Welfare Receipt Research Articles

Moving to Opportunity in Boston: Early Results of a Randomized Mobility Experiment

This paper examines the short-run impacts of a change in residential neighborhood on the well-being of low-income families, using evidence from a program in which eligibility for a housing voucher was determined by random lottery. We examine the experiences of households at the Boston site of Moving To Opportunity (MTO), a demonstration program in five cities. Families in high poverty public housing projects applied to MTO and were assigned by lottery to one of three groups: Experimental - offered mobility counseling and a Section 8 subsidy valid only in a Census tract with a poverty rate of less than 10 percent; Section 8 Comparison - offered a geographically unrestricted Section 8 subsidy; or Control - offered no new assistance, but continued to be eligible for public housing. Our quantitative analyses of program impacts uses data on 540 families from a baseline survey at program enrollment, a follow-up survey administered 1 to 3.5 years after random assignment, and state administrative data on earnings and welfare receipt. Forty-eight percent of the Experimental group and sixty-two percent of the Section 8 Comparison group moved through the MTO program. One to three years after program entry, families in both treatment groups were more likely to be residing in neighborhoods with low poverty rates and high education levels than were families in the Control group. However, while members of the Experimental group were much more likely to be residing in suburban communities than were those in the Section 8 group, the lower program take-up rate among the Experimental group resulted in more families remaining in the most distressed communities. Households in both treatment groups experienced improvements in multiple measures of well-being relative to the Control group including increased safety, improved health among household heads, and fewer behavior problems among boys. Experimental group children were also less likely to be a victim of a personal crime, to be injured, or to experience an asthma attack. There are no significant impacts of either MTO treatment on the employment, earnings, or welfare receipt of household heads in the first three years after random assignment.

The Economic Benefits of Increased Treatment Duration and Intensity in Residential and Outpatient Substance Abuse Treatment Settings

This study presents estimates of the economic benefits to society from community-based substance abuse treatment. The analysis focused on the impact of length of stay and frequency of counseling on clients' crime-related and health care costs, welfare receipts, and income taxes. The results indicate that the benefits from an additional day of treatment were on average $21 for short-term residential treatment (or 29% the cost of a day of care), $13 for outpatient drug-free treatment (or 94% the cost of a day of care), and $5 for long-term residential treatment (or 9% the cost of a day of care). No benefits were found from additional counseling provided by a client's primary therapist. Withthe exception of short-term residential care, estimated increases in client earnings from longer lengths of stayexceeded the benefits to society. Our estimates do not include benefits realized during treatment or beyond the year after treatment.

How Teen Mothers Are Faring Under Welfare Reform

We examine socioeconomic and psychological well‐being among 88 low‐income minor mothers. Half of the young mothers receive cash welfare assistance and face new policy mandates regarding coresidence status and school attendance. Although most appear to be “complying” with the requirements of the new welfare rules and are satisfied with their current living arrangements, many are faring poorly on dimensions of psychological well‐being and life stress. Receipt of cash welfare is not a significant correlate of school success, parenting stress, or economic strain. Teen coresidence with their mothers does not appear to buffer against the experience of child care problems, depressive symptoms, or domestic violence. We discuss the implications of the results forresearch, policy, and services for teen parent families.

The interaction between single mothers' living arrangements and welfare participation

This article examines the interaction between single mothers' living arrangements and their welfare participation, taking into account the endogeneity embedded in the two decisions. Using data from the 1990 Survey of Income and Program Participation, I estimate a two-stage instrumental variables model and simulate the effects of partial- and full-family benefit reductions on both the distribution of living arrangements and the rate of welfare participation. Tabulations show that 62 percent of single mothers live independently, 16 percent live in the home of their parents, 12 percent cohabit with an unrelated man, and 11 percent share with others. Reductions in combined AFDC and food stamp benefits increase mothers' probability of living with their parents relative to living independently, cohabiting, or sharing with others. Benefit reductions also decrease the probability of welfare receipt. The resulting drop in the participation rate is even more pronounced once the simultaneous effect on the distribution of living arrangements is taken into account. The implication of these findings is that policies aimed at reducing welfare caseloads may have the unanticipated effect of shifting families' living arrangements, potentially confounding the impacts of policy changes in either positive or negative ways. © 2000 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

