A Baseline Analysis of the Factors Influencing AFDC Duration and Labor Market Outcomes

This paper reports results of a baseline analysis of Job Training Partnership Act-welfare coordination efforts in Texas. Following an introduction, section II provides a brief overview of the literature on welfare dynamics and program participation and describes Texas programs to move Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) recipients into the labor force. Section III describes the research methodology. Section IV presents and interprets the statewide statistical results for the baseline period and discusses key differences between statewide and substate results. Among the key findings noted in Section V are the following: (1) the overwhelming majority of persons who left AFDC did so for reasons other than employment; (2) the factors strongly associated with both lengthening a caretaker's time on welfare and reducing employment exit probability were largely personal; (3) JTPA participation increased caretakers' chances of leaving welfare for employment but had little impact on keeping them from returning to the rolls; (4) factors having the greatest influence on a caretaker's return to AFDC were almost all personal/demographic; and (5) expected employment duration of those AFDC caretakers who were successful in leaving welfare for employment was 6.6 months, with very few factors associated with improving the length of employment. Appendixes include 61 references, complete results for 5 substate regions, and a more technical discussion of the data used to develop the research sample, sampling techniques, and estimation methods.