Evaluating Welfare Reform

A Framework and Review of Current Work, Interim Report

Author: Ploeg, Michele Ver; Moffitt, Robert A.
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 9780309066495
eISBN Pdf: 9780309593793
eISBN Epub: 9780309184113
Place of publication: United States
Year of digital publication: 1999
Month: November
Pages: 160
Language: English

Caption

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 fundamentally changed the nation's social welfare system, replacing a federal entitlement program for low-income families, called Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), with state-administered block grants, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. PRWORA furthered a trend started earlier in the decade under so called "waiver" programs-state experiments with different types of AFDC rules-toward devolution of design and control of social welfare programs from the federal government to the states. The legislation imposed several new, major requirements on state use of federal welfare funds but otherwise freed states to reconfigure their programs as they want. The underlying goal of the legislation is to decrease dependence on welfare and increase the self-sufficiency of poor families in the United States.

In summer 1998, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) asked the Committee on National Statistics of the National Research Council to convene a Panel on Data and Methods for Measuring the Effects of Changes in Social Welfare Programs. The panel's overall charge is to study and make recommendations on the best strategies for evaluating the effects of PRWORA and other welfare reforms and to make recommendations on data needs for conducting useful evaluations. This interim report presents the panel's initial conclusions and recommendations. Given the short length of time the panel has been in existence, this report necessarily treats many issues in much less depth than they will be treated in the final report. The report has an immediate short-run goal of providing DHHS-ASPE with recommendations regarding some of its current projects, particularly those recently funded to study "welfare leavers"-former welfare recipients who have left the welfare rolls as part of the recent decline in welfare caseloads.

Evaluating Welfare Reform
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Contents
Executive Summary
- INITIAL CONCLUSIONS
- SHORT-RUN RECOMMENDATIONS
  - Identifying Key Policy Concerns
  - Defining Key Populations
  - Capacity-Building and Cross-State Comparability
  - Documenting State Policies
  - ASPE Leaver Study Grants
1 Introduction
- PROGRAM BACKGROUND
- INITIAL WORK OF THE PANEL
2 Framework, Principles, and Designs for Evaluation
- RESEARCH AND POLICY QUESTIONS AND STUDY OBJECTIVES
  - Evaluation Studies
  - Monitoring and Descriptive Studies
- STUDY POPULATIONS OF INTEREST
  - Studies of Recipients: Caseload Dynamics
  - Implications
- OUTCOMES AND TIME FRAMES
- STUDY METHODOLOGIES
  - Randomized Trials
  - Nonexperimental Studies
    - Pure Before-and-After Designs
    - Pure Cross-Section Designs
    - Combination of Cross-Sectional and Before-and-After Designs
    - Cohort and Repeated Cross-Section Designs
- ESTIMATING THE EFFECT OF REFORM COMPONENTS
- DATA SOURCES
  - Administrative Data
  - Survey Data
  - Linking Administrative and Survey Data
  - Data Providing Descriptions of Programs
- PROCESS EVALUATIONS
- CONCLUSIONS
3 ASPE Leaver Studies and Other Current Research on Welfare Reform
- ASPE-FUNDED LEAVER STUDIES
  - Outcomes
  - Study Populations
  - Study Methods: Definition of Cohorts and Comparison Groups
  - Data Sources
- RESEARCH ISSUES FOR THE ASPE LEAVER STUDIES
  - Cross-Study Comparability
  - Monitoring Versus Evaluation
  - TANF Entry Rates
  - Data Collection and Availability
- OTHER WELFARE LEAVER STUDIES
- OTHER MAJOR WELFARE REFORM PROJECTS
  - Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation
  - Administration for Children and Families
  - Survey of Program Dynamics
  - Urban Institute: Assessing the New Federalism Project
  - Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation: Project on Devolution and Urban Change
  - Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three-City Study
  - Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study
  - Other Studies
  - Assessment
- CONCLUSIONS
4 Recommendations
- BROAD ROLE FOR THE DEPARTMENT
  - Identifying Key Policy Concerns
  - Defining Key Populations
  - Capacity Building
  - Cross-Area Comparability
  - Documenting State Policies
- ASPE LEAVER STUDY GRANTS
References
Appendices
- APPENDIX A Leaver Studies
- APPENDIX B Summary of Welfare Reform Projects
- APPENDIX C Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff