Reforming Welfare: Lessons from the WIN Experience

Chadwin, Mark Lincoln; Mitchell, John J.; Nightingale, Demetra Smith

doi:10.2307/975798

Cited by 6 publications

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“…That research is based on case studies of selected states, or sites within states, but it too has limitations. Some studies combine field research with analyses of administrative data to discover which type of program performs best (Chadwin, Mitchell, & Nightingale, 1981; Mead, 1985, 1997), but they cover at best a few states and say little about politics. Studies of reform that do address politics tend to describe state actions without assessing the concrete effects (Hagen & Lurie, 1994; Norris & Thompson, 1995; Winston, 2002).…”

Section: Past Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

State Political Culture and Welfare Reform

Mead¹

2004

Policy Studies Journal

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I investigate the link between the general features of state governments and their ability to reform welfare. The best indicator of governments’ characteristics is Elazar's political cultures. I define what successful welfare reform means, drawing on implementation research and experience. My criteria stress process, the avoidance of political and administrative problems. I then test the link between the Elazar cultures and successful reform using recent case studies of state implementation of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Elazar's “moralistic” states perform best, and the association holds, even controlling for other influences. Results depend, however, on how welfare reform is defined.

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Section: Past Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

State Political Culture and Welfare Reform

Mead¹

2004

Policy Studies Journal

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“…What distinguished better-performing sites was their ability to define a low-cost service in which clients themselves carried much of the responsibility for improving their position. Far from engaging in interactive relationshipbuilding, or networking with other agencies, employers or other service deliverers in the manner suggested by other studies (Nathan 1993;Chadwin et al 1981;Friedlander and Burtless 1995), most agencies were small, internally focused and reluctant to invest in more expensive treatments.…”

Section: Results 2: Explaining Good Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

Selling the Unemployed: the Performance of Bureaucracies, Firms and Non‐proﬁts in the New Australian “Market” for Unemployment Assistance

Considine

2000

Soc Policy Adm

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Major changes to the organization of welfare programmes indicate the emergence of a new welfare state (NWS) model which claims to put an end to the traditional "one size fits all" ideal of universality and standardization. The stated aim of such arrangements is to improve service for the client, reduce costs for the taxpayer and lift the performance of the system as a whole. The Labor government reform of the Australian employment assistance system between  and , and the Coalition's first modifications of this scheme in , provide a means to investigate the performance of a NWS system which uses private and public agencies to provide a basic, mandatory employment assistance service. Using verified data on the comparative performance of public, private and non-profit agencies and qualitative data from a study of Best Practice among high-performing agencies, the study shows that this system produces greater service variation than the previous universal service system. Overall, the system also does better in achieving employment and education outcomes with long-term unemployed clients. However, the study shows that such outcomes differ between different classes of client and between different types of service provider. In particular, outcomes are lower for the more disadvantaged, and are higher for those who have training programmes available to support them.

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“…This suggests that the programs that raise employment and reduce dependency the most among adult recipients tend to enforce participation stringently and emphasize work in available jobs rather than education and training (Gueron & Pauly, 1991; Hamilton & Friedlander, 1989; Riccio, Friedlander, & Freedman, 1994; Freedman et al, 2000). There are also some statistical studies of program performance measures that suggest much the same: Work programs that work intensively with clients to raise participation and place people in jobs achieve the most job entries, among other outcomes (Chadwin, Mitchell, & Nightingale, 1981; Mead, 1988). One of the existing cross‐sectional models of caseload change (Mead, 1999) also found that effective child support enforcement tended to depress caseloads, a factor neglected in most of the economic studies.…”

Section: Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Welfare Caseload Change: An Alternative Approach

Mead¹

2003

Policy Studies Journal

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IntroductionIn this article, I suggest an alternative approach to explaining recent changes in welfare caseloads. Most existing research uses pooled or time series methods. These studies can account for change over time, but in some cases they come up with implausible findings. They also do not identify which specific policies caused change, and they ignore the role of governmental quality. These problems seem due largely to an inability to measure state policies accurately. I suggest a simpler, cross-sectional approach that gives up the time dimension but permits measuring policy and governmental influences more accurately. It leads to more plausible findings, specifies more policy details, and highlights the role of governmental quality in successful reform. 1 The national caseload of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC, since 1996 Temporary Assistance for Needy Families [TANF]) rose 34% between 1989 and 1994, then fell 56% through June 2000 (data from U.S. Administration for Children and Families). These are the sharpest changes in the history of the program. The fall predates the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), the federal law that recast AFDC as TANF, but PRWORA seems to have accelerated it. The research into the causes has been done mostly by economists using either time series or pooled analyses based on state panel data. These studies say something about the causes of change, but they pose several problems. Some authors admit that despite impressive statistical apparatus, they cannot explain the recent changes well (Blank, 1997;Wallace & Blank, 1999). Some also attribute the recent caseload changes mostly to economic conditions (Congressional Budget Office, 1993; Ziliak, Figlio, Davis, & Connelly, 1997;Bell, 2001). A phenomenon closely related to the caseload decline is that work levels among poor parents have risen sharply. In 1993, only 43% of poor female heads of family reported that they worked at all, but in 1999, 60% did so (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1994Census, -2000. One prominent study gives most of the credit to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a subsidy for the working poor that has risen recently (Meyer & Rosenbaum, 1999).However, these findings conflict with what close observers of welfare reform say about the causes of change. Journalists tend to think welfare reform is at least as important as economic conditions in driving the rolls decline, and perhaps more so (e.g., DeParle, 1997). State and local officials carrying out the reform think they have mostly caused the decline, although they also credit the economy (Nathan & Gais, 2001). In a study that asked local Wisconsin officials about the reasons for caseload fall, welfare reform was mentioned most often, then the economy; no one mentioned the EITC (Mead, 1999, pp. 601-604). One reason to doubt that the economy is the leading cause of the decline is that tight labor markets in the late 1980s did not have the same effect on the rolls. 2Some economic studies credit t...

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Reforming Welfare: Lessons from the WIN Experience

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

State Political Culture and Welfare Reform

State Political Culture and Welfare Reform

Selling the Unemployed: the Performance of Bureaucracies, Firms and Non‐proﬁts in the New Australian “Market” for Unemployment Assistance

Welfare Caseload Change: An Alternative Approach

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