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How Solid Were Big-City Job Gains Under Welfare Reform?
Responding to the 1996 federal law that created Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Pennsylvania overhauled its welfare system to reduce welfare reliance and to encourage welfare recipients to find jobs. In Philadelphia, where the state’s largest caseload was concentrated, the policy changes coincided with a buoyant economy and robust job growth, and both employment and earnings increased. In 2001, more former welfare recipients held full-time jobs that paid an hourly wage of $7.50 or more and provided medical benefits than in 1998 (the year after Pennsylvania changed its welfare regulations). However, most jobs were low paying, part time, and offered no benefits.
Over a four-year period, only one-third of a sample of single mothers living in Philadelphia's poorest neighborhoods worked consistently, and one-third worked for 12 months or less. Some women took a series of short-term low-wage jobs that resulted in month-to-month fluctuations in earnings. Ethnographic and survey data suggest that many quit their jobs because of poor treatment by an employer, poor working conditions, problems with their jobs’ locations or schedules, lack of benefits, low pay, and health troubles affecting them or their children.
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