Welfare
and Adolescents: July 2003 Update
By Diana Zuckerman
War and budget crises have overwhelmed the policy agenda, but sometime in 2003 Congress is expected to finally focus on changing welfare policies again. Still enthusiastic about the success of the 1996 welfare reform law, and hoping to save more money, many Members of Congress are supporting new proposals that include stiffer work requirements and less money for childcare. Unfortunately, these proposals come at a time when unemployment is up and fewer jobs are available for welfare recipients with limited work experience.
Research on welfare gives a valuable view of the success and failure of the current system. Supporters of welfare reform point with pride at the substantial cuts in the welfare rolls, and the increased number of welfare recipients that have made the transition to work. Advocates for the poor often examine poverty levels, and find that working rarely makes a substantial difference in income for poorly educated, low-skilled workers.
Left out of most debates is the impact of welfare reform on the well-being of children and youth. This article will focus on the best research that has been conducted on that often-ignored topic.
| Consequences
of Welfare Reform: A Research Synthesis Jeffrey Grogger, Lynn A. Karoly, and Jacob Alex Klerman Washington, DC: RAND. Available free at www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/opre/welfare_reform/rand_report.pdf |
This lengthy, government-commissioned review of the best research on welfare reform evaluated the impact on the well-being of children of preschool age, primary school age, and adolescents. The studies were started before the 1996 welfare law passed, but they evaluated some of the reforms that states made to their welfare programs in the early-to-mid 1990s. The studies evaluated outcomes such as school performance, health, foster care placements, and participation in clubs and other organizations.
The focus of the studies were 24 welfare-to-work programs across the country, such as programs that penalized parents for not working; work incentive programs that provided supplemental income to those who worked; and programs run by local work force offices that provided supplemental income to those who worked and helped with child care
Surprisingly, work requirements did not have much impact on kids, either favorable or unfavorable. The good news is that the work incentives that allowed welfare recipients to combine work and welfare tended to result in increased family income and better adjustment for primary school-aged kids. However, there were some problems among adolescents and among younger children of parents who do not experience large income gains.
Despite the high quality of the research, these findings are not necessarily applicable to current welfare programs across the U.S. A major limitation is that this research looks only at the effect of welfare reform on families who receive welfare; it does not tell us how children are affected by new welfare rules that discourage families from applying for welfare. And, unfortunately, as the authors point out, there was too little information about time limits to evaluate them meaningfully.
| How Welfare
and Work Policies for Parents Affect Adolescents Lisa A. Gennetian, Greg J. Duncan, Virgina W. Knox, and colleagues New York: Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation, May 2002 Available free at www.mdrc.org/Reports2002/ng_adolescent/ng_adolsyn_full.pdf |
This study by the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation examined how welfare and work policies targeted at low-income parents have influenced their adolescent children. They used a meta-analysis to examine 16 different programs, some of which were identical to the studies in the government report. A meta-analysis is a type of statistical analysis that combines the data from different studies. Rather than looking at the studies individually, it combines the data and looks at them overall. This meta-analysis was especially interesting because it focused on studies of adolescents ages 12 to 18 at the time of the survey.
This study evaluated three aspects of welfare reform: mandatory employment, earnings supplements (which allow working parents to keep more of their welfare benefits), and time limits placed on receiving welfare.
When asked about their sons and daughters, parents in the reformed welfare programs reported worse school performance, a higher rate of repeating the same grade, and more use of special educational services compared to children whose parents received welfare under the old, unreformed program. However, these welfare reform programs did not affect the proportion of boys or girls who dropped out, were suspended, or completed school. The percentage of adolescents who had babies also was not influenced.
No single one of the three policies explained the negative impact on adolescents. However, adolescents with younger siblings experienced the most problems, including lower school performance, more suspensions, and more grade repetition. Adolescents with no younger siblings, in contrast, showed fewer and more mixed effects. This may be because adolescents are caring for younger siblings since the working mother is less available for childcare and household chores.
