Temporary Aid To Needy Families Research Articles

Welfare Reform and Children's Health.

This study investigates the effect of the Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) program on children's health outcomes using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation over the period 1994 to 2005. The TANF policies have been credited with increased employment for single mothers and a dramatic drop in welfare caseload. Our results show that these policies also had a significant effect on various measures of children's medical utilization among low-income families. These health measures include a rating of the child's health status reported by the parents, the number of times that parents consulted a doctor, and the number of nights that the child stayed in a hospital. We compare the overall changes of health status and medical utilization for children with working and nonworking mothers. We find that the child's health status as reported by the parents is affected by the maternal employment status.

The Economic Effects of Bus Transit in Small Cities

This analysis investigates the impact of public transit in counties with small to medium-sized cities. The objectives are to answer: Do counties with bus transit have lower growth in transfer payments such as food stamps, Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF), or higher income growth, employment growth, and population growth? Public transit is commonly viewed as a social service; this analysis explores the economic impact of this public investment. The authors find that relative to counties without bus transit, counties with bus systems have significantly lower unemployment rates, lower growth in family assistance, lower growth in food stamp payments, and higher population and employment growth. Yet, the positive impact on job access, which reduces payments for family assistance and food stamps is tempered by lack of discernable effects on income likely driven by supply-side effects in the labor market.

The Effects of Work‐Conditioned Transfers on Marriage and Child Well‐Being: A Review

Transfer payments to poor families are increasingly conditioned on work. Although the effects of such programmes on employment are fairly well understood, relatively little is known about their effects on marriage or child well-being. We review a few studies that provide such information here. We sketch a theoretical model that draws from the efficient-household literature. The model is consistent with the wide range of effects that we observe and suggests an explanation for some of the observed differences. Our theoretical framework likewise explains the observed variation in the effects of such programmes on children. Social insurance payments increasingly take the form of conditional cash transfers, requiring certain types of behaviour from recipients in order to qualify for aid. In developed countries, the conditions generally take the form of work requirements. The American Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) programme requires most recipients to work at least part-time; benefits from the American Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) are available only to consumers who work; the British Working Tax Credit (WTC) is available only to consumers who work at least 16 hours per week; and the Canadian Self-Sufficiency Programme (SSP), which ran during the 1990s, provided an earnings supplement to welfare recipients who were willing to leave the dole and take a full-time job.

Catholicism, Poverty and the Pursuit of Happiness

ABSTRACT The following article is divided into three substantive sections. In the first section, “ontology, poverty and Catholicism,” I will attempt to lay out the basic parameters of a Catholic approach to the human person and the subsequent implications of that approach for understanding the question of poverty. In the second section, “liberalism, poverty and welfare in the U.S.,” I will juxtapose the Catholic approach with what is arguably the dominate orientation toward the human person and his or her relationship to property and wealth in the United States of America as derived from a certain brand of liberalism. In the third section, “poverty, religion and human rights in the U.S.,” I will try to make the case in the context of the history of the American welfare state and recent developments in the area of welfare reform, that the current consensus and mode of discourse surrounding poverty and welfare in the United States stands in direct opposition to the most fundamental aspects of Christianity in general and the social teachings of Catholicism in particular. More specifically, I will argue that the contemporary approach to poverty and welfare engendered in legislation like Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) and the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) represent at their root a fundamental violation of the most basic of all God-given human rights, namely to give one's self in agapic love to the Other. If that argument is made successfully, the implication regarding the approach to welfare in the United States will be that the public policy that sustains such a violation it is at least partially reflective of what is now called a structure of sin. In turn, serious Christians are then called to confront and work to change its nature in the name of their faith.

Persistence of High Health Care Expenditures among Children in Medicaid

Cross-sectional studies show that a small percentage of children consume a large portion of the health care dollar. However, little is known about the persistence of high health care expenditures among children enrolled in Medicaid health maintenance organizations (HMOs) or in primary care case management (PCCM) programs. This study found substantial expenditure persistence during a 3-year period. Among Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) children in HMOs in the top 10 percent of the expenditure distribution in 2003, 34 percent remained in the top 10 percent in 2004, and 23 percent remained in the top 10 percent in 2005. Similar patterns were observed for TANF children in the PCCM. Expenditure persistence varied based on the enrollees' enabling and need characteristics, providing opportunities to identify children with high health care expenditures who may benefit from care coordination.

Welfare Reform

This paper examines the impact of Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) on a growing constituency that may require welfare assistance: grandparents raising grandchildren. A brief review of the demographics of grandparent caregivers is followed by an exploration of welfare reform legislation, including work requirements and the Healthy Marriage Initiative (HMI). The importance of state-level policies in assisting grandparent-headed households, particularly health care, school enrollment, and housing policies, are also discussed. The paper concludes by offering implications for welfare policies in terms of their impact on intergenerational households headed by grandparents.

