The impacts of welfare reform on recipients of housing assistance

Abstract

This article uses data from randomized evaluations in Indiana and Delaware to address three questions: (1) Are welfare recipients who receive federal housing assistance less employable than recipients who do not? (2) How does the impact of welfare reform compare for families with and without housing assistance? (3) Does welfare reform increase or decrease the use of such assistance?

Although public housing residents may be more disadvantaged than welfare recipients who do not get housing assistance, voucher users and Section 8 project‐based recipients were not. Welfare reform had similar impacts on the earnings and welfare benefits of families that received housing assistance and those that did not. Where impacts did differ, they were larger for families receiving assistance. Welfare reform also reduced the receipt of housing assistance. Families that receive assistance appear to have less financial strain than families that do not, suggesting that assistance may increase overall financial stability.     

Alternative patterns of welfare state development: The case of public assistance in the Netherlands

Among the numerous studies of the development of welfare states, less attention has been paid to the smaller European democracies. In an attempt to address this problem, this article investigates the development of public assistance programmes in the Netherlands. The historical record shows that the development of the Dutch public assistance programme has been more contentious than the development of similar programmes in other countries. An explanation for political controversy surrounding Dutch public assistance focuses on the manifestation of corporatism in a policy area that involved private charity organisations, rather than labour and capital interests. The incorporation of private charities permitted them to slow state encroachment on their activities. Implications of the case for the study of corporatism in other countries are discussed.     

A theory of predatory welfare state and citizen welfare: the French case

Public Choice - In this paper, we argue that the welfare state is an outcome of modern mass (total) warfare. The total war economy requires the participation of all citizens, erasing the...     

NGOs and the policy‐making process in Russia: The case of child welfare reform

This article explores the issue of the major reform of the child welfare sector that has been carried out in Russia in recent years. Focusing on deinstitutionalization and a child's right to a family, this reform moves Russia in the direction of international trends in this area and represents a break with previous state‐ and institution‐dominated approach to “problem families.” The article explores how and why this process has come about in a traditionally top‐down hybrid regime and applies the Multiple Streams Framework first developed by Kingdon to argue that Russian child welfare nongovernmental organizations have acted in concert with government officials to act as policy entrepreneurs in framing the policy problem and presenting solutions to it in a way that has influenced national priorities in this area. At the same time, the article acknowledges that major challenges remain in terms of implementing the reform at the regional level of government in Russia.     

Congress writes a law: Research and welfare reform

This paper traces the development of the Family Support Act of 1988 in the U.S. House of Representatives. The author, a Republican staff member, examines the impact of research on the policy environment that made welfare reform possible, on the arguments presented in committee hearings and bill-writing sessions, on the House debate, and on the final House/Senate Conference Committee approval. He concludes that social science research can and does play a useful role in formulation of public policy, although the domain of application is not as broad as many scholars think. However, given the partisan nature of policy formulation and the desire of social scientists to join the process, normal methods of quality control in social science research are too often forgotten, to the detriment of sound public decision-making.     

Immigrants,welfare reform,and the economy

The welfare reform bill adopted in the United States in 1996 limited the eligibility of immigrants for several government assistance programs, and early projections estimated that nearly half of the savings associated with the reforms would come from these immigrant restrictions. Several studies have found that subsequent program participation declined more for immigrants relative to natives, seemingly verifying the early projections. However, many of these restrictions were either rescinded by the federal government or superceded by state and local policies. In this paper, we first reproduce earlier findings that show the relative declines in program use among immigrants. We then show that much, but not all, of the relative decline in program use among immigrants can be explained by changing macroeconomic conditions. © 2004 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

The welfare of the elderly: A systems analysis viewpoint

A methodology is offered to analyze for policy purposes the services offered to the elderly. Best policy is defined as that policy which maximizes the benefit to the elderly, given budgetary and other constraints. To measure the benefit to the elderly, a scale is devised, consisting of a set of states describing the degree of dependency of the elderly. This ordinal scale is converted to a cardinal scale by assigning weights to the states, these weights being an expression of the social-value judgments of the administrators. The change in weights over time, induced by the intervention of services, is the benefit of the services. Mathematical techniques are described for relating benefit to cost, modeling the flow of elderly among institutions, making a sensitivity analysis, and deriving the best policy.     

