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News Release
Office of News and Information
Johns Hopkins University
3003 N. Charles Street, Suite 100
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-3843
Phone: (410) 516-7160 / Fax (410) 516-5251
 June 19, 1998
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACT:
Leslie Rice, lnr@jhu.edu

What Welfare Recipients Are Saying about Welfare Reform

In the debate surrounding the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, the voices of the people directly affected by welfare reform have rarely been heard.

In a new study released this week, Johns Hopkins University sociologist Andrew Cherlin and Pennsylvania State University sociologist Linda Burton gave voice to current and former welfare recipients with some surprising results--including widespread support for time limits on the receipt of welfare benefits.

The study involved focus groups held in Baltimore, Boston and Chicago between November 1996 and November 1997. The groups were made up of men and women who were current or former welfare recipients, or who had family members on welfare. Seven focus groups consisted of African-Americans, six were Hispanic, one was white and one was a mixture of whites and African-Americans. Eleven groups were all-female and four were all-male. The focus groups were formed to help design a larger, four-year, three-city project slated to begin later this fall.

"On the whole, the predominant tone of the focus groups was one of cautious optimism, surprisingly so, given that welfare recipients face the threat of time limits and sanctions," Cherlin said. "Most seemed willing, even eager, to move from welfare to work. Whether this cautious optimism will be borne out by the future course of welfare reform is one of the key questions our research group will be studying over the next several years."

Much of the report is told in the participants' own words and offers some surprising insights, including:

  • The majority of the participants favored time limits on welfare receipt. They viewed the new provisions as providing them with the motivation to find jobs and improve their lives. Many qualified their support, however, by saying some people needed more time to make the transition.

    "Welfare is to help you. It, they brought it about to help us to stand, to stand out a little more until we can do better. It wasn't meant for us to stay on for years and years and years. It wasn't meant for that. It was meant for us to stay on for a short period of time and go look for jobs like they're trying to make us do now. (African-American woman, Chicago)

  • Participants expressed qualified support for work requirements, as long as exceptions were made for parents who could not find adequate child care or had children with special needs.

    I think is a good change. But it depends of the mother's situation. If it is a mother who has a handicapped child, they should not make her go to work. But if it is a mother without any problems, they should offer day care services that they have, and yes, indeed, they should demand it. (Hispanic woman, Boston)

  • A majority favored "family cap" provisions that deny increases in cash assistance to mothers who have additional children while on welfare. o Participants emphasized the importance of the non-cash benefits that welfare provides, such as Medicaid and child-care assistance. Many argued that the non-cash benefits were more important than the cash benefits.

    "Sometimes some people find a job but without benefits, and do not have health insurance. She is worse off than the person who is on welfare." (Hispanic woman, Boston)

  • When asked what advice they would give the president and state officials, participants asked for more time to make the transition, for more child care, educational and training assistance, for continued medical coverage and for help learning English.

    "I would tell him that we need, they need to find more day care for our children or after-school programs if they want us to work, so that our kids are safe and in a safe environment." (White woman, Boston)

    Other authors of the study included Judith Francis, Brandeis University; Robin Jarrett, University of Illinois; James Quane, Harvard University; Constance Williams, Brandeis University and N. Michelle Stem Cook, Johns Hopkins University.

    The study was funded by the Boston Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, the Lloyd A. Fry Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Woods Fund of Chicago, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

    For more information about the project, visit its website at www.jhu.edu/~welfare/ To learn more about Andrew Cherlin, visit his website at coleman.soc.jhu.edu/ .

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