Evaluations of government-funded training programs often combine results from similar operations in multiple sites. Findings inevitably vary. It is common to relate site-to-site variations in outcomes to variations in program design, participant characteristics, and the local environment. Frequently, such connections are constructed in a narrative synthesis of multisite results. This article uses findings from the evaluations of California's Greater Avenues for Independence (GAIN) program and the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies (NEWWS) to illustrate why it is important to question the legitimacy of such syntheses. The discussion is carried out using a simple multilevel evaluation model that incorporates models of both individual outcomes within sites and variation in program effects across sites. The results indicate that tempting generalizations about GAIN and NEWWS effects are statistically unjustified but that significant progress might be made in identifying the determinants of program effects in future demonstrations with some changes in evaluation strategy.
The experience of Wisconsin is commonly cited as evidence of the capability of states for reforming welfare. Wisconsin's welfare caseload declined by 22.5 percent between December 1986 and December 1994. This paper argues that the decline was most likely the product of restriction of eligibility and benefits, a strong state economy, and large expenditures on welfare-to-work programs encouraged by an exceptional fiscal bargain with the federal government. Opportunities for continued reduction of welfare utilization by means other than denying access are jeopardized by proposed changes in federal cost-sharing, a prospective state deficit, and the growing share of the caseload accounted for by residents of Milwaukee. Wisconsin Works, the state's plan for public assistance in a post-block-grant world, continues benefit reduction and eligibility restriction but expands emphasis on employment. The special circumstances enjoyed by Wisconsin are unlikely to be duplicated elsewhere. Other states and the federal government should not assume that expanded state discretion will produce comparable gains unless accompanied by major outlays for employment and training programs, reduction in benefits, and tightening of eligibility requirements. The first policy is expensive to taxpayers; the second and third approaches harm recipients.
This paper describes and briefly evaluates the major “New Deal“ activation policies introduced by the UK New Labour government since 1997. It outlines the ambitious project to modernize the UK economy and welfare state and, within this overall strategy, to end child poverty and to tackle social exclusion by encouraging movement from welfare benefits into work, and by making work pay. Three sets of New Deal programmes are discussed: those targeted on unemployed claimants, lone parents and people with disabilities. The paper concludes that real change has been achieved with measurable beneficial effects but that there are threats to the further elaboration and extension of the New Deal model.
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