Politics and the New American Welfare States

Federal law allows states to create new welfare policies determining who can receive welfare, what types of clients are exempted from new welfare work requirements, and the value of cash benefits. This project tests nine different theoretical explanations of welfare policy to explain why states have reacted differently to this new authority. We test these explanations on Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) policies promulgated between 1997 and 2000. Our findings confirm the strong role of race in TANF politics thatSoss et al. (2001)recently reported, but we also find that other constituent characteristics, and institutions, paternalistic goals, and state resources have a consistent influence on welfare policy. These results indicate that different approaches to welfare are attributable to the unique, and very potent, combination of political characteristics in each state.

Can Welfare Mothers Hack it in College? A Comparison of Achievement between Tanf Recipients and General Population Community College Students

The achievement of a group of undergraduate students enrolled in a pilot program for welfare recipients in the form of TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families) was compared with the achievement of general population students at an urban community college. Grades attained in a basic level, introductory Psychology course were used to measure academic achievement. Additionally, TANF students' rates of academic retention and election to the Dean's list were compared to rates among the general population community college students, over a period of four semesters. Students in the TANF program attained higher grades in the Psychology course, were elected to the Dean's list at higher rates, and retained their enrollments at equal rates to general population students. The findings suggest that, given proper support, TANF recipients can become successful college students. Implications for the current debate around welfare reform, specifically around the issue of allowing secondary education to substitute for TANF work requirements, are discussed.

Regional Transit Program for Welfare to Work in Chicago, Illinois: Three Years Later

The impact of the welfare-to-work (WtW) regional public transportation program on participants in Chicago, Illinois, is reviewed 3 years after an initial study. The regional transportation program provided free transit passes and vanpool services to participants during their first 6 months of employment and training on regional transit options for job developers. WtW participants' travel patterns were noted, social service contractors were interviewed, and Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) clients were examined. In 2000, pass use for WtW participants and regular 30-day pass users was determined to be almost identical because of the strong economy of the late 1990s. Three years later, travel patterns suggested that participants were beginning to find employment farther from home, many in the job-rich O'Hare Airport corridor, and that the costs and benefits of sending low-income workers to distant work locations needed to be assessed. Although providing fare subsidies that allow low-income workers to take advantage of existing infrastructure may be helpful, transportation solutions probably will not be enough to make a meaningful and sustained impact. The regional transportation program illustrates the need for holistic approaches to social policy. The disproportionate level of transit dependency, longer travel times, and significantly higher use of public transit in many of the Chicago communities that have the highest numbers of TANF clients than in the city as a whole point to a serious need for affordable housing near job centers in the Chicago region.

Envisioning Dependency: Changing Media Depictions of Welfare in the 20th Century

Welfare dependency, or the idea that welfare makes the poor “dependent” on the government and incapable of providing for themselves, has dominated discussions about welfare for decades. Our research documents how media depictions of dependency have changed over time. We examine representations of welfare in popular culture by analyzing randomly sampled magazine articles over eight periods from 1929 through 1996. Despite the dominance of dependency depictions, we find that media discourse about welfare also provides significant support for welfare. We analyze how different factors, including racialized and gendered images of welfare recipients, relate to depictions of dependency. We find that concerns about men’s dependency have decreased over the twentieth century, while concerns about women’s dependency have increased exponentially, in part due to increases in unmarried and teen motherhood. In addition, we find that media representations of recipients as African American minorities are associated with the use of dependency rhetoric. Politicians and pundits have branded welfare recipients as irresponsible and unwilling to engage in work unless forced by welfare reform. In the United States, welfare reform has replaced the entitlement program Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF), emphasizing time limits and work requirements

Welfare Reform and Enrollment in Postsecondary Education

Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) has dramatically decreased welfare rolls, but has it reduced the college attendance rate of welfare recipients or limited the college enrollment of those who might have been on welfare without this policy change? The authors examine whether the work-first emphasis of welfare reform has reduced postsecondary education enrollment, principally in community colleges. Second, they consider whether welfare reform has increased enrollment in short-term, noncredit programs at the expense of degree-granting curricula. Third, they assess whether states with more restrictive formal policies regarding higher education have lower enrollment of welfare recipients than those with less restrictive policies. Finally, they examine whether welfare reform has affected the enrollment rates of young single mothers who might have been on welfare in the absence of TANF. They review enrollment data from a variety of sources and present original analyses of data on postsecondary enrollment patterns from multiple national data sets.

Work-First or Work-Only: Welfare Reform, State Policy, and Access to Postsecondary Education

As a result of the 1996 welfare reform—Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF)—the number of welfare recipients enrolled in postsecondary education has decreased dramatically. The new welfare law also gives states significant discretion to support and even promote postsecondary education for low-income adults; consequently, state policies regarding access vary widely. This study uses qualitative data from three states to examine the sources and consequences of state variation in access to postsecondary education for disadvantaged individuals. Our cross-state comparison shows that competing ideas about welfare, work and the role of education in the lives of welfare recipients help structure and shape political debates, and policy outcomes, in the each of the states. Ideas influenced policies via four key channels: the state human service agency; advocacy organizations; the persistence of the “work-first” idea within implementation processes; and the power of policy “signals” to drive state welfare reform.

