A Comparison of Two Welfare-to-Work Case Management Models

Social Service Review

Volumn 72, Issue 4, 1998, Pages 493-520

  Brock, Thomas ^a   Harknett, Kristen ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0039808130     PISSN: 00377961     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/515776     Document Type: Article

References (38)

1. The all-families participation rate was 25 percent of the caseload in 1997, rising to 50 percent of the caseload in 2002. The two-parent participation rate was 75 percent in 1997, rising to 90 percent in 1999.
2. Mark Greenberg, "Overview of Selected Provisions of the Temporary Assistance for Needv Families Block Grant" (unpublished paper, Washington, D.C.: Center for Law and Social Policy, October 7, 1996).
3. Mary Jo Bane and David T. Ellwood, Welfare Realities: From Rhetoric to Reform (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994), p. 7.
4. The National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies (formerly known as the JOBS Evaluation) is funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, with additional support provided by the U.S. Department of Education. Program funding was provided by the Franklin County Department of Human Services and the Ohio Department of Human Services.
5. Winifred Bell, Contemporary Social Welfare (New York: Macmillan, 1983); Bane and Ellwood (n. 3 above).
6. Irving Piliavin and Alan E. Gross, "The Effects of Separation of Services and Income Maintenance on AFDC Recipients," Social Service Review 51 (September 1977): 389-405.
7. Bell (n. 5 above); Bane and Ellwood (n. 3 above)
8. Gordon Hamilton, "Editor's Page," Social Work 7, no. 1 (January 1962): 128; Bane and Ellwood (n. 3 above).
9. Bane and Ellwood (n. 3 above).
10. Demetra Smith Nightingale and Lynn C. Burbridge, The Status of State Work-Welfare Programs in 1986: Implications for Welfare Reform (Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute 1987).
11. Bell (n. 5 above); Bane and Ellwood (n. 3 above).
12. Mildred Rein, Dilemmas of Welfare Policy: Wht Work Strategies Haven't Worked (New York: Praeger, 1982); Lawrence M. Mead, Beyond Entitlement: The Social Obligations of Citizenship (New York: Free Press, 1986).
13. Mildred Rein, Dilemmas of Welfare Policy: Wht Work Strategies Haven't Worked (New York: Praeger, 1982); Lawrence M. Mead, Beyond Entitlement: The Social Obligations of Citizenship (New York: Free Press, 1986).
14. See, e.g., Judith Gueron and Edward Pauly, From Welfare to Work (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1991); Rein (n. 12 above).
15. Nightingale and Burbridge (n. 10 above).
16. The Family Support Act of 1988, Public Law 100-185.
17. Jan L. Hagen and Irene Lurie, Implementing JOBS: Case Management Strategies (Albany: The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, State University of New York, 1994).
18. American Public Welfare Association, Status Report on JOBS Case Management Practices (Washington, D.C.: American Public Welfare Association, 1992).
19. Two major cross-state, multiyear studies of the implementation and effects of TANF include the Assessing the New Federalism project, conducted by the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., and the Cross-State Study of Time-Limited Welfare, conducted by the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation in New York City. In addition, the U.S. Census Bureau is conducting a Survey of Program Dynamics that will describe state welfare programs and document social, economic, demographic, and family changes that will help or limit the effectiveness of the reforms.
20. Family Support Act of 1988 (n. 15 above). Title II, Sect. 201 (C).
21. Based on discussions with Franklin County Department of Human Services and Ohio Department of Human Services staff, a few categories of AFDC recipients were excluded from the evaluation and were assigned a "nonresearch" status. These included welfare recipients who had attended a JOBS activity in the 60 days prior to random assignment; teenagers eligible for Ohio's Learning, Earning, and Parenting (LEAP) program; welfare recipients who had been randomly assigned to either the program or control groups in an evaluation of LEAP; or welfare recipients who had been assigned to the control group in an evaluation of the Ohio Work Program.
22. Employment growth and unemployment statistics provided by the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
23. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, The JOBS Evaluation: Monthly Participation Rates in Three Sites and Factors Affecting Participation Levels in Welfare-to-Work Programs, prepared by Gayle Hamilton (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1995).
24. AFDC and food stamp grant amounts and AFDC and JOBS caseload data provided by the Ohio Department of Human Services.
25. For an expanded list of sample characteristics at baseline, see Gayle Hamilton and Thomas Brock, The JOBS Evaluation: Early Lessons from Seven Sites (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Education, 1994).
26. In addition to Columbus, the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies drew samples of JOBS-mandatory AFDC applicants and recipients from Atlanta, Ga.; Detroit, Mich.; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Oklahoma City, Okla.; Portland, Oreg.; and Riverside, Calif. See Hamilton and Brock (n. 24 above).
