States also report a new record percentage of parents on welfare who are working.
However, our work is not finished yet. In 1998, all states and the District of Columbia met the overall work participation rate while 28 of the 41 states subject to the two-parent rate met it. Not all states were subject to the participation rates for 1997 and those that were only had to report for the last quarter of the fiscal year. The percentage of employed recipients reached an all-time high at 23 percent, compared to less than 7 percent in 1992 and 13 percent in 1997. Similarly, the proportion of recipients who were working, including employment, work experience and community service, reached 27 percent, a nearly fourfold increase over the 7 percent recorded in 1992.