The Impact of a Continuous Participation Obligation in a Welfare Employment Program

Abstract

We present results from a special federal demonstration funded to examine the feasibility and effectiveness of imposing on able-bodied welfare recipients a universal and ongoing obligation to work or to participate in activities intended to lead to work. Using a classical random assignment research design, we find that the program increased employment and reduced welfare receipt. Over five years, reductions in welfare payments to the research sample amounted to 11 percent for single-parent welfare families and 9 percent for two-parent welfare families, reductions which accrued as savings to taxpayers. The extra earnings income from increased employment did not exceed the loss in welfare income, however,

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