27. For more on the human capital development philosophy and practices in other JOBS evaluation sites, see Hamilton and Brock (n. 24 above); U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Education, The National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies: Two-Year Findings on the Labor Force Attachment and Human Capital Development Programs in Three Sites, prepared by Gayle Hamilton, Thomas Brock, Mary Farrell, Daniel Friedlander, and Kristen Harknett, Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Education, December 1997).
28. The sanction for noncompliance was removal of the JOBS-mandatory client from the AFDC grant. For example, if an AFDC case consisted of a JOBS-mandatory parent and two children, the AFDC grant would be reduced to cover only the two children. The first time a client was noncompliant, the sanction would remain in effect until he or she participated as required. The second time a client was noncompliant, the sanction would remain in effect for a minimum of 3 months. The third time a client was noncompliant, the sanction would remain in effect for a minimum of 6 months.
29. Hagen and Lurie (n. 16 above); Hamilton and Brock (n. 24 above).
30. Although case managers' ability to perform their duties is diminished if their caseloads are too large, the point at which a caseload becomes unmanageable is not known. Conversely, it is not clear that reductions in caseload size lead to a more effective program. An experiment in a Riverside, Calif., JOBS program examined program effects of reducing JOBS caseloads within a traditional case management structure. Throughout the study, caseloads of an "enhanced" group were kept at about one-half the size of caseloads of a "regular" group. (The ratio was 43 to 77 at the beginning of the study, and 63 to 124 at the end of the evaluation.) Both the enhanced and regular case management groups experienced significant increases in earnings and significant reductions in AFDC payments over a control group, but the enhanced group did not outperform the regular group. In fact, the earnings effects were somewhat larger for the regular group than for the enhanced group. The AFDC reductions started out larger for the enhanced group but did not continue into later years. See James Riccio, Daniel Friedlander, and Stephen Freedman, GAIN: Benefits, Costs, and Three-Year Impacts of a Welfare-to-Wark Program (New York: Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, 1994).
31. Initially, 225 traditional cases were randomly selected for review, but seven cases had to be dropped because of missing documentation or because they had become employed by the county and their case files were marked confidential.
32. For example, employment and earnings gains first appeared in year 4 in the JOBS program in Tulare County, Calif., cited in an earlier MDRC evaluation for its particular emphasis on education and training. See Winston Lin, Stephen Freedman, and Daniel Friedlander, "GAIN: 4.5-Year Impacts on Employment, Earnings, and AFDC Receipt" (memorandum prepared for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, New York, Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, 1995); Riccio et al. (n. 29 above).
33. The contribution of different factors to the year 2 earnings effects can be estimated from the "percent change" in the percentage ever employed (3.5), quarters employed (8.6), and earnings (15.2) in year 2. The percent change in quarters employed encompasses increases in the percentage of those who were ever employed and in the duration of employment for those program group members who worked. In this example, less than one-half (approximately) of the effect on quarters employed resulted from increases in the percentage ever employed (3.5/8.6), and more than one-half resulted from more quarters of employment for those who worked. Increased employment (i.e., increases in the percentage ever employed and the quarters employed for those who worked) accounts for more than one-half (8.6/15.2) of the year 2 earnings effect. The remainder of the effect results from increased earnings per quarter employed.
34. The percentage of the AFDC savings attributable to fewer months of AFDC receipt can be estimated using the "percent change" in months on AFDC (-9.3%) and the "percent change" in AFDC dollars (-12.2%) over 2 years. In this case, roughly three-quarters (-9.3/-12.2) of the AFDC savings resulted from a reduction in months on AFDC, suggesting that case closures generated the AFDC savings. The remaining one-fourth (approximately) of the AFDC savings resulted from lower monthly grants for integrated group members. Lower monthly grants may result from sanctioning or from combining work and welfare.
35. This comparison is incomplete because sources of income other than earnings, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit or transfer payments such as food stamps, are not taken into account.
36. See n. 32 above for an explanation of the method used to determine the contribution of different factors to the 2-year earnings effects.
37. See n. 33 above for an explanation of the method used to determine the contribution of different factors to the 2-year AFDC savings.
38. See, e.g., Hamilton et al. (n. 26 above); Gueron and Pauly (n. 13 above); David Greenberg and Michael Wiseman, "What Did the OBRA Demonstrations Do?" in Evaluating Welfare and Training Programs, ed. Charles Manski and Irwin Garfinkel (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992).