Unintended Consequences? Welfare Reform and the Working Poor

Welfare Reform under PRWORA: Aid to Children with Working Families?

“…Chipty, Witte, and Queralt (1999), Lemke et al (1999), find that families on cash assistance have significantly higher probabilities of work and significantly higher earnings when child-care subsidies are more generously funded. Witte, Queralt, Chipty and Griesinger (1999) report that both former recipients of cash assistance and other low-income families eligible for child-care subsidies have higher earnings when funding for child-care subsidies is more generous.…”

“…Families transitioning off welfare were often given second priority. At least four ANF states (California, Florida, New Jersey, and Texas) have extended the period of child-care subsidy eligibility beyond the 12-month period mandated under the TCC program (Long, Kirby, Kurka, and Waters, 1998;Witte, Queralt, Chipty and Griesinger, 1999). State child-care administrators in some of the ANF states said that they were hesitant to expand funding beyond the welfare population because they were concerned about an increase in demand for child care among families on welfare and transitioning off welfare, espe-cially families with very young children (Long (1999) and Long and Clark, (1998)).…”

“…As far as we are aware, there are currently results for only four studies that use data for both a period prior to and one after welfare reform and that take into account a wide range of changes associated with welfare reform (Chipty, Witte, and Queralt, 1999;Lemke et al, 1999;Queralt, Witte, and Griesinger, 1999;Witte, Queralt, Chipty, and Griesinger, 1999). These studies use large samples of child-care subsidy recipients in Massachusetts, a state that began welfare reform prior to PRWORA, and Florida, a state that implemented welfare reform immediately after PRWORA became effective.…”