In Welfare Reform, Jeffrey Grogger and Lynn Karoly assemble evidence from numerous studies to assess how welfare reform has affected behavior. To broaden our understanding of this wide-ranging policy reform, the authors evaluate the evidence in relation to an economic model of behavior.
Getting Welfare to Work traces the development of the Australia, UK and Dutch employment services systems. Each system has undergone radical policy change since 1998, with a trend toward outsourcing and service privatisation, as governments search for ways to get welfare systems working in effective, efficient and politically acceptable ways. Using interviews and survey data, this book tells the story of those bold reforms from the perspective of thefrontline staff who work directly with jobseekers, over a fifteen year period. It shows how new ways of thinking about public services have impacted on service delivery organisations and those who work with welfareclients.
From Welfare to Work appears at a critical moment, when all fifty states are wrestling with tough budgetary and program choices as they implement the new federal welfare reforms. This book is a definitive analysis of the landmark social research that has directly informed those choices: the rigorous evaluation of programs designed to help welfare recipients become employed and self-sufficient. It discusses forty-five past and current studies, focusing on the series of seminal evaluations conducted by the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation over the last fifteen years. Which of these welfare-to-work programs have worked? For whom and at what cost? In answering these key questions, the authors clearly delineate the trade-offs facing policymakers as they strive to achieve the multiple goals of alleviating poverty, helping the most disadvantaged, curtailing dependence, and effecting welfare savings. The authors present compelling evidence that the generally low-cost, primarily job search-oriented programs of the late 1980s achieved sustained earnings gains and welfare savings. However, getting people out of poverty and helping those who are most disadvantaged may require some intensive, higher-cost services such as education and training. The authors explore a range of studies now in progress that will address these and other urgent issues. They also point to encouraging results from programs that were operating in San Diego and Baltimore, which suggest the potential value of a mixed strategy: combining job search and other low-cost activities for a broad portion of the caseload with more specialized services for smaller groups. Offering both an authoritative synthesis of work already done and recommendations for future innovation, From Welfare to Work will be the standard resource and required reading for practitioners and students in the social policy, social welfare, and academic communities.
This book explores the incentives and effects of modern welfare policy, contrasted with outcomes of global basic income pilots in the past seventy years. The author contends that paternalistic and counterproductive eligibility rules in the modern American welfare state violate the human dignity of the poor and make it nearly impossible to escape the “poverty trap.” Furthermore, these types of restrictions are absent from expenditures aimed at middle and upper-income households such as mortgage interest deductions and tax-sheltered retirement accounts. Case examples from the author's years as a front-line social worker and interviews with basic income pilot recipients in Ontario, Canada, are woven throughout the book to better illustrate the effects of the current system and the hidden potential of more radical alternatives such as a universal basic income.
As a key staffer on the House Ways and Means Committee, Haskins was one of the architects of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996. Here, he portrays the political battles that produced the most dramatic overhaul of the welfare system, since its creation as part of the New Deal.
WHY DON'T THEY JUST GET A JOB? describes the journey and the incredible results of Dave and Liane Phillips efforts to help those in poverty find their way to self sufficiency. Under the premise that existing job-readiness programs only focus on job placement and not retention to help the unemployed and underemployed, Dave and Liane Phillips created a poverty to economic self-sufficiency program with an 80% one-year employment retention rate. In the past three years this organization, Cincinnati Works, has brought $25 million in wages locally to over 1500 families. The not-for-profit offers a complete spectrum of free, lifetime employment services for the entry-level job-seeker to sustain and advance in today s work climate. The model is a winner of the 2009 Manhattan Institute Social Entrepreneur Award. Following its success, Dave Phillips is now volunteering as a consultant for similar programs in other cities.
This text explores the impact of recent welfare reform on motherhood, marriage, and work in women's lives. It also focuses on what welfare reform reveals about work and family life, and its impact on us all.
Millions of Americans are just one paycheck away from becoming unemployment statistics. If it happens to you, you need to know what to do next. This book spells out where to get help after you lose your job, your home, or both. It specifically shows where to apply for government aid programs that offer food, heating bills assistance, subsidized phone service, subsidized housing, subsidized child care, welfare, unemployment insurance and other benefits. This book shows where to apply for food stamps (SNAP) and other food programs that put food on the table, where to apply for heating bills assistance (LIHEAP) and keep the heat turned on during the winter, where to apply for subsidized telephone service (Lifeline) and keep your phone turned on, where to apply for subsidized housing (Section 8) and keep a roof over your head, where to apply for unemployment insurance and keep some money coming in, and where to apply for welfare (TANF) and other benefit programs. Both the unemployed and the underemployed working poor are eligible to apply. Includes information about benefit programs, the income and assets guidelines used to determine eligibility for benefits and hundreds of agency contact phone numbers (many toll-free) and web sites. Use this book to find out what sorts of government aid programs are available, where to apply and how to keep going during the recession.
Integrating archival and documentary materials with an analysis of the sources of political support for work-welfare programmes, this work examines the reasons behind the lack of effective training and work programmes for the unemployed in Great Britain and the United States.