Recent congressional action has increased the incentives for welfare recipients to seek new skills and has altered the system for providing education and training services. Addressing the impact of changes in welfare regulations on participation in education and training programs requires a baseline measure of how often disadvantaged populations…

A previous report, which evaluated the economic success of welfare recipients who graduated from Eastern Washington University (EWU), suggested that a college degree led to successful economic performance for welfare recipients. This study focuses on changes in the numbers of welfare students and their subsequent economic performance after the…

Dramatic shifts from cash assistance to work, embodied in the 1996 replacement of Aid to Families with Dependent Children with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), highlight the need to understand how current cash assistance recipients participate in required work-related activities and obstacles faced in getting and keeping jobs. The…

Evaluates the association between welfare policies implemented by states in the early to mid-1990s and the rate at which female household heads with children exit AFDC for work or for non-work reasons. Reports that waiver policies requiring work for mothers of very young children are associated with more rapid exits through employment. (Contains…

Volunteer administrators (n=32) participating in Australia's Voluntary Work Initiative, designed to assist welfare recipients who were required to perform volunteer work, were interviewed. Although volunteering helped overcome isolation and develop job skills, low levels of commitment and short stays (especially among younger participants) and…

Six adult basic education programs were examined to understand why they reported higher than average attendance for welfare recipients. Learners saw class not as mandatory, but as a way to achieve goals. Programs focused on engagement, a precursor to learning. Engagement factors included beliefs about teaching/learning, relationships, learning…

Examined the impact of 1996 welfare reform legislation on immigrants' welfare use. Nationally, immigrants' welfare participation rates declined relative to those of natives. This trend was attributable to trends in welfare participation in California, where immigrants experienced a precipitous drop in participation rates. Much of the potential…

Examines gaps in child support among welfare recipients in Wisconsin. Documented is the extent to which breakdowns at various stages--including paternity establishment, support orders, and payments--contribute to the low rate of child support receipt. Few welfare recipients are able to successfully negotiate the child support system, and mothers…

Developed motivation training program which systematically employed four methods for changing self-efficacy (performance accomplishment, verbal persuasion, emotional arousal, vicarious learning/modeling) among 183 recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children who were referred to Hawaii's Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Programs.…

Subsidized employment had substantial and long-lived effects on earnings and welfare benefits in a study of more than 9,000 welfare recipients 3 years after program entry. Although not always cost effective for taxpayers, subsidized employment had positive net benefits for participants and society. (SK)

A study of 2325 inner-city teenage mothers receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children for the first time found they have longer welfare spells and higher recidivism rates than other groups of female welfare recipients. Those with higher skills are more likely to find work and less likely to return to welfare. (SK)

Estimates of the level of women's full-time employment are greatly affected by the choice of reference period and population. As states attempt to move poor mothers from welfare to work, a tendency may arise to overestimate how much mothers of young children work for pay. (Author)

Studied the likelihood of obtaining employment for job training participants and nonparticipants and the types of jobs women obtained. Results for 150 treatment (job training) and 530 control cases show a differential training effect for full- and part-time workers and little or no effect of job training on a disadvantaged woman's probability of…

This three-year longitudinal study investigated whether low-wage employment was associated with improved psychological and parenting outcomes in a sample of 178 single mothers who were employed and unemployed current and former welfare recipients both before and subsequent to the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity…

Uses a Granger-Sims statistical causality test applied to survey and social security data from 1955 to 1980 to examine the attractiveness of welfare as an inducement for Black women to stay single. Refutes this economic motivation theory and suggests a decline in available Black males as a determinant. (JAC)