Implications of Welfare Reform on the Elderly

Abstract

Whereas many studies of welfare reform have focused on effects on children and families, little research has examined the implications of welfare reform for the elderly. This case study incorporates interviews with service providers for the aging, members of advocacy organizations, and two focus groups of older consumers conducted in the multi-ethnic urban community of San Francisco. Study findings suggest that welfare reform has had both direct and indirect effects on the elderly and their services in the study community. Direct effects derive primarily from changes in the welfare reform legislation that had the effect of undermining both immigrants' eligibility for and claiming of public assistance benefits. Indirect effects on older persons include increased child-care demands upon grandparents. The case study data bear on a significant policy change within the broader trend of devolution at a historical point when anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States was running high.     

Constructing deservingness: federal welfare reform,supplemental security income,and elderly immigrants

On August 22, 1996, President Clinton signed the welfare reform law that ended eligibility for all immigrants to federal means tested entitlements. Poor elderly immigrants on Supplemental Security Income were specifically targeted. This article documents how the print media responded to these policy changes. The following are the major research questions: (1) How were older immigrants on Supplemental Security Income portrayed in the print media before and after federal welfare reform? (2) Who was involved in the print media coverage of older immigrants on Supplemental Security Income before and after federal welfare reform? (3) What types of statements were made by those involved in the print media coverage of older immigrants on Supplemental Security Income, before and after federal welfare reform? The approach used was an in-depth content analysis of newspaper articles from major U.S. newspapers. The findings demonstrate that older immigrants were constructed as "undeserving" in news articles prior to the passage of the federal welfare reform bill. However, after the passage of the federal welfare reform bill the coverage of older immigrants on Supplemental Security Income started to change, and older immigrants were portrayed as "deserving." In advancing aging policy for poor, vulnerable elderly, such as elderly immigrants, advocates, health and social service providers can play an influential role in bringing their voices to the print media.     

Supplemental Security Income Among Older Immigrants From Central and South America: The Impact of Welfare Reform

This article explores the impact of federal welfare policy changes on older immigrants born in Central and South America. Using data from the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Census 5% Public-Use Microdata Samples, the study examines (1) the change in Supplemental Security Income (SSI) uptake rate after welfare reform for noncitizens from Latin America, naturalized Latin Americans, and U.S.-born Hispanics and (2) how much of the change can be attributed to a change in behavior rather than to a change in eligibility rates. Findings show that the decline in SSI receipt after welfare reform was greater for Latin American noncitizens compared to naturalized citizens and Hispanic U.S.-born citizens. Decomposition analyses show that among eligible elderly noncitizens, the decline in recipiency rate was due mostly to a change in behavior rather than a change in eligibility. This pattern is not found for U.S.-born and naturalized citizens, where changes were mostly due to a decline in the proportion of persons eligible for SSI. This suggests that as a result of legislative changes, older immigrants may not be applying for benefits for which they may be legally entitled. Policy implications are discussed.     

Has Welfare Reform Created “Chilling Effects” for Refugees in the United States?

The welfare reform legislation of 1996 significantly reduced noncitizens' access to public benefits. Research has indicated that welfare reform has had unintended “chilling effects,” whereby even those noncitizens who remain eligible for benefits do not utilize them because of fear and confusion. Although refugees were exempted from the benefit restrictions for a certain period following arrival, recent research has suggested that they too may have experienced chilling effects. This study was conducted to more accurately determine whether this has occurred, through the use of time‐series data for a sample of refugees who remain eligible for public benefits. The findings did not provide strong evidence that welfare reform has created chilling effects for refugees, although the possibility cannot be ruled out.     

Assessing Welfare Reform, Over a Decade Later

It has now been over a decade since the passage of the 1996 welfare reform legislation ( Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act ). In this paper, we synthesize the expansive literature on how welfare reform has affected poor families and nonprofit agencies that serve them. In particular, we explore state variation in welfare policies and the dramatic declines in welfare caseloads. We also investigate the employment, earnings, and levels of material hardships among current and former welfare recipients. Moreover, we examine what we know about welfare reform's impact on marriage, nonmarital childbearing, and child well-being. Lastly, we report on how welfare reform has affected nonprofit agencies that serve poor families. We are left with a complex account of the impacts of welfare reform that reveals both positive developments in a number of areas and a great deal of remaining challenges.     

