Generalizing

Social Work Research: Program Evaluation

Major federal legislation was enacted in 1996 related to welfare reform. Financial assistance

programs at the national level for low-income families have been in place since the mid-1960s

through the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program. The Personal

Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, or welfare reform, created

TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families). Major components of the new

TANF program were to limit new recipients of cash aid to no more than 2 years of TANF

assistance at a time and to receive no more than 5 years of combined TANF assistance with other

service programs during their lifetimes. The goal was to make public assistance a temporary, rather

than a long-term, program for families with children. Beyond these general rules, each of the 50

states was given substantial latitude to adopt requirements to fit their own objectives. The new law

also allowed states that reduced their public assistance expenses to keep whatever support was

already being provided by the federal government for use at their own discretion. This was seen

as a way to encourage states to reduce welfare dependency.

In response, the state of California decided to call its new program CalWORKs, the California

Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids program. CalWORKs is California’s application of

the new TANF federal law. Like most of the other states, CalWORKs provided its 58 counties

with a fair amount of discretion in how to implement the new provisions. Some counties chose to

develop strong upfront “employment-first” rules that mandated recipients be employed as soon as

possible. Others chose a response that included testing and assessment and the provision of

education and training services.

One of the largest counties in the San Francisco Bay Area developed several options for

CalWORKs recipients, including immediate job readiness (Job Club) help, remedial education for

recipients lacking basic skills, and vocational training at local community colleges and adult

education centers for those seeking higher level education and skills. Recipients could take up to 5

years to complete these activities and even longer in certain circumstances to maximize their

chances of success. Recipients were predominantly single mothers. If recipients fully complied

with the rules, they received a variety of financial incentives, while those who did not comply

received sanctions that often resulted in reduced benefit levels. The county provided grants to a

wide array of education, training, and service programs to work as partners in serving the needs of

participants.

In 1996, the county’s CalWORKs program enrolled approximately 22,000 families in various

forms of public assistance programs. Of these, approximately 10,000 elected to participate in one

of the education and training programs, 9,000 elected to attend intensive job placement (Job Club)

classes, and the remaining 3,000 opted to not comply with the new program and accepted reduced

benefit sanctions.

To meet its state and federal mandates, the county carefully tracked the progress of

all program participants and compiled comprehensive quarterly reports that summarized

assignments and outcomes at each of the contracted partner sites as well as countywide trends.

During the first 11 years of the program, from 1996 through 2007, the county’s public assistance

roles were reduced by approximately 40%, from more than 22,000 to about 13,000 families. The

best results were obtained among participants in education and training programs, who accounted

for about two-thirds of long-term outcome success, although this group was also found to be more

costly to the local CalWORKs program during their years of study. These costs, in addition to the

longer period of monthly benefits received, also included the cost of education and training and,

in some cases, childcare expenses. Among the participants who were placed in the immediate job

search (Job Club) program, total costs to the county were somewhat less per year, but more than

50% were still not successful in gaining employment, and those that did find a job received a much

lower salary and fewer benefits, and another 23% fell back on CalWORKs after later losing their

employment.

Although the results of the CalWORKs program in this county seemed to be following a mostly

positive trend from 1996 through 2007, the situation changed dramatically in the opposite direction

during the national economic downturn from 2007 through 2011. Total public assistance rolls more

than doubled to about 30,000 during this time as the local and state unemployment rate rapidly

grew from about 7% to more than 12%. The county was initially successful in getting the state to

grant it waivers to allow recipients to extend their period of benefits during education and training,

but these waivers were considerably restricted after 2011 due to major state budget cuts. Between

2011 and early 2013 the total number of recipients began to decline again by about 10% from its

peak 2 years earlier. However, the total number of CalWORKs recipients is at 27,000, still about

5,000 recipients higher than when the program started in 1996.

Compounding the difficulty of more people becoming eligible for CalWORKs’ benefits due to

poor economic conditions, the state’s budget crisis prompted a reduction in state allocations to

counties and recipients. Nonetheless, county administrators were still pleased to report that more

than more than 16,000 recipients during the program were able to obtain employment or other

support that eliminated their dependency on cash public assistance