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Policy Framework
The welfare reforms of the 1990s were characterized by one or more of the following three core components: broad and tough work requirements, financial incentives to make work pay, and time limits on cash benefit receipt. Launched in 1996, Connecticut’s Jobs First program was one of the first statewide reform initiatives to include all three, including, at 21 months, one of the shortest state-imposed welfare time limits in the country. MDRC completed a four-year evaluation of Jobs First in 2001, and the findings have contributed powerfully to policymakers’ understanding of the way all three components interacted to affect employment and income, welfare receipt, and child well-being. Approaches to welfare reform studied in the Jobs First evaluation are in widespread use throughout the nation. Final results from the Jobs First evaluation were released just as Congress and the Bush Administration were laying the groundwork for welfare's next phase.
Agenda, Scope, and Goals
The Jobs First evaluation sought answers to these policy-relevant questions:
- How did Jobs First affect a range of outcomes, including employment and earnings, public assistance receipt, family income and poverty, and child well-being?
- Can time limits on benefit receipt be imposed without causing severe and widespread harm to welfare-reliant families?
- How did overall measures of hardship compare between families in the program group, who were subject to the new work requirements and time limits, and families in the control group, who continued to receive benefits under Connecticut's prior welfare rules and to meet the requirements of those rules?
- Over the four-year study period, did the program’s benefits to program participants, taxpayers, and government budgets exceed its costs?
Design, Sites, and Data Sources
- The evaluation focused on welfare offices in New Haven and Manchester, which together serve more than one-quarter of the state’s caseload.
- The study used a rigorous random assignment research design to track 5,000 welfare recipients over a four-year period. One-half of the targeted population were assigned to Jobs First, and the other half remained subject to the prior Aid to Families with Dependent Children welfare rules.
- A variety of data sources were used, including administrative records of cash assistance receipt, food stamp receipt, and quarterly earnings; field research conducted in welfare offices; program records; and fiscal data.
- Surveys were administered to subsets of people at 18 months and 36 months after random assignment to obtain information about job characteristics, material well-being, child outcomes, and other topics.
Findings
Findings from MDRC’s evaluation of Connecticut’s Jobs First Project can be found in Jobs First: Final Report on Connecticut’s Welfare Reform Initiative.
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