Rational Poverty or Poor Rationality? The Take-Up of Social Assistance Benefits

In several countries social assistance dependence has been increasing since the 1980s. After surveying the theoretical and empirical take-up literature, this study presents estimates of recent rates of non take-up of social assistance benefits. Once methodological shortcomings of prior estimations are corrected, the results show that take-up has fallen recently and thus cannot explain the rising welfare receipt. Following theoretical predictions, the probability that a rational individual takes up social assistance increases with the expected benefit amount and duration, and falls with application cost and stigma. More than half of all households eligible for transfers under the German social assistance program did not claim their benefits.

Deniable degradation : The finger-imaging of welfare recipients

Using finger-imaging of welfare recipients as an example, the concept of deniable degradation is delineated as a counterpoint to Garfinkel's notion of degradation ceremonies. Deniable degradation involves the use of procedures that can be legitimated in instrumental terms, but that also evoke cultural symbols of humiliation and degradation. Responses of welfare recipients to finger-imaging, drawn from interviews and other qualitative sources, reveal a mixture of themes, ranging from approval of finger-imaging because it enables them to distance themselves from welfare fraud to outrage at a procedure that is viewed as criminalizing welfare receipt.

The interaction between single mothers' living arrangements and welfare participation

This article examines the interaction between single mothers' living arrangements and their welfare participation, taking into account the endogeneity embedded in the two decisions. Using data from the 1990 Survey of Income and Program Participation, I estimate a two-stage instrumental variables model and simulate the effects of partial- and full-family benefit reductions on both the distribution of living arrangements and the rate of welfare participation. Tabulations show that 62 percent of single mothers live independently, 16 percent live in the home of their parents, 12 percent cohabit with an unrelated man, and 11 percent share with others. Reductions in combined AFDC and food stamp benefits increase mothers' probability of living with their parents relative to living independently, cohabiting, or sharing with others. Benefit reductions also decrease the probability of welfare receipt. The resulting drop in the participation rate is even more pronounced once the simultaneous effect on the distribution of living arrangements is taken into account. The implication of these findings is that policies aimed at reducing welfare caseloads may have the unanticipated effect of shifting families' living arrangements, potentially confounding the impacts of policy changes in either positive or negative ways. © 2000 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

Teen Mothers and the Revolving Welfare Door.

Foreword Preface and Acknowledgments 1. Adolescent Mothers and Poverty 2. Data and Methods 3. Patterns of Welfare Receipt 4. Welfare Entry 5. Routes of Welfare Exit 6. Welfare Return 7. Work and Welfare 8. Implications for Welfare Policy Appendix A: Reliability of Data Appendix B: Methods of Analysis Notes Bibliography Index

Welfare Dynamics under Time Limits

Among the most important changes brought about by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 are time limits, which provide consumers with an incentive to conserve their welfare benefits for future use. Among forward‐looking, expected‐utility‐maximizing consumers who face liquidity constraints and earnings uncertainty, economic theory predicts that the incentive to conserve should be strongest among families with the youngest children. We test this prediction using data from Florida’s Family Transition Program, a randomized welfare reform experiment. Our estimates generally exhibit the predicted age dependence, which suggests that time limits affect welfare use before they become binding. Our estimates indicate that, in the absence of other reforms that increased welfare use, FTP’s time limit would have reduced welfare receipt by 16 percent.

Welfare reform and high school dropout patterns for children

This study examines the impact of parental work and continuity of welfare receipt on the drop out rates of high school students in families in poverty. The risk of dropping out from school is examined in light of potential effects on subsequent social and economic well-being. The data indicate that drop out rates have increased over the past decade for children on public assistance, but that consistency in parental employment and transitions off welfare are associated with lower rates of dropping out of high school. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for preventative strategies that might be employed by child welfare and school social workers.

