DOI: 10.3886/icpsr38060.v1
title: Welfare Restructuring Project Analysis, Vermont, 1994-2001
title: Version 1

description: Vermont's Welfare Restructuring Project (WRP) was one of the earliest statewide welfare reform programs initiated under waivers of federal welfare rules granted before the passage of the 1996 federal welfare reform law. This program, which operated from 1994 to 2001, was designed to increase work and reduce reliance on welfare. WRP required that welfare recipients work in a wage-paying job after they had received cash assistance for a specified number of months (30 months for single-parent families and 15 months for two-parent families). Recipients received help finding jobs and were offered minimum-wage community service jobs if they could not find unsubsidized employment. If a recipient did not comply with the work requirement, the state took control of their grant, used the money to pay their bills, and required them to attend frequent meetings at the welfare office. The WRP program also included a set of financial incentives that were intended to encourage and reward work. WRP served as a model for Vermont's current welfare program, which took effect in mid-2001. This study provides users with most of the data that were used for the final report. Parents who were applying for or receiving cash assistance in Vermont between July 1994 and December 1996 were assigned, at random, to one of three groups: (1) the WRP group, whose members received the financial work incentives and were subject to the work requirement; (2) the WRP Incentives Only group, whose members received the incentives but were not subject to the work requirement; or (3) the Aid to Needy Families with Children (ANFC) group, whose members remained subject to the pre-WRP welfare rules, which included neither the incentives nor the work requirement. Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC) followed all three groups for six years, using computerized records and a survey. Data sources for this study were the Vermont and New Hampshire unemployment insurance earning records, Vermont ANFC (Aid to Needy Children) records, food stamp records, and other administrative records, as well as a survey questionnaire based on the quality of their jobs, wages, education, welfare use, education, job training, children's education, and childcare.
description: Vermont's Welfare Restructuring Project (WRP) was one of the earliest statewide welfare reform programs initiated under waivers of federal welfare rules granted before the passage of the 1996 federal welfare reform law. The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of this project.
description: To study the effects of the Welfare Restructuring Project (WRP), people were assigned at random to three research groups: the WRP group, the WRP incentives only group, and the Aid to Needy Families (ANFC) group. The Aid to Needy Families with Children (ANFC) group, whose members remained subject to the pre-WRP welfare rules, included neither the incentives nor the work requirement. Random assignment ensured that the groups were similar at that point and that any differences that emerged among the groups would be a result of WRP's policies. While random assignment worked for the entire WRP group and the entire ANFC group, some of the results in this report are based on a group of people who responded to the survey. Separate analyses are performed for the single-parent sample and the two-parent (unemployed parent [UP]) sample. MDRC followed all three groups for six years, using computerized records and a survey. Any differences that emerged over time in the groups' outcomes (for example, in their employment or welfare receipt) can reliably be attributed to WRP's policies; such differences are known as impacts or effects.
description: N/A
description: Response Rates: 80%
description: Cash assistance applicants and recipients were randomly assigned to the three research groups throughout Vermont between 1994 and December. The 7,691 people were randomly assigned to the 3 research districts between 1994 and 1995. A randomly selected subset of this group was interviewed 3 and a half years later. These 1,989 individuals make up the 42-Month Client Survey sample. The 1,989 survey respondents provided information regarding their 3,741 children.
description: Datasets: DS1: WRP
description: Welfare applicants who were parents, and their children in the geographic coverage area. Smallest Geographic Unit: County
description: face-to-face interview; web-based survey