RESEARCH General Illinois

WELFARE REFORM
Welfare-to-work numbers may be hiding extensive job instability

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

2/1/2000

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Welfare rolls have shrunk dramatically in recent years, and states' surveys show that most of those who have left the rolls have jobs.

But many of those surveys have measured employment at just one point in time, hiding a lot of job instability and on-again, off-again employment, say University of Illinois researchers who produced a study last fall for the state of Illinois.

"When we look at the aggregate statistics, they make people leaving welfare look like a stable population," says Steve Anderson, a U. of I. professor of social work. "But if we really look at the majority of people in our study, most of them experienced some type of job change or some loss of employment" during the time they were off the rolls -- less than a year for those in the Illinois study.

"We clearly found that people didn't remain on one job for a long period of time," Anderson said.

Anderson and social work colleague Tony Halter, both professors on the Urbana-Champaign campus, analyzed data working with the Survey Research Office at the University of Illinois at Springfield. The U.I.S. researchers started by contacting a random sample of 1,399 people who had left the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program in December 1997 or June 1998. Of those, 427, or 31 percent, responded and were interviewed.

The interviews were conducted primarily in November and December of 1998, four to 11 months after people left the welfare rolls.

Combining the statistics for both the December '97 and June '98 respondents, the employment rate changed relatively little between TANF exit and the time of the interview, from 68.9 percent to 65.3, Anderson said. Only 51.2 percent, however, were employed at both points, he said.

And, perhaps most telling of the job instability, only 36.8 percent of those who were employed when they left TANF in December '97 had the same job when interviewed less than a year later.

Also of concern, Anderson said, was low use by respondents of available state and federal supports. Only 36 percent with child-care needs, for instance, were receiving state subsidies, and only 43 percent of all respondents were receiving the Earned Income Tax Credit. "I would say all of [the support services] look like they're being underused," he said, "and we don't know why, for the most part."

Some results were better than the researchers expected. A large majority of those who had been employed, for instance, had worked full-time jobs, rather than collections of part-time jobs. And their average hourly pay was $7.59 at TANF exit, and $7.78 on their current or most recent job.

But these wages still put people in or near poverty, Anderson said. And combining that with the apparent job instability, he suggested that states need to structure their social service systems accordingly. "It's important for the system to be responsive as people move in and out of jobs if we really want to get them to work, and if we want to support work," he said.