ABSTRACT

Social policy in the United States has a long-standing tradition of using social assistance based programs for the provision of aid to needy families. This chapter focuses on five primary issues concerning: labor force participation; the effects of grant size and mandatory work requirements on employment rates; duration of aid; factors affecting the duration of aid; and programmatic variations in the attempt to move people from welfare to work. A common finding was that higher guaranteed levels of support prolong the spell of welfare use, while reducing the length of time off welfare. A large number of studies have investigated the employment status of welfare recipients. Although earned income would reduce the size of their welfare benefits, Aid to Families with Dependent Children recipients have been permitted to work without terminating eligibility for aid. The perverse effect of the policy was to generate higher levels of welfare dependency by lowering the percentage of welfare recipients who worked for wages.