The authors also analyzed adolescents in two studies who were followed for longer periods. In these studies, the results are more mixed, showing some good outcomes as well as some bad. This may mean the problems discussed above will disappear over time, or it might mean that older adolescents are less harmed by these welfare limits. Or it might be that more research is needed to understand what happens to adolescents under welfare reform.
| Mothers'
Transitions from Welfare to Work and the Well-Being of Preschoolers and
Adolescents P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, Robert A. Moffitt, Brenda J. Lohman, and colleagues Science, Vol. 299, 2003, pgs. 1548-1552. |
This study, conducted on 2402 low-income children and their mothers in Chicago, Boston, and San Antonio examined transitions off welfare and into employment. They found that moving from welfare to work did not generally cause problems for the 564 preschoolers (ages 2 to 4 years) or 895 young adolescents (ages 10 to 14 years). There was some evidence that mother’s employment resulted in improvements in adolescents' mental health, while mother’s going back on welfare was linked with teenagers' increased behavior problems.
Almost half the children were African American, and almost half were Hispanic. The research was based on a 2.5 hour home interview in 1999 and one about 16 months later in 2001. The interviews were conducted on the mothers and the adolescents, and the evaluation focused on the children’s achievement, problem behaviors, and psychological well-being.
The study compared families that moved off welfare, those that moved onto welfare, those whose mothers went from unemployed to employed, and those whose mothers went from employed to unemployed. Employment was defined very broadly as working at least one hour per week.
These transitions did not apparently affect preschoolers’ well-being. There was little impact on adolescents, but the most consistent pattern was that mothers' transitions into employment were very modestly related to improvements in adolescents' mental health. This may have been influenced by the increases in income that were from employment. Interestingly, transitions off of or onto welfare were not related to income.
Mothers’ time away from adolescents while not working decreased, so adolescents only had a net loss of time with mom of 45 minutes per day when moms went to work. In contrast, preschoolers lost about 2 hours of time with their moms. This means that the increase in family income came at a significant price --a loss of time with Mom for preschoolers, but not for adolescents.
Why are these findings different from the previous studies? This study includes mothers on welfare subject to mandatory work requirements as well as mothers not on welfare. This is a more accurate reflection of what is happening now, under welfare reform, but it does not tell us about the effect of welfare reform itself. Measures in this study are more extensive than in experimental studies. Also, the teens in this study were younger at the end of the study, than they were in the Gennetian report.
| Knocking
on the Door: Barriers to Welfare and other Assistance for Teen Parents
Deborah L. Shapiro and Helene M. Marcy Chicago, IL: Center for Impact Research, April 2002 Available free at www.impactresearch.org/documents/cirknockdoor.pdf |
There is surprisingly little research on the impact of welfare reform on teen mothers. This more subjective study is based on surveys of TANF recipients and others in Chicago, Atlanta, and Boston. Interviews were conducted by low-income young mothers who were trained and paid to interview teen mothers in their communities. The surveys were not conducted on a random sample of teen mothers, and so this study does not compare with the others in terms of scientific rigor. However, the results raise interesting questions that clearly deserve attention.
The survey found that some teen parents were not getting the opportunity to apply for TANF benefits and other were having trouble keeping TANF benefits once they received them. For example, between 16 and 46 percent of those not receiving TANF who had tried to apply were turned away from the office and not able to complete applications Another 12 to 19 percent were able to complete applications but then were never contacted by the TANF agency about receiving assistance. About 50 to 60 percent of those who applied were determined to be ineligible because they were not attending school or did not satisfy requirements regarding living arrangements, and other requirements unrelated to income.
The authors concluded that some needy teen parents are not receiving assistance for two reasons: 1) caseworkers were not always completely aware of the TANF policy for teen parents. 2) TANF agencies do not give teen parents the time they need to comply with TANF requirements.
The survey also found that many of the older teen parents (18 to 19) had not received a high school diploma or GED, and that some younger teens were not in school. Some teen parents did not access other health and social services that they may be eligible for, such medical assistance, child care, food stamps, and WIC. This was a problem for all teen moms, whether or not they were on welfare.
As you can see, even the best research conducted so far doesn’t tell
us what we’d most like to know about the impact of welfare reform. It
may just be that some families benefit, and others don’t. But regardless
of what these studies show, their usefulness for predicting what will happen
to these families in 2003 is limited. As jobs become harder to find, what
will happen to families that are up against time limits for welfare benefits?
Will adolescents be forced to quit school to support their families if their
mothers are unable to find or keep jobs? Will lack of affordable childcare
make it even more difficult for adolescents to stay in school while their
mothers go back to work? Research can’t answer these questions, but
perhaps common sense will prevail. If not, communities may find themselves
picking up the pieces.
This article is based
on Diana Zuckerman’s Research Watch column in the May 2003 issue of
Youth Today.
