SSDI beneficiaries lose their entire cash benefit if they perform work that is substantial gainful activity (SGA) after using Social Security work incentive programs. The complete loss of benefits might be a work disincentive for beneficiaries. We report results from a pilot project that replaces the complete loss of benefits with a gradual…

Background: Social experiments frequently exploit data from administrative records. However, most administrative data systems are designed to track earnings or benefit payments among residents within a single state. When an experimental participant moves across state lines, his entries in the data system of his state of origin consist entirely of…

Western Michigan University is building an innovative program to make welcome those students who were raised in foster care and to help them earn their diplomas without having to shoplift or trespass over the holidays. Many of the students have comfortable apartments on the campus, and a hall was kept open over the holiday break for dorm residents…

Objective: To examine whether acculturation and social networks influence household food insecurity in an inner-city Puerto Rican community. Methods: A survey was administered to 200 low-income female Puerto Rican caregivers with at least 1 child 12-72 months old living in Hartford, CT. Food insecurity was measured with the Radimer/Cornell Hunger…

For nineteen years, Mercy Learning Center, a community-based literacy organization, has provided basic literacy instruction to low-income women in Bridgeport, Connecticut. During that time it has grown from three students and two tutors to 450 students, 155 tutors, and five full-time teachers. This growth has been affected by changes in welfare…

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…

Reauthorization of welfare reform legislation has focused attention on the effectiveness of short-term training as a means for welfare recipients to attain self-sufficiency. Its effects on employment and earnings have been one focus of recent evaluations of federal programs. Although some Job Opportunities and Basic Skills programs produced…

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 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…

The Job Connection, which meets the requirements stipulated in the Family Support Act of 1988, is structured to ensure that needy families with children obtain the education, training, and employment needed to help them avoid long-term welfare dependence. The Job Connection program is administered through Connecticut's Department of Income…

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…

According to the education and training requirements of the Family Support Act of 1988, the Connecticut Department of Income Maintenance (DIM) is required to approve criteria or standards for determining the satisfactory progress of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC)/Job Connection clients enrolled in education and skill training…

These matrices summarize the content of the certification/chartering requirements established by nine first-round and three second-round implementation states to deliver services in One-Stop Career Centers. Seven areas or dimensions of design/operations are compared. The narrative accompanying the matrices is divided into two sections--a matrix…