This study examined the effect of a time-limited welfare program on school-age children using data on almost 3,000 children (ages 5-17 at the four year follow up-point) from the random assignment evaluation of Florida's Family Transition Program (FTP). FTP was one of the first welfare reform initiatives to impose a time limit on the receipt of cash assistance, and it combined the time limit with a rich array of mandatory services. The effects of FTP on children were moderated by families' risk of long-term welfare dependency. Contrary to predictions laid out at the outset, there were few effects of FTP on middle childhood and adolescent children for children of parents most likely to be long-term welfare dependent (those most likely to hit the time limit). However, consistent negative effects on this same age group of children were found for children of parents least likely to be long-term welfare dependent--parents who had the largest employment gains--and effects of FTP were most strongly negative for the oldest adolescent children. The findings suggest a different theoretical model for movements into employment than the one suggested in the previous literature for job loss. The findings are discussed in terms of their contribution to research and policy.
This paper examines the effects on children of an antipoverty employment program for Canadian welfare recipients called the Self-Sufficiency Project (SSP). The SSP made work pay better than welfare by offering a temporary, but generous, earnings supplement to single parents who left welfare for full-time employment. The SSP was tested using a rigorous random assignment research design. While the SSP was found to increase employment and income for parents of children in every age group, the effects of the program on the children themselves differed with their age. For very young children, the SSP had no effect on children's outcomes. For children in the middle childhood period at follow-up, the SSP increased children's cognitive functioning and health outcomes, but had no benefits on their social behavior. For adolescents, the SSP increased minor delinquency and substance use. The results are discussed in terms of their contribution to research and policy.
Data from the Minnesota Family Investment Program and the New Hope demonstration were used to determine whether experimental effects of antipoverty policies differ by parents' risk for nonemployment. Using propensity score analysis, increases in employment and income were largest in the harder-to-employ halves of both samples. However, only children in the moderately hard-to-employ quartiles (50th to 75th percentile) consistently showed improvements in school and behavior outcomes. The very-hardest-to-employ 25% experienced decreases in school engagement, and increases in aggressive behaviors, despite substantial increases in parental employment and income. In this group, increases in maternal depression, reductions in regular family routines, and smaller increases in job stability and center-based child care occurred. These factors may have counteracted the potential benefits of increased income on children.
Presents 2 experimental studies of welfare reform programs which examined the effects of time limits and make-work-pay strategies on young school-age children 3 years after their mothers entered the programs (aged 2-9 yrs at study entry; aged 5-12 yrs at follow-up). Focal questions included (1) the effects of the programs on the employment behavior and economic well-being of single mothers and (2) the effects of the programs on child outcomes and on different domains of children's development. Subjects included 879 children whose mothers participated in the Minnesota Family Investment Program and 1,469 children whose mothers participated in Connecticut's Jobs First program. The results show that welfare policies with generous earned income disregards can both increase family income and improve children's outcomes, even when such disregards are coupled with a short time limit. While the effects on children were neither large nor numerous, these findings suggest that it is possible for welfare policy to succeed at improving young children's development and, at the same time, increase parents' self-sufficiency. Such information is critical for policymakers as they design the next phase of welfare policy in the wake of welfare reform reauthorization.
In this study, we analyze the effects of Delaware's welfare reform program on child maltreatment using child protective services data and an experimental design. The sample includes 2,138 single-parent cases that were subject to Delaware's welfare reform and 1,821 randomly assigned cases that initially were not subject to welfare reform. Results show small increases in child neglect but no effects on physical abuse, sexual abuse, or foster care placement. The most consistent impacts on neglect appear in subgroups with pre-existing disadvantages, such as a previous history of child maltreatment, long-term welfare receipt, and low education. In descriptive analyses, we find that the risk of neglect increases in the months preceding a case closure due to financial sanctions and then declines in subsequent months.
Prior research suggests that poverty can be detrimental to low-income children's development. Is this relation capturing the effects of poverty or the effects of other characteristics of low-income families associated with poverty? Can low-income children benefit from increases in income? In this paper, an instrumental variables estimation strategy is used with data on nearly 900 children from a random assignment evaluation of a pilot welfare reform program in Minnesota in order to answer these questions and to identify the causal effects of income on children's development. There are some suggestions that increased income improves the development of low-income children, at least with regard to their school engagement and positive social behavior. Results are discussed with regard to their implication for analysis, as well as research and policy.
Little is known about the effects of the most recent welfare reform initiatives--which include work mandates, time limits, and enhanced earnings disregards--on children's outcomes. This is partly because the ways in which maternal employment and income affect children more generally are not well understood. This article describes the effects on child development of the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP), a welfare program that began prior to 1996 federal welfare reform legislation. The present study utilized MFIP's unique, three-group research design to untangle the effects of different components of the program, and, in turn, discover how each component's effects on parents' income or employment affected children's development. This study's findings showed that MFIP increased employment rates and decreased poverty and, according to reports from mothers, children were less likely to exhibit problem behaviors and more likely to perform better and be more highly engaged in school. These findings, based on a total of 879 participants, bolster the long-standing literature that has associated poverty with worse outcomes for children by confirming, in a rigorous experiment, that incremental increases in income for working poor parents bring benefits to children.
We assess the impact of the New Hope Project, an antipoverty program tested in a random assignment experimental design, on family functioning and developmental outcomes for preschool- and school-aged children (N = 913). New Hope offered wage supplements sufficient to raise family income above the poverty threshold and subsidies for child care and health insurance to adults who worked full-time. New Hope had strong positive effects on boys' academic achievement, classroom behavior skills, positive social behavior, and problem behaviors, as reported by teachers, and on boys' own expectations for advanced education and occupational aspirations. There were not corresponding program effects for girls. The child outcomes may have resulted from a combination of the following: Children in New Hope families spent more time in formal child care programs and other structured activities away from home than did children in control families. New Hope parents were employed more, had more material resources, reported more social support, and expressed less stress and more optimism about achieving their goals than did parents in the control sample. The results suggest that an anti-poverty program that provides support for combining work and family responsibilities can have beneficial effects on the development of school-age children.
This study compared the behavioral and school problems of young children whose mothers participated in two different income support programs, Jobs First and AFDC. The analyses also included measures of maternal education, maternal health, maternal psychological factors, and family environment. There were no differences in child school or behavioral problems across the income support programs. Children, however, were more likely to have school problems if they were older or if their mothers received less than a high school education, reported child behavioral problems or made criteria for depression on the CIDI. Behavioral problems were more likely to occur if mothers reported violence in the home, many depressive symptoms on the CES-D, few child positive qualities, or if the child had repeated a grade. Several familial factors, then, must be addressed in order to ensure that children excel both academically and behaviorally.
This study examined the effect of a time-limited welfare program on school-age children using data on almost 3,000 children (ages 5-17 at the four year follow up-point) from the random assignment evaluation of Florida's Family Transition Program (FTP). FTP was one of the first welfare reform initiatives to impose a time limit on the receipt of cash assistance, and it combined the time limit with a rich array of mandatory services. The effects of FTP on children were moderated by families' risk of long-term welfare dependency. Contrary to predictions laid out at the outset, there were few effects of FTP on middle childhood and adolescent children for children of parents most likely to be long-term welfare dependent (those most likely to hit the time limit). However, consistent negative effects on this same age group of children were found for children of parents least likely to be long-term welfare dependent--parents who had the largest employment gains--and effects of FTP were most strongly negative for the oldest adolescent children. The findings suggest a different theoretical model for movements into employment than the one suggested in the previous literature for job loss. The findings are discussed in terms of their contribution to research and policy.