Effects of Welfare Reform on Education Acquisition of Adult Women

Education beyond traditional ages for schooling is an important source of human capital acquisition among adult women. Welfare reform, which began in the early 1990s and culminated in the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act in 1996, promoted work rather than education acquisition for this group. Exploiting variation in welfare reform across states and over time and using relevant comparison groups, we undertake a comprehensive study of the effects of welfare reform on adult women’s education acquisition. We first estimate effects of welfare reform on high school drop-out of teenage girls, both to improve upon past research on this issue and to explore compositional changes that may be relevant for our primary analyses of the effects of welfare reform on education acquisition among adult women. We find that welfare reform significantly reduced the probability that teens from disadvantaged families dropped out of high school, by about 15%. We then estimate the effects of welfare reform on adult women's school enrollment and conduct numerous specification checks, investigate compositional selection and policy endogeneity, explore lagged effects, stratify by TANF work incentives and education policies, consider alternative comparison groups, and explore the mediating role of work. We find robust and convincing evidence that welfare reform significantly decreased the probability of college enrollment among adult women at risk of welfare receipt, by at least 20%. It also appears to have decreased the probability of high school enrollment among this group, on the same order of magnitude. Future research is needed to determine the extent to which this behavioral change translates to future economic outcomes.     

The Social and Economic Impact of Sanctions and Time Limits on Recipients of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families

A central feature of the reforms enacted through the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (welfare reform) has been the adoption of strategies to involuntarily remove Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) recipients from the welfare rolls, including increased use of sanctions and time limits on welfare receipt. Drawing on data from a three year panel study of women who had been receiving welfare in a state which adopted stringent sanctioning and time limit policies, we investigate predictors of recipients' TANF status after implementation of welfare reform, and identify differences in post-reform material resources, hardships and quality of life based on TANF status. Almost half of all welfare case closures during the first time period after reforms were implemented through involuntary strategies. Relatively few baseline characteristics predicted different outcomes once welfare time limits and sanctions were implemented. Those who were timed off welfare had substantially lower incomes in the year following their removal. One third of all respondents, regardless of reason for leaving TANF reported having insufficient food, housing problems and lack of access to needed medical care.     

Message and price components of Family Caps: experimental evidence from New Jersey

In this paper, we examine the relative efficacy of two mechanisms--price consideration and the message of social responsibility--in accounting for Family Cap effects on fertility behavior. The Family Cap is a component of welfare reform policy that denies additional cash benefits to children born 10 or more months after a woman entered the welfare rolls. We use data from the New Jersey Family Development Program (FDP) evaluation that employed a classical experimental design. We find that fertility behaviors are influenced by both Family Cap price and message mechanisms but that these effects are conditioned by welfare recipients' time on welfare and race. Black women who have longer stays on welfare are more likely to be influenced by price while women with shorter stays are influenced by both price and the social message. We believe our results have implications not only for future public welfare policy initiatives but for any social policies that attempt to influence behavior directly, through individual rewards and punishments, and indirectly through the activation of social or community pressures.     

EFFECTS OF WELFARE REFORM ON WOMEN'S VOTING PARTICIPATION

This study investigates the effects of welfare reform in the United States in the 1990s on voting among low‐income women. Using the November Current Population Surveys with the added Voting and Registration Supplement for the years 1990 through 2004 and exploiting changes in welfare policy across states and over time, we estimate the causal effects of welfare reform on women's voting registration and voting participation during the period in which welfare reform unfolded. During this time period, voter turnout was decreasing in the United States. We find robust evidence that welfare reform led to smaller declines in voting (about 3 to 4 percentage points, which translates to about 10% relative to the baseline mean) for women who were exposed to welfare reform compared to several different comparison groups of similar women who were much less exposed. The robust findings suggest that welfare reform had prosocial effects on civic participation, as characterized by voting. The effects were largely confined to presidential elections, were stronger in Democratic than Republican states, were stronger in states with stronger work incentive policies, and appeared to operate through employment, education, and income. (JEL D72, H53, I38, J21)     

State TANF Time Limit and Work Sanction Stringencies and Long-Term Trajectories of Welfare Use,Labor Supply,and Income

While the 1996 welfare reform increased employment and reduced the participation of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program immediately after its inception, little is known about the extent to which the reform and stringencies of time limit and work sanction policy features have impacted individuals in the long term. This study used the Survey of Income and Program Participation 1996, 2001, and 2004 panels (1996–2007) and a difference-in-difference-in-difference design to follow low-skilled single mothers’ trajectories of welfare use, labor supply, and income for 10 years after the welfare reform and compare how these trajectories differ by stringencies of state work sanction and time limit policies. The findings indicate that welfare reform had sustained impacts on reducing welfare use (TANF and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program [SNAP] program) and increasing employment. Stringent work sanction and time limit policies were associated with lower TANF participation rates in the long term, but only short time limit policies were associated with reduced SNAP participation. Neither stringent policy feature increased employment nor income. The differential effects by race were also examined and discussed.