The Behavioral Effects of Welfare Time Limits

Time limits are among the most fundamental of recent welfare reforms. Whereas welfare benefits were an entitlement under the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), which replaced AFDC with the Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) program, restricts most families to 60 months of federally funded benefits. Although the states are free to extend benefits further using their own funds, almost all have incorporated some sort of time limit into their TANF programs. Time limits may affect welfare receipt in two distinct ways. The most obvious effect is mechanical, reducing welfare use once recipients exhaust their benefits. However, time limits may also reduce welfare receipt before recipients reach the limit. If families are forwardlooking, they may reduce their current welfare use in order to preserve their benefits for the future. The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence on such anticipatory, or behavioral, effects of time limits. I use data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to replicate my earlier estimates based on the Current Population Survey (CPS). I also exploit the SIPP to relax some of the restrictive assumptions that were implicit in my previous work.

Looking Back: Effects of TANF and Employment Status on Well-Being

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of employment and government financial aid (Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) program) status upon well being over time among people receiving financial assistance. The ability to view changes over time in this new post-TANF period enhances the knowledge base by providing further understanding of the mental health challenges faced by current TANF recipients and income wage earners no longer dependent on TANF. Contrasts within TANF status and good/bad-paying job status uncovered similarities and differences within this population. Findings demonstrated significantly higher scores on perceived control and happiness for those employed than those who continued to receive TANF. Those with good paying jobs had significantly lower levels of depression than those making less than $1,000.00 per month.

Self-Perceived Job Skills and Employment Barriers among Non-Drug Using and Chronic Drug Using Welfare-to-Work Participants

This study examined the extent to which self-perceived work-related skills and barriers to employment are associated with current employment status among a sample of recipients of Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF). The degree to which these perceptions differed between chronic drug using and non-using women in the sample was then assessed. The probability of employment was significantly affected by conceptions of self-competencies and barriers faced. Chronic drug use independently further reduced the chances of employment. Policy implications for TANF's mandatory work requirements are discussed in light of these findings.

Regional Transportation Program for Welfare to Work

In its first round of Welfare to Work (WtW) competitive grants, the Department of Labor awarded $3 million to the Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development for a regional public transportation program for the Chicago area. The proposal was submitted on behalf of the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), which operates bus and rail service in the city of Chicago and 38 suburbs, and Pace, which operates the suburban bus service in the region. The service area for the program includes the following counties: Cook, Chicago, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will. The program consists of three components, CTA/Pace 30-day passes, a regional vanpool program, and train-the-trainer workshops in which job developers and caseworkers learn about public transportation options in the region. Program participants are Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) clients who are new to or reentering the workforce. The TANF population, like the general population, is diverse. However, there are common challenges that must be overcome by many of the people who qualify for the regional program. CTA and Pace automated fare collection equipment data were used to examine ridership of WtW passes compared with the ridership of regular 30-day passes.

Family Planning Funding Through Four Federal-State Programs, FY 1997

The maternal and child health (MCH) and the social services block grants have long played an important role in the provision of family planning services in the United States. The extent to which states have incorporated family planning services into the newer federally funded, but state-controlled, programs--Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP)--has yet to be identified. The health and social services agencies in all U.S. states, the District of Columbia and five federal jurisdictions were queried regarding their family planning expenditures and activities through the MCH and social services block grants and the TANF program in FY 1997. In addition, the states' CHIP plans were analyzed following their approval by the federal government. Because of differences in methodology, these findings cannot be compared with those of previous attempts to determine public expenditures for contraceptive services and supplies. In FY 1997, 42 states, the District of Columbia and two federal jurisdictions spent $41 million on family planning through the MCH program. Fifteen states reported spending $27 million through the social services block grant. Most of these jurisdictions indicated that they provide direct patient care services, most frequently contraceptive services and supplies. Indirect services--most often population-based efforts such as outreach and public education--were reported to have been provided more often through the MCH program than through the social services program. MCH block grant funds were more likely to go to local health departments, while social services block grant funds were more likely to be channeled through Planned Parenthood affiliates. Four states reported family planning activities funded under TANF in FY 1997, the first year of the program's operation. Virtually all state plans for the implementation of the CHIP program appear to include coverage of family planning services and supplies for the adolescents covered under the program, even when not specifically required to do so by federal law. Joining two existing--but frequently overlooked--block grants, two new, largely state-controlled programs are poised to become important sources of support for publicly funded family planning services. Now more than ever, supporters of family planning services need to look beyond the traditional sources of support--Title X and Medicaid--as well as beyond the federal level to the states, where important program decisions are increasingly being made.