When welfare ends.

• Author: Tweedie, Jack
• Position: Impact of welfare reform on families - Includes related articles on evaluating families who leave welfare, the impact of welfare reform on children and support services for families who have left welfare

How do we know how welfare reforms are working? The rolls are shrinking, but lawmakers want to know how the families are doing.

Where have all the welfare recipients gone?

After a state labor official bragged that almost 4,000 former welfare clients were working, New Mexico Representative Edward Sandoval had to ask, "But our caseloads have dropped by more than 14,000 families. What happened to the other 10,000 families?"

No one had an answer.

Almost every state faces similar questions as it oversees welfare reforms. Across the country, state efforts have contributed to a stunning drop in cases. Nationwide, caseloads dropped by 40 percent from January 1994 to June 1998. That means that more than 2 million families have left welfare. Many left just as work requirements and time limits were taking effect, raising questions about why. For all those leaving welfare, we don't know how many former recipients are working, how many have moved in with their own parents, how many have married, how many have moved out-of-state or how many don't have enough money to buy food or pay rent.

Reducing caseloads was one goal of welfare reform. Legislators emphasized ending dependence. But no one expected the numbers to drop so quickly. And legislators' concerns do not end when a family leaves the rolls. Indeed, their vision of success focuses on what happens afterward. To judge how reform is working and how they can make it work better, legislators need to know what is happening to those families.

LEGISLATORS WANT TO KNOW MORE

"We're trying something new," says Senator Jay Bradford of Arkansas. "It's important to get recipients into jobs so they can support their families, but we don't know exactly how to do that. We legislators need to keep track of what's going on, what is working and what is not."

States are now starting to track families who leave welfare, with more than 35 initiating studies. They give us our first look at how welfare reform is working. In Arkansas, Colorado and New York, legislators requested studies. In other states, legislators have encouraged efforts by the state welfare agency or governor's office. Some welfare departments are doing the studies themselves, while others have contracted with public health agencies, researchers in local universities or consulting firms.

Early attention has focused on the number of families working and those who suffer extreme hardship such as homelessness and abuse. Later assessments will examine job retention, advancement and whether families are moving out of poverty.

WHAT DO WE KNOW SO FAR?

States have taken a variety of approaches in these studies, including surveys, matching welfare records with administrative data such as unemployment insurance, and home visits to check on the well-being of the family. This is giving us a better idea of what happens when people leave welfare. Just because a family leaves welfare, doesn't mean a parent got a job. We...