Time limits on benefit receipt became a central feature of federal welfare policy in the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). Proponents of welfare reform argued that the time limits in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, would send a firm message to recipients that welfare is…

Florida's Family Transition Program (FTP) combines a welfare time limit of 24-36 months with services, requirements, and financial incentives designed to help welfare recipients find and hold jobs. Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) applicants who were not incapacitated, disabled, or otherwise exempt from the FTP program were randomly…

This report examines time-limited welfare beginning at the broadest level, tracing the rapid emergence of time-limited welfare as a policy approach in part I. Chapter 1 examines the history of time-limited welfare and the key challenges posed by this policy. Part II begins to focus on the three participating states--Florida, Vermont, and…

A study examined time limits from the perspectives of welfare recipients and line staff in welfare agencies. Data on time-limited welfare were drawn from staff surveys and from group and individual interviews with both staff and recipients in selected locations in Florida, Vermont, and Wisconsin during the first half of 1996. Findings indicated…

A study focused on results from seven of the earliest state welfare reform initiatives with some form of welfare time limit. Four programs--Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, and Wisconsin--- included benefit-termination time limits triggering cancellation of a family's entire welfare grant. Arizona and Indiana imposed benefit-reduction time limits,…

The Connecticut Jobs First welfare reform initiative, implemented statewide in 1996, includes a 21-month time limit on cash assistance, generous financial work incentives, and other features. Its primary goal is to reduce welfare use and increase self-sufficiency through work. To facilitate evaluation of the program, between January 1996 and…

This report describes the first 2 years of Connecticut's Jobs First program operation. Chapter 1 describes the following: the policy context; the program's three main features--time limit, earned income disregard, and mandatory "work first" employment services; the evaluation and implementation analysis; and the research sites and target…

Connecticut's Jobs First program was subjected to a rigorous, large-scale evaluation. During the evaluation, nearly 5,000 single-parent welfare applicants and recipients in 2 cities were randomly assigned to Jobs First or to the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) group. Each group's progress was compared over a 4-year period. The…

This report focuses on implementation, impacts, and time limit in Florida's Family Transition Program (FTP), a welfare reform initiative. Chapter 1 describes FTP and evaluation, target population, and data. Chapter 2 describes implementation of FTP in Escambia County: staffing and organizational structure of FTP and traditional Aid to Families…

This report focuses on people who entered the Jobs First evaluation when they were applying for or receiving cash assistance in the Manchester and New Haven (Connecticut) Department of Social Services offices between January-June 1996 and who left cash assistance within 18 months after entering the program (before reaching the 21-month time…

An evaluation of Jobs First (JF) compared the experiences of JF participants who were subject to welfare reform policies with those of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) participants who were subject to prior welfare rules. It collected information for four years about JF's impacts on participants' children and analyzed its financial…

Connecticut's Jobs First program, which began operating in January 1996, combines a time limit on welfare receipt with generous financial work incentives and requires recipients to participate in employment-related services targeted toward rapid job placement. The impacts of the Jobs First program were examined by following several thousand…

Vermont's Welfare Restructuring Project (WRP), which was implemented in 1994-2001, required that single-parent welfare recipients who could not find wage-paying jobs after receiving cash assistance for 30 months accept work in subsidized, minimum-wage community service employment (CSE) positions to satisfy their work requirement and improve their…

An evaluation was conducted of Vermont's Welfare Restructuring Project (WRP), one of the earliest statewide welfare reform programs designed to increase work and reduce reliance on welfare. To assess the difference WRP made, parents applying for or receiving cash assistance in Vermont from July 1994 to December 1996 were assigned randomly to one…

An analysis of Ohio's Learning, Earning, and Parenting (LEAP) program focused on the first 18 months of program operations. The 12 randomly selected research counties contained about two-thirds of the statewide teen population targeted by LEAP. The analysis relied on field research, supplemented by data collected from county human service agencies…