Volume 31, Number 4 (Fall) 1996
Friedlander, Daniel, and Gayle Hamilton. 1996. "The Impact of a Continuous Participation Obligation in a Welfare Employment Program." Journal of Human Resources 31(4):734-756.
We present results from a special federal demonstration funded to examine the feasibility and effectiveness of imposing on able-bodied welfare recipients a universal and ongoing obligation to work or to participate in activities intended to lead to work. Using a classical random assignment research design, we find that the program increased employment and reduced welfare receipt. Over five years, reductions in welfare payments to the research sample amounted to 11 percent for single-parent welfare families and 9 percent for two-parent welfare families, reductions which accrued as savings to taxpayers. The extra earnings income from increased employment did not exceed the loss in welfare income, however, leaving those in the program no better off financially.
The authors are senior research associates of the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC). The research was funded under a contract with the California State Department of Social Services, with support from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The findings and conclusions do not necessarily represent the official positions or policies of the funders. The authors wish to acknowledge the insightful comments on the project’s design, implementation, and analysis provided by Howard Rolston of the Administration for Children and Families of HHS. They also thank their colleagues at MDRC: Judith Gueron, president, Barbara Goldman, research director, and David Long, senior research associate. The impact data used in this article can be obtained beginning February 1997 through January 2000 from MDRC, Three Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016.
© 2002 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
US ISSN 0022-166X