# How has welfare reform worked out so far? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 14, 2002, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-welfare-reform-worked-out-so-far/132230 "2002-10-14T13:45:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2002, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-welfare-reform-worked-out-so-far/132230/1 "2002-10-14T13:45:35Z")
This topic is way off the current news radar and I was just wondering how welfare reform in it’'s various manifestations actually worked out in practice as it has been implemented so far. Did it help prevent prior abuses and motivate people to get back into the work world or did it deprive needy people of necessary assistance… or both? What’s the real world verdict so far? ---
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2002, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-welfare-reform-worked-out-so-far/132230/2 "2002-10-14T14:16:33Z")
shoot. I wouldn’t know. i have been on it a while and have not received any checks in 4 years. They don’t notice, nor do they even care. Reform? ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2002, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-welfare-reform-worked-out-so-far/132230/3 "2002-10-14T17:48:11Z")
The following is excerpted from the executive summary of “National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies: How Effective Are Different Welfare-to-Work Approaches? Five-Year Adult and Child Impacts for Eleven Programs,” a November 2001 report from HHS and the Department of Education. (Damn unwieldy gummint report titles!) > [@](#): > > [T]he evaluation compares the effects of two alternative pre-employment strategies, for different groups of welfare recipients: programs that emphasize short-term job search assistance and encourage people to find employment quickly [“Labor Force Attachment,” or LFA]; and programs that emphasize longer-term skill-building activities, primarily basic education [“Human Capital Development,” or HCD]. The effects of each approach are estimated from a wealth of data pertaining to over 40,000 single parents (mostly mothers) and their children, and a five-year follow-up period (falling somewhere between 1991 and 1999, depending on the site [Atlanta LFA & HCD, Columbus Integrated HCD & Traditional HCD, Detroit HCD, Grand Rapids LFA & HCD, Oklahoma City HCD, Portland LFA, Riverside LFA & HCD]), using an innovative and rigorous research design based on the random assignment of individuals to one or more program groups (with services) or to a control group (without services). Comparing the programs to the controls: > [@](#): > > [ul] > [li]In the absence of any welfare-to-work program over a five-year follow-up period, approximately three-quarters of single-parent welfare recipients found jobs, and more than half left the welfare rolls. Few of the 11 studied programs improved on this already-high rate of job-finding, but nearly all programs helped single parents work during more quarters of the follow-up and earn more than they would have in the absence of a program. Moreover, all programs decreased welfare receipt and expenditures over the five years.[/li][li]Measured combined income, however, was largely not affected: The programs led to individuals’ replacing welfare and Food Stamp dollars with dollars from earnings and Earned Income Tax Credits (EITCs), but the programs did not increase income above the low levels of the control group.[/li][/ul] Comparing LFA programs and HCD programs: > [@](#): > > [ul] > [li]By rigorously comparing LFA and HCD programs [. . .] it was found that the HCD approach did not produce added economic benefits relative to the LFA approach.[/li][li]Moreover, the LFA approach moved welfare recipients into jobs more quickly than did the HCD approach . . .[/li][li]Finally, the LFA approach was much cheaper to operate than the HCD approach and, at the same time, did not affect sample members’ overall financial well-being or their children’s well-being any differently than the HCD approach.[/li][li]Surprisingly, these findings held true for program enrollees who lacked a high school diploma or a General Education Development (GED) certificate as of study entry–the subgroup of welfare recipients who were expected to derive the greatest benefit from an initial investment in basic education–as well as for those who already possessed these education credentials.[/li][/ul] The Features of the Most Effective Program: > [@](#): > > [ul] > [li]One program – the Portland (Oregon) one – by far outperformed the other 10 programs in terms of employment and earnings gains as well as providing a return on every dollar the government invested in the program [woo hoo! P-town represents!].[/li][li]The Portland employment-focused program, [unlike any of the others], initially assigned some enrollees to a very short-term education or training and others (the majority) to job search. Also, in another departure from the other programs, job search participants in Portland were counseled to wait for a good job, as opposed to taking the first job offered. While other aspects of the Portland program, such as its use of job developers and staff’s experience operating job search programs, were also noteworthy, these distinctive features, along with other past research, suggest that a “mixed” approach – one that blends both employment search and education or training – might be the most effective.[/li][/ul] The Limits of Pre-Employment Strategies: > [@](#): > > Average income levels among control group members over the five-year follow-up period were low. Despite the successes of these programs, no program, not even Portland’s, met the long-range goal of making enrollees substantially better off financially. Most program group members continued to have low incomes from various combinations of earnings, the EITC, welfare, and food stamps. In fact, among individuals who lacked a high school diploma or GED as of study entry, some programs had the five-year result of making them financially worse off. These findings suggest that the challenge of the future is to identify other types of programs or initiatives that can provide welfare recipients with better and more stable jobs, increase their income, and improve the well-being of their children. All emphases added; more (and more precise) details about study design or results available if anyone wants 'em. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2002, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-welfare-reform-worked-out-so-far/132230/4 "2002-10-14T17:55:59Z")
As the excreble Michael Moore’s new film points out, it didn’t work out very well for the single mother who has to ride 80 minutes each way on a special welfare bus everyday to go to a rich mall to work two jobs that still don’t pay enough to meet her rent, forcing her to house her child with a relative while she went to work too early to even get him up or see him off to school, where that same child found a gun, took it to school, and killed a little girl. As the film also pointed out, many people were so desperate as to not want to consider anything other than blaming the little boy for this that they actually wanted to see a six year old, who obviously had no idea what he was doing, prosecuted. Of course, that’s entirely anecdotal, and shouldn’t be used to judge the program as a whole… which seems to be somewhat of a success from the perspective of reducing welfare rolls. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2002, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-welfare-reform-worked-out-so-far/132230/5 "2002-10-14T17:56:07Z")
We’re about to find ouy. The economy is going bad for the first time since the reforms have started. Acid test. Who gets burned? ---
**Author:** ![ResIpsaLoquitor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b3f665/32.png) [@ResIpsaLoquitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ResIpsaLoquitor)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2002, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-welfare-reform-worked-out-so-far/132230/6 "2002-10-14T17:59:14Z")
Bosda’s on the money (no pun). The welfare reserves are significantly smaller since the reform, meaning that they’re seriously strained with an increased number of unemployed people tapping into them. ---
**Author:** ![SuaSponte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SuaSponte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuaSponte)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2002, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-welfare-reform-worked-out-so-far/132230/7 "2002-10-14T18:48:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ResIpsaLoquitor \* > \*\*Bosda’s on the money (no pun). The welfare reserves are significantly smaller since the reform, meaning that they’re seriously strained with an increased number of unemployed people tapping into them. \*\* **Res,** there is no such creature as a “welfare reserve.” Under the old system, AFDC, Food Stamps, and the like were funded out of the general budget. You may be thinking of the Social Security trust fund, but that’s a different thing alltogether - Social Security did not fund welfare. Sua ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2002, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-has-welfare-reform-worked-out-so-far/132230/8 "2002-10-14T23:00:32Z")
I don’t have the time to contribute a lot of substantive thoughts to this thread, but here is a very good link to a whole special issue of The American Prospect on welfare reform that came out this past summer. This gives a fairly comprehensive view of welfare reform from an admittedly liberal perspective: [http://www.prospect.org/issue\_pages/welfare/](http://www.prospect.org/issue_pages/welfare/)