When Welfare Benefits Expire

What happened to earnings, public assistance payments, and total household income of participants in Connecticut's welfare reform initiative when they reached a 30-month time limit on benefit receipt?

Tested between 1996 and 2001, Connecticut's Jobs First welfare reform initiative featured one of the nation's shortest time limits on the receipt of welfare benefits. After 30 months on the welfare rolls, recipients would no longer be eligible to supplement earnings from a job with welfare cash assistance payments and food stamps. MDRC researchers found that during the first two years of the study period, Jobs First group members earned, on average, $837 more (as indicated by the left-most bar in the "pre-time limit" cluster) than a comparison group that continued to receive standard welfare benefits under the prevailing rules of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). The Jobs First group also received more in welfare benefits - $1,116 more, on average - than the AFDC group (the second bar in the "pre-time limit" cluster); they also received more in Food Stamps (the third bar). As a consequence, total income for the Jobs First group topped that of the AFDC group by $2,281 (as shown in the right-most bar in the "pre-time limit" cluster).

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