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Helping Women Stay Off Welfare: The Role of Post-Exit Receipt of Work Supports |
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This paper assesses the role of work support programs (specifically, food stamps and Medicaid) and other factors in reducing welfare reentry and promoting stable employment among women exiting the TANF program. Using data from the 1996 and 2001 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation, the paper finds that welfare leavers who use food stamps as a transitional support when they leave TANF are less likely to return to TANF and more likely to be stably employed (for the year after exit) than women who do not receive food stamps when they exit welfare. Over the past decade, millions of families have left welfare for work, and millions more have toiled in low-paying jobs struggling to stay off welfare. Studies show that about one-quarter of the women heading families that leave welfare for work end up returning to welfare within a year of exit, and every year some families enter welfare for the first time. Gaining a better understanding of what helps keep families off welfare and whether these factors have changed since the early years of welfare reform will help policymakers better design and target programs aimed at supporting work.
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