This research was funded under grant JA-IMA-02-0051 from the District of Columbia's Department of Human Services Income Maintenance Administration (IMA) through cooperative agreement 01ASPE362A between DC and the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE).
The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.
Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).
Executive Summary
Despite the recent success of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program in reducing caseloads and moving a large share of former welfare recipients into work, some families may encounter difficulties achieving independence from cash assistance. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) entered into cooperative agreements with five states and the District of Columbia (DC) to conduct in-depth studies of their TANF caseloads. This report prepared for the Income Maintenance Administration of DC's Department of Human Services by the Urban Institute presents the findings from the study of DC's TANF recipients.
Since DC implemented welfare reform policies in 1997, its TANF caseload has fallen by 38 percent.a As TANF caseloads fall, the characteristics and service needs of welfare recipients are likely to be evolving. Also, as more families near the five-year time limit, it is important to understand how to best help these long-term recipients transition to work. This study profiles DC's TANF caseload in August 2002—approximately five years after the implementation of welfare reform—and aims to address the following questions:
- What is the status of TANF recipients and what challenges to work do they face?
- Are TANF recipients able to work despite these challenges?
- Do certain groups of recipients, such as long-term or sanctioned recipients, face greater or different challenges to work?
- What can be done to facilitate transitions from welfare to work?
To address these questions, we surveyed a representative sample of single-parent TANF caseheads who were on the TANF rolls in August 2002. The surveys were administered between September and November 2002, and we completed interviews with 420 adults who received TANF in August, 92 percent of whom were still TANF recipients when interviewed. In addition to asking about their employment and income, we asked about a number of different barriers or challenges to work. These include lack of skills, health or personal problems, and family or logistical issues that might make finding or keeping work difficult. The survey questionnaire was designed jointly with ASPE and the other five jurisdictions; consequently, it will be interesting and straightforward to compare findings from DC with those of the other jurisdictions when the other studies are completed.
Our findings about work, prevalence of specific barriers, and the challenges facing long-term and sanctioned recipients are summarized below.
- More than half of DC TANF recipients are either working or have worked recently.
About one-quarter of DC TANF recipients are working at the time of the survey and another third worked within the past 12 months. Working TANF recipients have jobs that pay about $8.50 per hour on average, well above DC's minimum wage. About half of employed recipients have paid sick leave and health insurance from their employer.
- Overall, TANF recipients have very low incomes.
At the time for the survey, most recipients (86 percent) remain poor, and about one third are extremely poor, with incomes less than 50 percent of the poverty line.
- DC TANF recipients face skill-based, personal, family, and logistical challenges that make it hard for them to work.
We identify fifteen different barriers to work that fall into these categories. The prevalence of these challenges among recipients in DC is summarized in Exhibit ES-1. The percentage of recipients facing specific barriers varies greatly: For example, 3 percent report having drug or alcohol dependence, 27 percent have minimal work experience, and 38 percent have neither completed high school nor earned GEDs.
- The majority of TANF recipients face multiple barriers to work.
The overwhelming majority of TANF recipients (90 percent) face at least one barrier to work, and 74 percent face two or more barriers. Of the three categories of barriers (skill, personal, family/logistical), most recipients face barriers in more than one of these groupings. Because so many TANF recipients face multiple barriers to work and they occur in so many different combinations, it is difficult to create a specific list of the service needs of hard-to-employ clients in DC. The greater the number of barriers a recipient faces, the less likely they are to be working.
- Some barriers are more common among non-workers than among workers.
There are certain barriers that serve as markers for clients that have a hard time working. These bellwether barriers could be used to identify clients who may benefit from more intensive needs assessments. These barriers include: low work experience, less than a high school degree/GED, mental health problems, being chemically dependent, having a child with health problems, and having difficulties with child care.
|
Exhibit ES-1
Summary of Challenges for Employment |
|
| |
Percent |
| |
| Skill Challenges |
| |
Less than High School/GED |
37.9 |
| |
Low work experience |
27.1 |
| |
Performed 3 or fewer common job tasks |
26.4 |
| |
| Personal Challenges |
| |
Physical health problem |
16.0 |
| |
Mental health problem |
20.9 |
| |
Chemical dependence |
3.1 |
| |
Severe domestic violence in past year |
14.6 |
| |
Possible presence of learning disability |
8.6 |
| |
Criminal record |
6.9 |
| |
| Family and Logistical Challenges |
| Caring for child with health or behavioral problems |
25.7 |
| Caring for sick family member other than child |
10.7 |
| Pregnant or have child under age 1 |
19.3 |
| Transportation problem |
19.4 |
| Child care problems |
41.6 |
| Unstable housing |
12.6 |
|
| Source: Urban Institute calculations from 2002 Survey of DC TANF cases. |
|
- Low work-experience and child care problems stand out as key barriers to work, although all types of barriers reduce work.