Self-esteem, self-efficacy, and welfare use

Recent changes in welfare programs, including expanded and strictly enforced work and community service requirements, have raised interest in the factors that lead to welfare receipt and that might affect recipients' success in leaving welfare. Most earlier studies focused on welfare recipients' labor market experiences and human capital characteristics, but recent research has begun to examine psychosocial characteristics, such as self-esteem and self-efficacy. The study described in this article investigated whether family background characteristics and self-esteem and self-efficacy measured early in life related to welfare use in young adulthood. Female welfare recipients scored lower on measures of self-esteem and self-efficacy before they entered the welfare system compared with other women. Multivariate analyses showed a robust and substantive association between self-esteem and welfare use but not between self-efficacy and welfare receipt. The finding that low self-esteem is associated with welfare receipt suggests that welfare recipients may find it much harder to comply with the expanded and stricter work or community service mandates than previously thought. Key words: self-efficacy; self-esteem; welfare receipt The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (P.L. 10493) replaced Aid to Families with Dependent children (AFDC) with a capped block grant, temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which mandates a five-year lifetime limit on the receipt of federally funded welfare benefits and requires most welfare mothers to work within two years of entrance into the program. These new policies have raised interest in the factors that lead to welfare receipt and those that might affect recipients' success in leaving welfare. Most studies of such factors focus on welfare recipients' labor market experiences and human capital characteristics (for example, Blank, 1989; Burtless, 1995; Kunz & Born, 1996). However, recent research has examined the psychosocial characteristics of welfare recipients, and some studies link welfare receipt with low self-esteem and self-efficacy (that is, an external locus of control). For example, Nichols-Casebolt (1986) found that among low-income mothers, those who did not receive welfare scored significantly higher on measures of personal efficacy and self-satisfaction. Popkin's (1990) qualitative study of 149 welfare mothers in Chicago found that long-term welfare recipients had a lower sense of personal efficacy than their short-term counterparts. Mothers with a lower sense of personal efficacy were less likely to mention work as an alternative in Popkin's study and were more likely to report thinking of no alternatives when asked to speculate about what they would do if they could not receive welfare. In contrast, mothers with high self-efficacy were more likely to state that they would not need welfare in one year and that there would be no obstacles to finding work in the future. Similarly, in a longitudinal study of 851 welfare recipients, Parker (1994) found that an enhanced level of mastery, or self-efficacy, was related to reduced welfare reliance. Finally, Pavetti, Holcolmb, and Duke (1995) summarized evidence from welfare workers who reported that low self-esteem is extremely prevalent among welfare recipients. Recent political debates about welfare reform reflected some of these research findings. Indeed, a popular justification for time limits and early work requirements was the intention to transform the nature of the welfare system from one that saps recipients' self-esteem and self-efficacy by allowing mothers to receive welfare without work requirements or self-improvement activities to one that fosters self-motivation and independence (Ellwood, 1987; Mead, 1992). Such notions reflect Kane's (1987) theory, which faults the pre-TANF welfare system as instilling a sense oflearned helplessness' in recipients and suggests that the longer women remain on welfare, the less likely they are to believe in their ability (and consequently make efforts) to leave the welfare system. …

Employment and the Use of Welfare Among Male and Female Heads of AFDC Households

Studies have found that single mothers on welfare rarely find fulltime, permanent jobs at adequate wages, but few have examined the impact of gender on the likelihood that welfare recipients will leave welfare and find employment. Using data on 500 primary wage earners in two-parent aid to families with dependent children (AFDC) households, this study compared men's and women's receipt of welfare, employment, and hours of work and types of jobs available to them. Exit from welfare and employment were predicted using such factors as Gender, High School Graduation, Age, Disability, and Number of Children in the Household.

