Recent Changes in Washington Welfare and Work, Child Care, and Child Welfare Systems

Abstract

Washington has a long history of provid-ing a strong safety net to support low-income families, both those on welfare andthe nonwelfare working poor. Despite aconservative shift in the state legislature inthe early 1990s, the governorship hasremained Democratic and the state’s histo-ry of bipartisan cooperation and supportfor many public programs has continued.Washington also has a long history of wel-fare reform efforts, including a waiverdemonstration—the Family IndependenceProgram (FIP)—that predated the FamilySupport Act of 1988. This program was fol-lowed by the implementation of the JobOpportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) train-ing program and was subsequentlyreplaced by a second waiver-authorizeddemonstration, the Success ThroughEmployment Program (STEP). AlthoughSTEP was a significant departure from ear-lier welfare reform efforts, it was also sig-nificantly different from the reformscontained in the federal PersonalResponsibility and Work OpportunityReconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA).Several of STEP’s key features, includingthe reduction of benefits by 10 percent forfamilies on welfare for more than fouryears and a 14-year lifetime limit on assis-tance, were repealed before they wereimplemented by Washington’s April 1997state welfare reform legislation. This mostrecent round of welfare reform replacedAid to Families with Dependent Childrenwith WorkFirst—Washington’s TemporaryAssistance for Needy Families (TANF) pro-gram. This represented a significant shiftaway from a skills-development approachin moving families from welfare to work toone that embodies a work-first philosophy,as its name suggests.This report begins with a short profileof Washington’s demographic, economic,and political conditions. A brief overviewof the income support and social servicessystems within the state, including high-lights of recent changes, caseload statistics,and organization of services, is discussednext. The following three sections offermore detail on specific programs and ser-vices, providing information on the admin-istrative structure, general service delivery,and important policies affecting each pro-gram and the clients that program serves.Washington’s TANF program is describedfirst, including the state’s work-relatedcomponent for TANF recipients and theoverall workforce development system.Next, the state’s system for providing childcare for both TANF and nonwelfare fami-lies is covered. The third program areadescribed is the child welfare system, withparticular attention paid to the interactionbetween child welfare and welfare reform.The report concludes with a summary ofsome of the key features of the state’s wel-fare reform efforts and its child care sys-tem.For the most part, information present-ed in this report comes from in-personinterviews with relevant frontline programstaff; focus groups with WorkFirst and