Welfare to work leaves some recipients without the proper means to live, says expert

Sept. 8, 2005 -- The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) dramatically changed the nation's welfare rules. The act ended low-income families' entitlement to cash assistance and changed the welfare program from a system of income support to one based on work.

Since the passage of PRWORA, entries into welfare have declined and exits from welfare have risen. But if the idea of the act is to take people from welfare to work, what becomes of those who, because of some employment barrier, such as mental health issues, physical health problems or lack of transportation, can't work?

A professor of social work at WUSTL says that one of the consequences of welfare reform is that "probably the most disadvantaged group left or were forced to leave welfare without having the proper means to live."

"Unfortunately, one of the consequences of this legislation is that a segment of welfare recipients, probably the most disadvantaged group, left or were forced to leave welfare without having the proper means to live," says Yunju Nam, Ph.D., assistant professor at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis.

In her study, "The Roles of Employment Barriers in Welfare Exits and Reentries after Welfare Reform," Nam finds that 11 percent of welfare recipients left welfare for reasons other than marriage or increased earnings. Economic conditions of this group suggest that a majority of them probably left welfare because they are unable to meet the new employment or administrative requirements of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program (TANF).

"Ninety-seven percent of this group lives in poverty and almost half of this group lives in deep poverty soon after exiting welfare," she says.

"Lack of a high school diploma, low work experience, mental health issues such as substance dependency, physical health problems, child's poor health conditions, experience of domestic violence, and transportation barriers are significantly associated with leaving welfare for reasons other than employment or marriage."

According to Nam, these employment barriers almost guarantee re-entries into the welfare system.

"These findings suggest that we need to develop comprehensive and individualized services for welfare recipients with multiple employment barriers in order to assist them secure long-term economic independence from welfare," she says.

Nam's study, published in the June 2005 issue of the journal Social Science Review, is based on an analysis of data from the Women's Employment Study (WES) and administrative data from the Michigan Family Independence Agency (FIA), the state agency responsible for administering TANF.

The WES is a panel study of a randomly selected sample of women who were on welfare and lived in an urban Michigan county in February 1997. WES interviewed the women about their welfare and employment status four times through 2002.