RESEARCH Business Government

WELFARE REFORM
Medical care and hunger key for those leaving, returning to welfare

Craig Chamberlain, Education Editor
(217) 333-2894; cdchambe@uiuc.edu

3/1/02

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – The 1996 welfare-reform act was designed to get people off welfare and into the workforce. The dramatic reduction in caseloads that followed seemed to indicate that was happening.

Why, then, do some people make that transition only to revert to welfare later – especially in Illinois, a state considered to be a leader in its welfare-reform policies?

Steve Anderson, a University of Illinois professor of social work, sought to find some answers through a study in inner-city Chicago. The study involved interviews with 232 single mothers who left the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program in December 1999. The sample was roughly divided between women who then remained off TANF and women who had returned (or recycled).

Much of what he found, in interviews conducted an average of 20 months later, was not surprising. The "leavers," those who remained off welfare, were more likely to have had jobs when they quit welfare, and were much more likely to have kept them. They also tended to have better-paying jobs.

But in many ways, the leavers were not much better off than the "recyclers," Anderson said in his report last fall to the Joyce Foundation, which funded the study. Nearly half, or 47 percent, said they did not have enough money to buy food when off welfare, compared with 61 percent of recyclers. Twenty-six percent of leavers and 38 percent of recyclers said they had skipped or cut meals because of finances.

"These hunger numbers really are troubling to me, and I don't see much reporting about them," Anderson said in an interview. He’s planning further study of that issue, using data from other states.

Among other concerns cited by study participants, lack of health care coverage "stands out like a sore thumb," Anderson said. Majorities of both groups said their coverage had been better when on TANF. About a third of each group said they could not afford needed medical care after leaving TANF, and 47 percent of recyclers said that lack of insurance contributed to their return to welfare.

"Essentially, what they're saying is that the system still has an incentive for them to go back on TANF, despite all these other changes (designed to do the opposite)," Anderson said.
Anderson also found that many had not used government supports after leaving welfare. Only 11 percent of leavers and 3 percent of recyclers had used all of four key supports. About three-fifths of each group had used Medicaid, just over half food stamps, and about 20 percent childcare subsidies.

Only about half of those who usually worked had received the Earned Income Tax Credit, and more than one-quarter had never heard of it. "Both leavers and recyclers commonly indicated that they had not been told by their caseworkers about these support services," Anderson wrote.

Despite the difficulties they cited, about two-thirds of leavers and even 43 percent of recyclers felt they were better off after leaving TANF, often citing greater self-esteem and independence, Anderson said. By improving support programs, he thinks states still can improve the circumstances for those who have left welfare, even if little changes this year in the reauthorization of the welfare act.