Child protective intervention in the context of welfare reform: The effects of work and welfare on maltreatment reports

Recent changes in welfare policy have produced changes in parental work and welfare receipt. These factors are assessed in relation to investigated reports of child abuse and neglect using survey data on 1998 welfare recipients in nine Illinois counties, in conjunction with longitudinal administrative data on cash welfare benefits, employment, and child abuse and neglect reports. Trend analyses show that rates of child maltreatment reports among welfare recipients have risen since the passage of PRWORA in 1996. Findings from multivariate analyses indicate that parental employment has a protective effect on reports to child protection systems (CPS), that this effect is greatest when combined with welfare receipt, and that this effect becomes stronger over time. Those who receive welfare in the absence of employment face a significantly greater risk of CPS involvement, even compared with those who neither work nor receive welfare. © 2003 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Financial incentives and welfare reform in the United States

This paper uses a microsimulation model to ask whether welfare recipients in the United States would work full‐time if offered an earnings supplement that was conditioned on full‐time employment. The simulations suggest that the earnings supplement would increase full‐time employment, with little additional cash transfer cost to the government. In contrast, financial incentives currently being used by many of the states are increasing employment and income, but are encouraging primarily part‐time employment. Encouraging full‐time employment is particularly important in light of new time limits on welfare receipt. Faced with a loss of welfare benefits, many recipients may find that part‐time earnings do not allow them to be economically self‐sufficient. © 2001 by the Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

The role of the state in voluntary environmental reform: A case study of public land

Conventional environmental reform is characterized by the compliance of firms with direct regulatory pressure from the state. Scholars are now turning their attention to alternative modes of reform where firms proactively improve their operations through the implementation of voluntary environmental strategies (VES). While previous research on VES has typically focused on the manufacturing sector, this study explores challenges to corporate greening in the natural resource extractive sector when strategies are undertaken on public land. Findings from two case study regions in the Canadian province of Alberta suggest that VES undertaken on public land are significantly constrained by certain features of the system of environmental governance and the regulatory regime, particularly the reluctance of the state to be involved as a co-regulator of public land. The importance of solid leadership from the state in environmental reform – including cases of voluntary corporate initiatives – is discussed.     

Asylum,welfare and civil society: a case study in civil repair

This paper examines a civil society challenge to UK government legislation withdrawing welfare support from asylum seekers who do not claim on entry to the country. Drawing on the work of Habermas and Alexander, it considers the role of the courts as a deliberative space and elaborates the scope for civil repair in the case of a group rendered marginal by the law. In so doing, it also suggests how links could be made with the broadened conception of citizenship proposed by Isin and Turner.     

Introducing administrative reform through the application of computer-based information systems: A case study in India

Administrative reform in a number of developing countries has recently been directed at achieving decentralization through the diffusion of information technology to local areas. However, despite these efforts, the main objective of improving the effectiveness of development planning and monitoring systems remains unfulfilled because of poor integration between the process of technology adoption and the context within which the technology is implemented. There is a paucity of literature that aims to make explicit the nature of this integration. This paper aims to offer a contribution in this direction by describing the case of the computerized rural information systems project (CRISP) in India. The results show that during the first few years of implementation information technology served to reinforce existing inefficiencies within the bureaucracy. Information technology was later used as a vehicle for promoting change within the administration as local administrators acquired the flexibility to direct the technology towards their own requirements.     

The spatial mismatch hypothesis: A review of recent studies and their implications for welfare reform

Abstract

In 1992, Housing Policy Debate published John Kain's comprehensive review of the extensive scholarly literature on the spatial mismatch hypothesis. This hypothesis maintains that the suburbanization of jobs and involuntary housing market segregation have acted together to create a surplus of workers relative to the number of available jobs in submetropolitan areas where blacks are concentrated.

Since Kain's review, more than two dozen new studies on the spatial mismatch hypothesis have been completed. Generally, these studies use more suitable data and superior methodologies than earlier studies and therefore provide the most reliable evidence to date on the spatial mismatch hypothesis. This article critically reviews the new studies and assesses what implications can be drawn for welfare reform.     

