Rural Welfare to Work Strategies Demonstration Evaluation Project

I. INTRODUCTION 1

The current era of welfare reform grows from an evolution in public policy and public sentiment toward the nation’s needy populations. For decades, welfare programs have struggled to balance the moral responsibility of helping those in need with the economic responsibility of encouraging their self-sufficiency. Now, the balance has shifted to a philosophy that strongly emphasizes paid employment, with limited public assistance to help low-income families achieve that end.

THE SETTING

Beginning in the 1960s, federal welfare programs focused on recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC)—primarily women with children—to eliminate barriers to employment and economic self-sufficiency. In 1988, Congress enacted the Family Support Act with the goal of increasing the economic self-sufficiency of families receiving AFDC benefits. The legislation increased levels of child support enforcement and launched a new welfare to work initiative, the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS) program. JOBS targeted long-term AFDC recipients and emphasized education, skills training, job readiness activities, placement, case management, and two or more of the following: group and individual searches, on-the-job training, work supplementation, and community work experience (Gueron and Pauly, 1991).

Even as JOBS programs were implemented nationwide, the number of families receiving AFDC benefits grew by 1.2 million between 1989 and 1993, and single mothers accounted for about half of the growth (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1995c). Nationally, the AFDC caseload averaged 4.98 million per month in 1993 (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1995b), about 14 million people total when recipients’ children are included.

With the enactment of P.L. 104-193, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), the United States instituted a profound shift in providing assistance to those among the nation’s neediest populations, and the president’s commitment to “end welfare as we know it” is being fulfilled. The country’s concept of welfare has shifted from a program that had attained entitlement status to a program that promotes achieving economic self-sufficiency.

The block grant portion of PRWORA—Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)—includes numerous changes from previous welfare initiatives:

After two years of receiving TANF support, most recipients must work.
Lifetime TANF limits of 5 years are imposed on welfare recipients (although states may exempt 20 percent of their caseloads).
States may qualify for bonus payments based on their “high performance” and reduction in out-of-wedlock births.
States may use funds to create community service jobs, provide subsidies, or offer hiring incentives to employers.
Unmarried teenage parents must live with a responsible adult and participate in educational and training activities.

Already welfare reform is being hailed as a success (Harris, 1998). In conjunction with a healthy economy, efforts already begun under Sec. 1115 waivers designed to decrease dependency, the imposition of JOBS sanctions, and the implementation of TANF requirements, the United States has witnessed a significant drop in welfare caseloads. From January 1993 to March 1998, the number of families receiving AFDC/TANF dropped by 35 percent; during that same period, 18 states had the number of recipients receiving public support drop by more than 50 percent (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, n.d.).

Rural welfare populations possess unique circumstances that will affect the states’ ability to achieve the requirements and intent of PRWORA. These situations include the following, which often overlap in producing the challenges that human services agencies face in producing positive outcomes for TANF clients:

geographic dispersion—the distances between home, work opportunities, training sites, and child care can present significant challenges;
rural labor markets—rural employment is more likely to be in low-paying jobs that do not provide families with livable incomes;
low prevalence of ancillary services—in comparison with urban settings, rural areas have less in the way of transportation, child care, and workforce development offerings;
local capacity issues—rural local governments are less likely to have the professional staff to respond to state block grant opportunities, and local professionals may face resource constraints when trying to fashion programs; and
attitude toward public assistance—low-income residents in rural areas face a level of social and self-imposed shame that is far higher than that in the nation’s cities.

The needs and realities of rural welfare to work strategies receive little attention in the vast literature on welfare programs, practices, and politics. In fact, “while there is a great deal of excellent evaluation research being conducted across the nation, the research focusing on rural issues is limited to relatively few projects” (“Thirteen States . . . ,” 1998).

THE RURAL WELFARE TO WORK STRATEGIES PROJECT

The Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation of the Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is sponsoring an initiative to:

encourage states with substantial rural populations who are or would be on welfare to engage in the development and study of better strategies to move more families from welfare to work and to promote sustained employment and job progression. The goal . . . is to increase knowledge through information-sharing and through research to provide sound information about effective approaches in working with rural populations.

To accomplish the objectives and goals of this initiative, ACF invited states to submit proposals for a 17-month planning grant and selected ten states to participate: Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, Vermont, and Washington. Each state is implementing a project that responds to its unique conditions and concerns. Exhibit 1 presents descriptions of the ten states’ welfare programs, and Exhibit 2 presents the states’ proposed projects on rural welfare to work strategies.

ACF has contracted with Macro International and its subcontractor, the Rural Policy Research Institute, to provide:

technical and evaluation assistance to ACF state agency grantees for the purpose of defining, developing, and refining rural welfare to work strategies, expert guidance in the development of appropriate evaluation designs, and assistance in developing demonstration and evaluation study criteria.

This literature synthesis is the first product to emerge from the ACF initiative. To prepare the synthesis, we conducted a literature search to identify both published and unpublished materials. Although there are extensive bodies of work both on rural matters and on welfare-related matters, there is relatively little information about rural welfare issues. This report incorporates available knowledge and, where appropriate, draws inferences from studies about the ways that welfare reform is likely to affect rural welfare to work strategies.

