nberwelf2_ms The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program was created in 1996 from what was previously named the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program. The TANF program is intended to serve low-income families, primarily those with only a single parent present, as did the AFDC program. The TANF program is distinguished from AFDC by strong work requirements, time limits on receipt, options for the provision of noncash assistance, and by a block grant financing structure. This paper reviews the rules of the TANF program and the research that has been conducted on it and on the AFDC program. The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program was created by legislation passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by the President in 1996. The Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) created the TANF program out of the preexisting Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, which itself was created

The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the author and should not be construed as representing the opinions or policy of the UK Center for Poverty Research or any agency of the Federal government. Poverty and Macroeconomic Performance Across Space, Race, and Family Structure* by

This paper uses new survey data on employers in four large metropolitan areas to examine the determinants of employer demand for welfare recipients. The results suggest a high level of demand for welfare recipients, though such demand appears fairly sensitive to business cycle conditions. A broad range of factors, including skill needs and industry, affect the prospective demand for welfare recipients among employers, while other characteristics that affect the relative supply of welfare recipients to these employers (such as location and employer use of local agencies or welfare-to-work programs) influence the extent to which such demand is realized in actual hiring. Moreover, the conditional demand for black (and to a lesser extent Hispanic) welfare recipients lags behind their representation in the welfare population and seems to be more heavily affected by employers' location and indicators of preferences than by their skill needs or overall hiring activity. Thus various factors on...

The La Follette School takes no stand on policy issues; opinions expressed within these papers reflect the views of individual researchers and authors. ______________________________________________________________________________

This paper demonstrates that fixed-effects and first-differences models often understate the effect of interest because of the variation used to identify the model. In particular, the within-unit time-series variation often reflects transitory fluctuations that have little effect on behavioral outcomes. The data in effect suffer from measurement error, as a portion of the variation in the independent variable has no effect on the dependent variable. Two empirical examples are presented: one on the relationship between AFDC and fertility and the other on the relationship between local economic conditions and AFDC expenditures. Coefficient estimates from first-differences, long-differences, and fixed-effects models are compared. These estimates differ in ways that are consistent with the presence of measurement error. Results from the analysis of AFDC expenditures, a dependent variable likely to respond to long-term changes in economic conditions, are compared to an analysis of UI Expenditures, a dependent variable likely to respond to short-term changes in economic conditions. Further analysis considers instrumental variables approaches and the use of lagged effects models. I.

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Sohn, Jooyoung, "Reaching self-sufficiency: a life-course perspective " (2006). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. Paper 3024.

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Executive Summary This report examines the Food Stamp caseload in Texas between 1995 and 2001. The primary objective is to identify the factors affecting the Food Stamp caseload patterns for citizens and non-citizens in the metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties of the state. This objective is addressed through the use of descriptive data and analysis that focus on the demographic and program participation characteristics of Food Stamp case heads. The data used are extracted from a time series of monthly Food Stamp client files. The report proposes that the additional burden of immigration status verification will cause non-citizens to be more sensitive to administrative processes that affect all cases such as the reduction in eligibility recertification intervals. To explore this proposition, an event history technique is applied to a longitudinal file comprised of the monthly client files from September 1995 through August 2001. Exits during the six year period are evaluated for the September 1995 caseload. Four event history models (all cases, citizen cases, non-citizen cases where all dependents are non-citizens, and non-citizens cases with one or more citizen dependents) are estimated to measure the hazard of caseload exit using demographic, economic, and program factors as independent variables. The models show that, on the whole, non-citizens have an exit hazard 1.25 times greater than that for citizens. For all cases, older case heads are less likely to exit, with the effect being strongest for citizen cases and weakest for mixed non-citizen cases. Cases that no longer have a dependent are less likely to exit than those cases which continue to have a dependent and this effect is greatest for mixed non-citizen cases. Larger households are less likely to exit. For the whole caseload, each additional case member reduces the exit hazard by 10.8 percent. This effect is weakest for mixed non-citizen cases where each additional person reduces the exit hazard by 7.6 percent. Female heads are less likely to exit than male heads and this effect is most apparent in citizen cases where females are 75 percent as likely to exit as males. For the citizen caseload, Hispanic and Black case heads are less likely to exit than Anglo case heads but case heads that are members of the Other race/ethnicity group are more likely to exit than Anglos. For the all non-citizen cases, Hispanics are less likely to exit than Anglo non-citizens. In the mixed non-citizen case model, the race/ethnicity of the case head is not a significant variable. Lower levels of human capital in the form of educational attainment reduce the exit hazard for all cases. The effects of education are weakest for mixed non-citizen cases and greatest for citizen cases. Higher levels of income per case member increase the exit hazard but the effect is small. In all four models, a one unit change in the income per case member increases the exit hazard by 0.1 percent. Employed case heads are less likely to exit than unemployed case heads. The effect of employment is greatest for citizen case heads and has the least effect for mixed non-citizen case heads. Longer certification periods reduce the exit hazard in all four models. The effect of a longer certification period is greatest for citizen cases and least for mixed non-citizen cases. Receiving TANF benefits reduces the exit hazard for citizen cases and mixed non-citizen cases but is not significant in the model for cases comprised entirely of non-citizens. Nonmetropolitan residence reduces the hazard of exit for citizen cases and the all non-citizen cases but this variable is not significant in the model for mixed non-citizens. The results suggest that there is relatively little difference in the exit patterns of citizens and non-citizens and that the Food Stamp program represents a coping strategy for low-income households regardless of their nativity. Future research should evaluate how regional variations in program administrative practices and local economic conditions affect the participation of citizen and non-citizen households. _______________________________

The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the National Science Foundation. The Policy Brief series is a collection of essays on current public policy issues in aging, health, income security, metropolitan studies, and related research done by or on behalf of the Center for Policy Research (CPR) at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and