Reforming Welfare: Lessons from the WIN Experience

Abstract

shift in national priorities during 1980 toward increased defense spending and a balanced budget had a chilling effect on new human services initiatives and funding levels for existing domestic programs. One of the initiatives relegated to the back burner by the changing priorities was the Carter administration's welfare reform proposal. Welfare reform is a hardy perennial, however. It seems certain to bloom again, particularly since President Reagan, like his predecessor, has long advocated altering welfare policy. During the campaign, candidate Reagan repeatedly asserted that, The greatest social program . . . is a job.' Any welfare reform to emerge during his administration is likely to have a strong emphasis on putting able-bodied welfare recipients to work. This article presents research findings on the existing federal program intended to do just that. program is WIN, the Work Incentive Program, which has been operating since 1967. Understanding how it functions and, particularly, what factors affect its productivity should be important to welfare reform planners and future administrators. WIN is jointly administered by the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services at the federal level and by employment security agencies and welfare departments at the state and local levels. Its objective is to move recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) into productive jobs, thereby increasing their economic self-sufficiency while reducing welfare rolls and costs. Two different kinds of services are provided to meet this objective-social services and employment services. Thus, linkages have been developed between employment and welfare/social service agencies at all levels of program administration-national, regional, state and local. AFDC recipients who are determined to be employable are required to participate in WIN under threat of decreased benefits. only recipients exempted are the aged, the incapacitated, and those who live in remote areas or are needed at home to care for children under six years of age or an ill family member. Those who are exempt from mandatory registration are encouraged to participate voluntarily. emphasis is on finding people regular, unsubsidized jobs in the private sector. WIN has little money for subsidized jobs or training. similarities between WIN and welfare reform proposals currently under discussion are striking. These proposals generally involve similar objectives, mandatory participation requirements, and service strategies much like WIN's. * This article examines the employment-related aspects of welfare reform in light of recent research findings on the implementation of the Work Incentive (WIN) program, the current welfare-employment program. authors contend that nine lessons can be learned from the WIN research that should be applied to the future design and development of welfareemployment programs, whether or not welfare reform legislation is enacted. lessons are summarized as follows: