ABSTRACT
Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) is a small welfare program but a fierce battleground for domestic policy. During the 1980s, the Manpower Development Research Corporation (MDRC) evaluated state employment programs for recipients of AFDC and in some cases for recipients of AFDC-U, an even smaller categorical program designed for families in which both parents were unemployed. The negative income tax experiments tested structural reform and the MDRC studies tested social services. The MDRC studies evaluated eleven state responses to a portion of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981 (OBRA). The methodological shortcomings of the studies do not inhibit Judith Gueron, the president of MDRC and the principal research investigator, from drawing important findings, powerful conclusions, and lessons to guide welfare reform. Typically within six to nine months of registering with the new program, about half of the AFDC group had taken part in some activity; and substantial additional numbers had left the welfare rolls and the program.