Welfare Receipt and Family Structure: Evaluating the Effects on Children's Reading Achievement

This paper examines the impact of public and private support systems on cognitive outcomes for children born to adolescent mothers. The data for this analysis were drawn from the 1979 to 1988 rounds of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The sample consists of 1382 children wlio were between the ages of six and ten in 1988. The key inputs for this analysis are four indicators of private support: average family income, extensiveness of mother's employment, presence of grandparents and presence of a significant other. Additionally, I use one indicator of public support: average number of survey years that the family received welfare benefits. All five indicators are averaged over the life span of the child. I also control for maternal resources — intellectual skills and self-esteem. Overall, the findings indicate that private support systems are important in shaping children's cognitive achievement but these effects are contingent on the levels of maternal resources available. These results also suggest that total family income is a more important predictor of reading achievement than is a history of welfare receipt. Rather than focusing solely on the potential negative effects of welfare receipt on children, researchers and policy analysts should also be concerned with how maternal resources may interact with available private support systems to affect child development.

TIME LIMITS ON WELFARE RECEIPT

Among the changes in U.S. poverty policy coming about from the end of “welfare as we knew it” has been an imposition of time limits on the receipt of federal welfare funds. Yet little is known about the impact this restriction will have. This paper examines welfare dynamics under Aid to Families with Dependent Children to provide a sense of magnitude of the number of families that would have been at risk of exhausting their eligibility for federal funds in the past. In addition, simulation models are employed to assess whether these results are sensitive to changes in key variables, some of which are within the grasp of policy makers, others of which are not. (JEL 13, J1)

The Effects of Male Violence on Female Employment

This article examines the effects of male violence on the labor force participation of 824 women in a randomly selected household survey in a low-income area of Chicago. In the year prior to interview, 18.0% had been physically assaulted and 11.9% had experienced more severe violence; 40.3% had experienced coercive and threatening behaviors ever in their adult lives, and 28.4% had experienced abuse at the criminal assault level. Analysis indicates that although women who experienced male violence were as likely to be currently employed as those who did not, they were more likely to have been unemployed in the past, to suffer from health problems, and to have higher rates of welfare receipt.

Family Welfare Receipt, Welfare Benefit Levels, and the Schooling and Employment Status of Male Youth

This study adds to the literature on the impact of family welfare receipt on child well-being by considering whether male youth residing in families receiving welfare are less likely to be enrolled in school and/or working. According to the results of the study, there is no evidence that parental welfare receipt negatively impacts the schooling and employment decisions of teenage white males. There is some evidence that parental welfare receipt increases the proportion of teen black males who are neither working nor in school. However, this effect disappears when the analysis focuses on the impact of welfare benefit levels, suggesting that the significant impact of parental welfare receipt for blacks may be a result of unobserved differences in family characteristics. Finally, for the combined sample of blacks and whites, higher benefit levels result in a statistically significant, though small, increase in the proportion of youth who are employed only, and a corresponding reduction in the proportion who combine work and school.

Childhood Conditions and Adult Welfare Use: Examining Neighborhood and Family Factors

