Implementing Welfare-to-Work: Program Managers’ Identities and Service Delivery in North Carolina

Abstract

Using telephone interviews, we examine the professional identities of welfare-to-work managers in North Carolina counties and explore how their identities correlate with county characteristics and the structuring of services. We find social work and efficiency engineer approaches to be distinct and influential with the street-level bureaucrat often conflicted, caught between helping and policing clients. In our study, conflicted managers often do daily casework on top of their managerial responsibilities. Although social work identities were the most common, efficiency engineer and conflicted identities were associated with more punitive and eligibility-focused routines. Overall, program managers’ identities correspond to how services are structured for clients within the constraints of the federal welfare-to-work program.