Exhibit 1:
Characteristics of States Participating in ACF's Rural Welfare to Work Strategies Project*
Characteristic	Iowa	Illinois	Louisiana	Maryland	Minnesota	Mississippi	Missouri	New York	Vermont 1	Washington
Total TANF Recipients a
August 1996	85,831	642,644	228,115	194,127	169,744	123,828	222,820	1,143,962	24,331	268,927
September 1998	61,786	449,466	121,772	108,636	141,440	45,009	139,475	862,162	18,804	184,584
Percent Change 96-98	-27%	-30%	-47%	-44%	-17%	-64%	-37%	-25%	-23%	-31%
Time Limits b
Maximum Number of Months to Receive Assistance	60	24 for adults w/child>13; 60 for others 2	lifetime of 60; 24 inter-mittent	lifetime of 60; 24 conditional	60	lifetime of 60; 24 conditional	60	60	none	60
Work Activity Requirement c
Number of Months Allowed Before Work	none	24	24	none (job search)	up to 6 (county option)	24	24	24	15 for 2-parent; 30 for single parent	none
Young Child Exemption	none	child<1 yr	child<1 yr	child<1 yr (limit of 12 months)	child<1 yr. for some who request such (limit of 12 months)	child<1yr	child<1yr	child<3 mo (can be extended to child<1 yr)	child<18 months	child<1 yr (limit of 12 months)
Eligibility Assessment d1
Resource Levels	recipients: $5,000 applicants: $2,000	$3,000	$2,000	$2,000	recipients; $5,000 applicants: $2,000	$2,000	$1,000 $5,000-social contracts	$2,000	$1,000	$1,000; $3,000 in savings
Maximum Assets Allowed from Vehicle Ownership	$3,889 for each adult and working teen	excludes primary car	$10,000	excludes primary care	$7,500	excludes car of highest value	excludes primary car	$4,650	excludes primary car	$5,000
Supplemental Assitance e
Transitional Medical Assistance	12 months	12 months	12 months	12 months	12 months	12 months	2 years	12 months	12 months	12 months
Transitional Child Care	24 months	up to 50% of state median income	sliding scale up to 85% state median income	12 months	12 months	12 months	up to 135% poverty	12 months up to 200% of poverty level for family of 4	12 months	up to 175% of federal poverty level
Up-front Diversion Assistance	local pilot programs	no	no	up to 12 months	up to 4 months	no	no	yes	no	$1,500
Sanctions d2
Self-sufficiency Plan	lose cash grant for 6 months after subsequent non-compliance	lose entire grant; mis-compliance; lose adult portion for 3 months	lose entire grant if repeat offense caused cash loss for 3 months	lose entire grant	lose 10% or 30% of grant	lose entire grant	lose part of grant	lose part of check	vendor payments eventually shut off	non-compliance share of grant or $40% (whichever is more)
Maximum for Non-compliance with Work Activity Requirement	lose cash for 6 months	lose cash for 3 months; mis-compliance: adult portion lost for 3 months	lose cash	lose cash for 30 days after third occurrence	lose part of grant	lose cash for lifetime	cash reduced	cash reduced	vendor payments	non-compliance share of grant or $40% (whichever is more)
Child-Support Non-compliance	reduce cash assistance (28%)	terminate cash assis-tance; mis-compliance: lose adult portion for 3 months	terminate cash assistance	terminate cash assistance	reduce cash assistance	terminate cash assistance	reduce cash assistance	reduce cash assistance	reduce cash assistance (25%)	reduce cash assistance (25%)

* As indicated below, several sources were used to put this exhibit together. In reviewing the information, we observed that some states had practices not fully captured in the cited sources, so we asked each state contact person for the Rural Welfare to Work Strategies project to review information about his or her state. Whenever there were discrepencies between the published information and the information the state contact person provided, we used the latter. (back)

a Source: Office of Public Affairs, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, January 1999. (back)

b Source: National Conference of State Legislatures, Welfare Reform Database. (back)

c Source: TANF Report to Congress, Table 9.1, part a. (back)

d Source: TANF Report To Congress, Part IX, Specific Provisions of State Programs (www.acf.hhs.gov/news/welfare/congress/tanfp9.htm). (back: d1, d2)

e Source: National Governors’ Association Center for Best Practices, Round Two Summary of Selected Elements of State Programs for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, December 3, 1998. (back)

1 Vermont: Information presented refers to Group 3 in the state’s demonstration project. (back)

2 Recipients who work at least 25 hours/week (or however many hours are required by the federal participation rate) do not have those months counted toward the time limit. (back)

Exhibit 2:
Rural Welfare to Work Strategies Project: Information from State Grant Applications
State	Project Approach	Geographic Area of Interest
State	Project Approach	Geographic Area of Interest
IL	Examine programs addressing rural barriers; improve job acquisition, retention, advancement	14 Contiguous counties
IA	Research transportation issues, challenges; test program	1 county
LA	Explore link: welfare to work and economic development	1 parish
MD	Define successful public/ private welfare to work partnerships	1 county
MN	Identify strategies for clients to successfully acquire and retain work	statewide
MS	Examine rural labor market areas and their proximity to metropolitan economies	3 labor market areas
MO	Provide understanding of perceived and actual barriers recipients face	4 counties in bootheel (southeast part of state)
NY	Expand ongoing research on client problems, service use, barriers to self-sufficiency	statewide
VT	Collect, analyze, and share information about current welfare to work initiatives	statewide; emphasis on 3 contiguous northeastern counties
WA	Identify strategies that promote sustained employment and job progression	6 counties

1 The authors extend sincere thanks to the following, who commented on an earlier version of this synthesis: James Dolson, Helen Howerton, Jamie Kendall, and Howard Rolston of the Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Bo Beaulieu, Southern Rural Development Center; Kathleen Miller, University of Missouri; and Ila Schneibel, Minnesota Department of Human Services. (back)

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