     

Welfare Reform and Teenage Pregnancy,Childbirth, and School Dropout

This study estimates the effect of welfare reform on adolescent behaviors using a difference‐in‐differences approach. After defining the prereform and reform cohorts and considering the life course development of adolescent behavior by following each cohort from age 14 to age 16, we compare the welfare‐target and nontarget populations in the two cohorts. The difference‐in‐differences estimates are obtained using an event history model. Our analysis suggests that welfare reform has not reduced teenage fertility and school dropout. We find modest evidence that welfare reform is associated with higher risk of teenage births for girls in welfare families and higher risk of school dropout for girls in poor families. A combination of a difference‐in‐differences approach and a life course perspective can be a useful way to delineate the effect of societal‐level change on family phenomena.     

Good personal finances or a strong social capital—on different life conditions of importance for an active life when becoming alone in old age

Becoming alone in old age can be a decisive life event that brings major changes depending on various causes as health status, financial resources, family situation, and available welfare services. This article discusses the situation of older people in Sweden who have transitioned from a two-person to single-person household in recent years and what impact this might have on their everyday lives. Through in-depth interviews with 18 older people, age 67–90, their experiences about life conditions and opportunities were examined. Findings showed large differences between the men and women. They all tried to live as they always had done and they used the same personal life strategies that they always had. But the men could live as before on their own financial merits, while the women needed assistance from children, grandchildren and the welfare system. Transportation options were central and clearly related to both private economy and social services available. Shortcomings in the welfare state's way of caring for the elderly were clearly uncovered. The gap between social policy promises of opportunities for autonomy and independence to live an active life in old age and the everyday reality for older people still seems to be wide.     

Net effects of poverty on welfare use and dependency among children by family immigration and citizenship statuses

The fact that immigrant families used welfare at a disproportionately high level called for national welfare and immigration reforms in the mid-1990s. This study examined the net effects of poverty on welfare use and dependency among U.S.-born children by family immigration and citizenship statuses in pre- and post-welfare reform years. The analyses found that children in poor immigrant families were less likely to use welfare than children in poor native-born families in 1995, 2000, and 2005. In 2010, however, children in poor immigrant families and poor native-born families had similar likelihoods of welfare use. Children in poor noncitizen families were in general less likely to be dependent on welfare than children in poor naturalized families. Although children in poor naturalized families had a lower likelihood of welfare dependency in a pre-welfare reform year, they had similar or higher likelihoods of dependency in post-reform years, compared to children in native-born families.     

INTERGENERATIONAL EFFECTS OF WELFARE REFORM: ADOLESCENT DELINQUENT AND RISKY BEHAVIORS

This study investigates effects of welfare reform in the United States on the next generation. Most previous studies of effects of welfare reform on adolescents focused on high‐school dropout of girls or fertility; little is known about how welfare reform has affected other teenage behaviors or boys. We use a difference‐in‐difference‐in‐differences framework to identify gender‐specific effects of welfare reform on skipping school, fighting, damaging property, stealing, hurting others, smoking, alcohol, marijuana, and other illicit drugs. Welfare reform led to increases in delinquent behaviors of boys as well as increases in substance use of boys and girls, with substantially larger effects for boys. (JEL K42, I12, I31, I38)     

The politics of care for elderly people in Scandinavia

Most of the European countries struggle with a lack of public resources for the care of elderly people. Several comparative studies have shown that the ‘social democratic’ welfare regime of Scandinavia offers more public services to older people than any other regime. This is true both for institutional care and home care. The national averages, however, hide some serious problems. The responsibility for the care of elderly people has been transferred to the municipalities. This is threatening one of the cornerstones of the Scandinavian welfare state, equality. Access to care is increasingly becoming a question of which municipality you happen to grow old in. While inequality seems to be the problem when comparing elderly living in different municipalities, too egalitarian a policy seems to be a problem within the municipalities. In a situation where every old person is entitled to get help, the number of old people is growing and the economic resources are restricted, the cheapest form of care, ‘thinly spread’, often seems to be the only solution. It is argued that this leads to unnecessary institutionalisation. Whether there are other solutions, and what consequences they have, is also discussed. Empirical findings from a study of the care of older people in five municipalities in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden from 1991 to 1995, will be used as examples.     

