Time is a factor, too. Kaplan said researchers wouldn't know until three years into W-2 whether it is working. A follow-up survey is scheduled for 1999. The Institute for Research on Poverty is comparing state data beginning in 1993 on 8,600 families receiving public assistance to spot trends in exits and re-entries to welfare over the years. The Hudson Institute and Mathematica Policy Research Inc. are interviewing 250 Milwaukee County families diverted from applying for cash assistance, another 250 who applied for the assistance and 250 who left the rolls.
Researchers hope to see how families have responded to changes in welfare policies and systems.
The Center for Self Sufficiency, in Milwaukee, is interviewing 70 women at Milwaukee homeless shelters and following up three months and six months later to see whether their lives have changed. We think we have set in motion the data collection efforts that will begin in 1998 to yield real fruit. Tom Corbett, associate director of the Institute for Research on Poverty, said learning what works in welfare reform is essential for future policy discussions, so that debates are fueled more by facts and less by politics. All rights reserved.