Administrative Privatization and Employment Outcomes in the Implementation of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families

Abstract

The results of methodologically appropriate hierarchical linear models demonstrate that ownership variables seldom enhance the quality of TANF outcomes, suggesting that privatization alone is not an administrative panacea in human support services. Although direct privatization effects are often found to be substantively small and inconsistent in terms of service quality improvement, in closed-case models, there is evidence that nonprofit welfare delivery is associated with superior TANF employment closure outcomes.