Job Satisfaction Among TANF Leavers

Using means tests, ANOVA, contingency methods and polytomous logistic regression techniques, I analyze job satisfaction survey data provided by former welfare recipients in Illinois. Mean job satisfaction in the sample is high. Wages, work hours, professional status, having employer sponsored health care and being in good health have significant positive effects on job satisfaction. Contrary to popular assumptions regarding welfare dependency, time on welfare positively affects post-TANF job satisfaction. I discuss implications of these findings in the context of policy debates regarding TANF reauthorization. Keywords: welfare reform, the working poor, job satisfaction ********** The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) and the subsequent implementation of state Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs have drawn attention to the lives of the working poor. Caseloads fell dramatically after welfare reform (Blank, 2001; Moffit, 1999), and many who left the rolls found jobs (Loprest, 1999; U.S. General Accounting Office, 1999). The work experiences of TANF leavers, specifically their incomes and job tenures, have been closely monitored (Acs, Loprest, & Roberts, 2001). Expected to ease the transition from welfare to work, access to health insurance and child care programs have been studied extensively (Currie, & Yelowitz, 2000; Garret, & Holahan, 2000). The impact of parental employment on children's behavior also has received consideration (Duncan, & Chase-Lansdale, 2001). Despite all the attention provided to understanding dimensions of work in the era of welfare reform, a basic issue has been overlooked: Do TANF leavers like their jobs? The answer to this question is important from a policy perspective, as previous congressional debates about work and welfare and current discussions regarding PRWORA reauthorization have proceeded in an atmosphere of competing assumptions regarding the poor. A long-held, popular belief is that poor people are unmotivated and unwilling to meet the demands of the jobs available to them (Lewis, 1959; 1966). The argument as it relates to welfare is that dependency on government assistance primarily results from the reluctance of able-bodied adults to work continuously in the bottom segment of the labor market (Mead, 1986; 1992; Murray, 1984). Corresponding to this viewpoint, the PRWORA welfare reform policy emphasis was focused on eliminating entitlement to assistance, reducing welfare caseloads, enforcing work requirements and promoting self-sufficiency, although a provision to create jobs was notably absent from the legislation (Katz, 2001). While sometimes conceding that welfare dependency is problematic and that reform was in order, some have downplayed the significance of work in terms of poverty reduction, partly because many of the poor have extensive employment histories. Edin and Lein (1997) revealed that before PRWORA many people used cash assistance to complement income earned from employment, a finding that undercut the notion that welfare reform was necessary to promote work and self-sufficiency. Alternatively, liberals stressed the need for a new covenant between welfare recipients and the government, with the former providing work effort in return for job creation, improved support services and tax credits to protect against poverty conditions (Elwood, 1988). Their mantra has been to "make work pay." If lack of personal motivation among the poor is prominent, one would anticipate that dissatisfaction with "bad" jobs partially accounts for the erratic work records observed within the low-income population (Glazer, 1969). In contrast, those emphasizing restricted opportunities contend that the working poor typically take pride in their work efforts and derive personal satisfaction from their jobs, though they may rightfully object to the limited financial returns produced by working (DeParle, 2004, Newman, 1999). …