Earned income credit utilization by welfare recipients: A case study of Minnesota's earned income credit program

This paper examines utilization of a state earned income credit by AFDC and TANF recipients. Although utilization percentages are increasing, we find that among TANF recipients in 1999, 45.7 percent of all households and 34.8 percent of eligible households did not receive the state earned income credit. Moreover, we find that utilization may depend upon TANF requirements and incentives, information resources, and barriers to work and filing of income tax returns. Finally, we investigate whether low utilization is because of little or no benefit from the state earned income credit and find this may be true for some with barriers or less incentive to work under TANF. © 2006 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Developing new measures of welfare state change and reform

Abstract. Since the publication of Gøsta Esping–Andersen's The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Esping–Andersen 1990), which built its typologies on a rich database of detailed programme characteristics, it has been generally accepted that measures of social expenditure are an inferior, and even a misleading, source of information concerning the character of welfare state development. The problem is, however, that the kinds of detailed programme data Esping–Andersen used are not routinely available, while the quality of social expenditure data has been improving rapidly, culminating in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) now regularly updated and highly disaggregated Social Expenditure Database (SOCX). This article explores the possibility of using SOCX to devise measures of the extent, structure and trajectory of welfare state change and reform in 21 OECD countries over the period 1984 to 1997. On the basis of these measures, it suggests that there has been almost no sign of systematic welfare retrenchment in recent years and only limited evidence of major structural transformation or programmatic reorientation.     

Research,politics, and the dynamics of policy development: A case study of Motor Carrier regulatory reform

This article presents a case study of the role of research in securing passage of the Motor Carrier Act of 1980 (Public Law 96-296). It highlights the role of research in shaping policymakers' views on the benefits of reduced federal economic regulation of the industry, assesses how political considerations influenced the Department of Transportation's research program, and explores the deficiencies and limitations of the Department's research program.The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the U.S. Senate or the Department of Transportation. We wish to express our appreciation to Leslie Baldwin and Dennis Marvich for their perceptive comments on an earlier draft of this article.     

Did welfare reform influence the fertility of young teens?

During the 1990s, states made several reforms to their welfare programs designed to reduce teenage fertility among minors. Among the most prominent of these changes, states started requiring teenage mothers younger than 18 to live with a parent or legal guardian and enroll in high school in order to receive welfare benefits. Using natality data from the National Center for Health Statistics, we compare the trend in fertility rates for young women aged 15 to 17 to the trend for a control group of 18-year-olds. Our estimates imply that the annual percent decline in fertility rates following implementation of these minor parent provisions was 0.7 percentage points larger for young teens than for teens aged 18, a difference of over 22 percent.     

The long‐term effects of housing assistance on work and welfare

This paper examines the long‐term effect of project‐based housing assistance—public housing and private assisted housing—on work, earnings, and welfare receipt. We use the Panel Study of Income Dynamics–Assisted Housing Database to identify women ever living in project‐based assisted housing and to create comparison groups using propensity scores. Analyses show no evidence that moving into this type of assisted housing is associated with sustained reductions in employment rates, work hours, or earnings. Although welfare rates decline, they remain higher for assisted housing recipients compared with nonrecipients. Overall, these findings align with those of recent experimental and nonexperimental studies that include other forms of housing assistance and cover different time periods. © 2009 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

The budgetary implications of welfare reform: Lessons from four state initiatives

Required work and training, a major component of recent “welfare reform” proposals, is intended to increase the self-sufficiency of welfare recipients and thereby produce savings for government treasuries as well as more income for the recipients themselves. This analysis focuses explicitly on the budgetary effects of such activities, estimating the cost savings and new revenues generated by welfare employment programs started in four states since 1981. It suggests that when a broad range of effects are taken into account over a sufficiently long period, the overall budgetary implications of the programs are usually positive at the federal, state, and local levels of government. The costs and gains, however, are shared unevenly by the three levels, which encourages disparities in the programs states and localities choose to implement.     

How welfare reform affects young children: Experimental findings from Connecticut—A research note

As welfare‐to‐work reforms increase women's labor market attachment, the lives of their young children are likely to change. This note draws on a random‐assignment experiment in Connecticut to ask whether mothers' rising employment levels and program participation are associated with changes in young children's early learning and cognitive growth. Children of mothers who entered Connecticut's Jobs First program, an initiative with strict 21‐month time limits and work incentives, displayed moderate advantages in their early learning, compared with those in a control group. A number of potential mechanisms for this effect are explored, including maternal employment and income, home environment, and child care. Mothers in the new welfare program are more likely to be employed, have higher income, are less likely to be married, have more children's books in their home, and take their children to libraries and museums more frequently. However, these effects explain little of the observed gain in child outcomes. Other parenting practices and the home's social environment do explain early learning, but these remained unaffected by welfare reform. © 2003 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management