data sets.  Developed initially for states with ASPE grants for leavers studies. 

## Primary Study Questions

- How many stayed off welfare?
- How successful were they finding employment and how much did they earn?
- To what extent did they use Medicaid and Food Stamps?

**Notes:**
Use of child care benefits would have been included if we had more time / resources. 

## What Did We Find?

**During the year after leaving Reach Up....**
- Two-thirds of the families did not return
- At least three-quarters had some earnings
- At least 10% had annual earnings of at least $20,000
- 3% received no earnings, RU, Food Stamps, or Medicaid assistance (“disconnected” from labor market and assistance)

**Notes:**

10% of all leavers had earnings of $20,000, but percentage is only 6% for single-parent Reach Up leavers (23% for PSE leavers and 20% for 2-parent leavers)

Disconnected families are not making successful transitions off welfare, unless they’re “connected” in another  state. 

## How Much Did They Earn? 

- Note:  Earnings occurred in 2003-4 during the 12 months after leaving.

## How Many Used VT’s Medicaid and Food Stamp Programs? 

## Benchmarks for Interpreting Results 

- Program objectives
- Alternative measures of success:
- “livable wage” thresholds
- FPLs
- Outcomes in other states that conducted similar studies

## How Were Results Used? 

- Prompted a review of how people moved into transitional Medicaid after leaving Reach Up and of the broader package of support services for leavers.
- Demonstrated higher earnings levels, higher employment rate, and lower recidivism rate of participants in Post Secondary Education program (compared to the broader Reach Up program).
- Informed designers of new program for supporting the transition of working leavers (“Reach Ahead”).

**Notes:**
Agency discovered eligibility system did not automatically move people into transitional Medicaid nor were workers trained to do this manually.  
Other support services  (Although not included in the leaver study, the study led to an examination of the level of services provided, and, seeing relatively few, led to policy changes emphasizing the importance of these supports.  This has been an important piece of the redesign of Vermont’s Reach Up program in response to the federal changes in TANF.) 

## Study’s Database Facilitates Additional Analyses

- Enables more accurate estimates of impact of program changes by allowing agency to consider effects associated with leavers as well as the current caseload.
- Currently being used to estimate impact of new transition program for leavers and of changes to income disregard levels.

**Notes:**
Can help estimate costs to agency as well as to consider how high the additional benefit will carry leavers’ incomes.  To a liveable wage?  To the poverty level?   

## Comparisons to Other States

**According to syntheses of prior leavers studies...**
- Recidivism, employment rates, and real mean earnings among Reach Up leavers were very similar to average results among other states.
- Vermont had  fewer disconnected leavers than the average rate among other states (3% vs. 14%).
- Syntheses reviewed:  P. Loprest and G. Acs, Urban Institute, “Final Synthesis Report of Findings from ASPE ‘Leaver’ Grants”, 2001 and “Disconnected Welfare Leavers Face Serious Risks”, 2003.

**Notes:**
Range of results of existing studies ... hard to know how whether comparisons are valuable. Submitted by: Gregory Acs, Pamela Loprest with Tracy Roberts 
The Urban Institute 

## Limitations of State UI Data

**Includes work subject to state’s unemployment compensation laws.  Excludes:  **
- Most self-employment
- Work outside of the state
- Jobs with wages paid “under the table”
- Some farm jobs
- Some railroad jobs

**Notes:**
Outcomes based on UI data (such as employment rates and earnings) should be interpreted as the bottom of the actual range of likely outcomes.  
[Since some leavers probably held these kinds of jobs, states can assume that their leavers had at least as much earnings as reported in the UI data and that some leavers who show no earnings in the UI data may have actually been working. ] 

## Other Limitations of UI Data

- Contains only quarterly earnings amounts.  No data on hours worked, type of employment, or benefits.

**Notes:**
[so we don’t know how much folks were making per hour or which months during the quarter they worked.]

## Other Sources of Administrative Employment Data 

- UI data from neighboring states
- Medicaid and/or food stamps income data
- State new hires registries
- National Directory of New Hires

## Other Potential Sources of Individual Administrative Data 

- child care subsidy data
- vital record data (such as births, prenatal care, birth complications, infant birth weight)
- child welfare/foster care records** **
- drug and alcohol abuse data
- Supplemental Security Income data
- juvenile justice records
- general assistance records
- subsidized housing information
- school records
- *Many of these bullets are from “Tracking Welfare Reform: Designing Follow-up Studies of Recipients Who Leave Welfare” by Jack Tweedie, NCSL.

**Notes:**
Consent and confidentiality issues.. Tracking Welfare Reform: Designing Follow-up Studies of Recipients Who Leave Welfare 
Potential administrative data sources include unemployment insurance wage records; Food Stamp program files; Medicaid eligibility files; new hire registries; vital records, which contain information on births, receipt of prenatal care, complications in birth, and infant birth weight; child welfare/foster care records; drug and alcohol abuse data; Supplemental Security Income and refugee data; juvenile justice records; general assistance records; public housing information; and school records. 

## What Kept Study Costs Low? 

- ASPE leavers study guidelines already developed
- Administrative data was accessible
- Limited support program objectives to those  possible with easily accessible data

**Notes:**
Didn’t try merging in data for other support programs maintained by other agencies. 

## Initial Study Completed in 600 Hours

***Total number of hours******	******	******	******600***
- Consultant (Study leader/analyst)		280
- Agency data programmer 			100
- Agency work group meetings		150
- Agency coordinator			  	  70

**Notes:**
(15 weeks of an FTE)

## Fairly Easy to Replicate in Future Years

**For....**
- New set of cases leaving in a more recent year
- 					*or*
- Same set of leavers but for 2nd year after leaving

## For More Information

- Robert W. McIntyre
- Chief, Planning and Evaluation
- Policy, Planning and Regulation Unit
- Department for Children and Families
- _[Robert.McIntyre@ahs.state.vt.us](mailto:Robert.McIntyre@ahs.state.vt.us)_
- (802) 241-1242Leslie Black-Plumeau
- Black-Plumeau Consulting, LLC
- _[LBlackPlumeau@verizon.net](mailto:LBlackPlumeau@verizon.net)__ _
- (802) 238-7324