Will welfare reform influence marriage and fertility? Early evidence from the ABC demonstration

A primary purpose of the 1996 welfare reform was to remove features of the existing welfare system that were believed to encourage out-of-wedlock childbearing. This paper presents evidence that the policy changes in one state did influence marriage and childbearing outcomes. Data from a random assignment test of Delaware's A Better Chance Program (ABC) show that, after only 18 months of operations, ABC had positive impacts on marital cohabitation among women who were under age 25 and those with less than 12 years of education. The reform also raised marriage expectations among women with less than 12 years of education, but led fewer better-educated women to expect to marry. Although ABC had only a small impact on actual fertility in one subgroup, it sharply reduced desires for more children among women with intermediate durations of past welfare receipt, women who were 25 of age or older, and those who had ever married.     

Managerial audit and community mental health: a study of rationalising practices in Finnish psychiatric outpatient clinics

In many European welfare states the reform of mental health services has been accompanied by the implementation of new forms of governance, including the introduction of managerial audit systems. While such systems have been developed for ‘good causes’, such as quality assurance, financial management and monitoring staff performance, they may simultaneously produce diverse and contradictory effects on practice. The aim of this article is to examine the role of one managerial audit system, introduced in psychiatric outpatient clinics in central Finland, and assess its impact on practice. Reference is made to modernising mental health policy in the UK as that has producedsimilar practics outcomes. The research was an empirical study of practice using a mixed-method case study design involving documentary research and semi-structured interviews. Insights from Mitchell Dean's notion of governmentalisation of government were utilised in the analysis. It was found that, although the audit system primarily served administrative needs, it began to reshape practice by reinforcing certain modes of working and excluding others. The analysis of community mental health work in Finland, with similar trends in the UK, highlights the connection between documentation, resource allocation and managerial priorities that reinforce particular styles of practice. In community mental health services it would appear that the problems of professional practice have become the problems of administration.     

Good Country Living? Exploring Four Housing Outcomes Among Poor Appalachians

In the wake of welfare reform, many poor people have exhausted their benefits and must now live with less government support. While all of these former welfare recipients are struggling, some are experiencing housing problems that are quite severe. This article uses survey data on former welfare recipients who have used up the maximum time limits for receiving welfare to better understand three core explanations for rural housing problems among the poor: community, individual, and family factors. We estimate models to weigh the relative effects of these factors on the likelihood of experiencing several housing outcomes, finding that rural location is the most consistent predictor of housing outcomes, predicting home ownership, and whether families reside in low‐quality housing. We also find that individual and family factors affect the type of housing one has. We conclude that housing policies must be tailored to improve specific housing outcomes.     

Social Work Practice with Older Soviet Immigrants

ABSTRACT

With the recent sociopolitical changes in the Former Soviet Union, significant numbers of older Soviets have arrived in the U.S. with their families. Soviet immigrants who enter the U.S. are no longer automatically considered political refugees, which has limited their entitlement to services. Recent changes in public welfare and immigration policy place the responsibility for care of elderly members solely on the family. While caring for older adults is stressful for any family, new immigrants may be especially burdened since they have limited knowledge of services, few coping resources to provide adequate care, and little experience resolving cultural conflicts with their older parent. By using a practice model designed to evaluate late-life caregiving situations, two case scenarios are presented to examine practice and service delivery issues of older Soviet immigrants and their families.     

Impacts of welfare reform on California grandparents raising grandchildren: reflections from the field.

Debate over the potential impacts of welfare reform largely has ignored the implications of these changes for the growing number of grandparents who are raising their grandchildren. Results of a qualitative study involving 36 key informants who were intimately involved in the crafting and/or implementation of California's welfare reform plan are presented. Particular attention is focused on time limits on aid, work requirements, and sanctions regarding teenage parenthood as these may impact on grandparent caregivers and their families. Cross-cutting themes also are presented. A case is made for greatly stepping up data collection and evaluative research that may help in determining the actual impacts of the legislation on intergenerational households headed by grandparents.