Using linked data from the U.S. Census and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, examine how childhood conditions affect the likelihood of welfare use as an adult. I look at a number of theories, including the welfare theory, the social isolation and epidemic theories, and an economic theory. The results indicate that African American women are highly affected by welfare use by their parents and White women are not. African American women are also highly affected by such economic factors as their level of family income and the county unemployment rate during childhood, but their likelihood of using welfare as adults is not affected by childhood neighborhood conditions. White women are highly affected by their neighborhood conditions during childhood Key Words: AFDC, epidemic theory, intergeneration, isolation, neighborhoods, welfare. Growing concern over welfare dependency fueled the push for welfare reform in the form of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. One provision of this act sets a maximum time limit on the use of welfare at 5 years. (States are allowed to set a shorter limit.) The rationale for these time limits is to break the cycle of dependency that the law's authors claimed had grown to crisis proportions. This rhetoric of dependency was animated, in part, by the concern that welfare use was increasingly an intergenerational phenomenon. Conservative critics, in particular, have argued that the stigma of welfare is lessened and that the means of accessing welfare are learned when children grow up in families that receive assistance (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994; Lewis, 1968; Mead, 1986; Murray, 1984). Others also have found an intergenerational effect, independent of other economic and social variables (An, Haveman, & Wolfe, 1993; Gottschalk, 1990). Yet these studies may put too much stress on the family to the exclusion of other factors, particularly, neighborhood conditions. For example, when children live near neighbors who receive government assistance or when children grow up in poor areas where families have fewer economic opportunities than those living in wealthier neighborhoods, children may learn of the welfare system and be less likely to receive the human capital necessary to avoid welfare as adults (Duncan, Hill, & Hoffman, 1988). This may be due to poor schools where they live, to opportunities not afforded to them because of poor parents (which, in part, may be due to a lack of opportunities within poor neighborhoods), and to less stigma attached to the receipt of welfare (Jencks & Mayer, 1990; Vartanian & Gleason, in press; Wilson, 1996). This article looks at how both childhood family conditions and neighborhood conditions determine how much each of these factors affects the likelihood of welfare use when children become adults. Specifically, I address three questions. First, do children who grow up in relatively poor or underprivileged neighborhoods have a higher likelihood of receiving welfare as adults than children who grow up in more prosperous neighborhoods? Second, do neighborhood conditions affect outcomes for only those who live in the poorest or neediest neighborhoods, or do the negative effects of neighborhoods act linearly? Third, when controlling for neighborhood conditions, do parental welfare use, income, and education affect welfare use of children when they become adults? Many studies have examined the question of whether parental welfare use increases the likelihood of welfare use by their children (An et al., 1993; Chambre, 1985; Dolinsky, Caputo, & O'Kane, 1989; Gottschalk, 1990; Gottschalk, McLanahan, & Sandefur, 1994; Hill & Duncan, 1987; Hill & Ponza, 1989; Kimenyi, 1991; McLanahan, 1988; Rank & Cheng, 1995; Solon, Corcoran, Gordon, & Laren, 1988) and generally have found that parental welfare receipt is a good predictor of welfare receipt by children when they become adults. …

Public assistance receipt among immigrants and natives: How the unit of analysis affects research findings

Differences between immigrant and native households in rates of welfare receipt depend on nativity differences in individual-level rates of receipt, in household size, in mean number of recipients in receiving households, and in household nativity composition. We present algebraic derivations of these relationships and use data from the 1990 and 1991 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation to examine empirically the extent to which levels of welfare receipt for immigrants and natives are sensitive to the use of household-, family-, or individual-level units of analysis or presentation. The findings show that nativity differences are statistically significant only at the level of larger units. The results also indicate that if immigrants and natives had identical living arrangements, immigrants' household-level receipt of Supplemental Security Income would significantly exceed natives' receipt even more than it actually does, but the nativity difference in receipt of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) would reverse directions. Moreover, the level of AFDC receipt of immigrant households falls significantly below that of native households when native-born children living in households headed by immigrants are treated as if they were foreign born.

The relationship of welfare receipt to child outcomes

Welfare receipt often is correlated negatively with children's cognitive and behavioral outcomes. Yet, virtually all children in households that receive public assistance are poor, prompting the question of whether poor outcomes are an effect of welfare, a spurious relationship between welfare and child outcomes, or a result of welfare selection. Using the NLSY-CS, these possibilities are examined by controlling for poverty and for selection into welfare. Controlling for child and maternal characteristics accounts for the majority of bivariate associations between welfare and outcomes among Black children. Controlling for poverty does little to change the relationship between welfare and outcomes for Black or White children. Controlling for selection into welfare further reduces the relationship between welfare receipt and outcomes among White children and has little discernible effect among Black children.

When work disappears: new implications for race and urban poverty in the global economy

This study highlights some of the main arguments raised in my latest book, When Work Disappears (1996), and discusses their implications for understanding issues related to race and urban poverty in Britain and other European countries. I emphasize that public understanding of these issues has been hindered by two pernicious effects of racial ideology in America: (1) a tendency among those on both the left and the right to disassociate the high inner-city jobless and welfare receipt rates from the impact of changes in the global economy, and (2) weak support for government programmes to alleviate economic distress in the inner city. I argue for a vision that acknowledges racially distinct problems and the need for certain race-specific remedies, but at the same time emphasizes the importance of transracial solutions to share problems.