Low work-experience (working less than a quarter of the time since age 18) and child care problems stand out as the only individual barriers that are linked with not working, even after separating out the impact on work of the other barriers a recipient is facing. However, when grouping barriers into categories, facing a challenge in any one of these categories—skill-based, personal, or family/logistical—significantly reduces the likelihood that a welfare recipient works at all. This suggests that combinations of barriers across categories are important in reducing the likelihood that a TANF recipient works at all.
- Long-term TANF recipients are no more likely to face barriers to work than short-term recipients, but the types of barriers they face are very different.
In DC, 43 percent of TANF recipients surveyed have been on the rolls for 36 months or more. This included time during which the casehead is sanctioned but the rest of the case continues to receive some benefits. The recipients who have been on the rolls for more than three years are more likely to face skill challenges, such as having less than a high school degree and limited work experience. They are also more likely to be caring for a sick child or family member. Recipients who have been on the rolls for three years or less are more likely to have mental health problems, recently experienced domestic violence, or have a criminal record than those on the rolls for more than three years. It could be that some of the problems facing recipients with shorter tenures are the reasons they enter or return to TANF. If these problems are addressed or resolved over time, they would be less common among recipients with longer tenures. This could be true even if these problems are not resolved but those with the problems drop off the welfare rolls before receiving three years of benefits.
- Sanctioned TANF recipients are more likely to face chemical dependence, mental health problems, and transportation problems than non-sanctioned TANF recipients.
The barriers disproportionately affecting sanctioned recipients are likely part of the reason requirements were not fulfilled. Sanctioned recipients are also slightly more likely to face three or more barriers to work. Given the nature of these problems, it is unlikely that reducing benefits through sanctions alone will greatly increase compliance.
- Sanctioned recipients and those who received benefits for over three years are as likely to participate in employment and training programs as other recipients.
Recipients with longer tenures have higher past year participation rates than other recipients for all types of employment and training programs, 82 percent versus 71 percent. Sanctioned recipients were as likely to have participated in employment and training activities at some point during the year prior to the interview as non-sanctioned participants. In addition, those recipients with low education levels are more likely to participate in basic education and GED classes, and no less likely to participate in other types of training or job preparation.
Implications
Taken together, these findings have several interesting implications for welfare policy. Although virtually all TANF recipients face at least one barrier to work, these barriers can be overcome. Over one-quarter of all recipients were working and of those facing three or more barriers, 15 percent were working. Our results clearly demonstrate, however, that the greater the number of barriers a recipient faces, the more difficult it is to work.
The barriers recipients face are many and varied. Barriers such as low work experience, having less than a high school degree/GED, mental health problems, chemical dependence, having a child with health problems, and having trouble with child care all make it hard for TANF recipients to work. These results do not point to specific services that could help large groups of recipients move from welfare to work. In other words, "cookie cutter" approaches to addressing the needs of the hardest to serve recipients are unlikely to be successful. Extensive individualized assessments of all TANF recipients, however, are impractical, and most recipients already receive some assessment services. Fortunately, there are certain bellwether barriers that can be used to flag recipients who could benefit from more thorough needs assessments. These barriers are associated with lower employment, but our findings suggest they are likely most problematic for work in combination with other barriers. These barriers can serve as a gateway to addressing the multiple problems recipients face.
In addition, there are two barriers that are associated with lower employment, even after separating out other barriers' effect on work. These barriers are relatively simple to identify. Low work experience (having worked less than 25 percent of the time since age 18), confronting about a quarter of recipients, is one such barrier. In addition, child care problems are also an impediment to work.
Finally, although sanctions are intended to encourage compliance among recipients in general, the families that are actually sanctioned face serious challenges. DC's policy of home visits to sanctioned families may be one way to connect these families to needed services.
These findings may also generalize beyond DC to other urban areas. It will be interesting to compare DC's TANF recipients to those in other areas. Similar studies are being conducted in California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, and South Carolina. However, it is important to note that DC does not have all the resources of a state; as such it will be more appropriate to compare DC with the large urban areas in these states like Chicago, Baltimore, and St. Louis.
Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).
a TANF caseload data from USDHHS.
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