Measuring Barriers to Employment and Self-Sufficiency in TANF Families

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program provides monthly cash assistance for poor families with children under 18, with the understanding that recipients work toward finding a job. As these families move through the process of seeking employment and honing their job skills, many questions about their experiences and well-being arise. Mathematica has conducted a number of state-level surveys to help answer these questions.

Most studies of welfare clients do not measure the concept of "disadvantaged" in a consistent way. In order to uniformly describe the characteristics and needs of families still remaining on TANF, we reviewed existing survey instruments that focus on welfare populations to develop a common survey instrument for states to use to conduct telephone surveys of this population. The TANF caseload survey focuses on personal, family, and community factors that may present barriers to employment among welfare recipients. A summary report and the survey design were prepared for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE).

Five states—California, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, and South Carolina—and the District of Columbia utilized the survey instrument we developed to gather data on their current TANF populations. Using the same survey makes it possible to examine whether barriers to work are relatively consistent across states, thus providing significant insight into the challenges TANF agencies face in working with recipients who have not found jobs. This work was funded by ASPE. Mathematica conducted the survey for two of the six states—interviewing 420 TANF recipients in the District of Columbia and 819 in Maryland. Both surveys achieved a 72 percent response rate. 

We have also conducted similar surveys in other states. In Illinois, we interviewed over 400 single-parent families receiving cash TANF grants to assess barriers to employment and work-readiness skills using the TANF caseload survey instrument. The survey achieved a 78 percent response rate. A report on the findings was prepared for the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation and ASPE.

In Nebraska, we surveyed over 400 single mothers on TANF to assess barriers to employment and self-sufficiency for the Nebraska Health and Human Services System. We also examined how these barriers constrained employability and influenced experiences with welfare-to-work activities and supportive services. We achieved a 75 percent response rate. 

Many projects have assessed the well-being of those who left the TANF program. For example, we have conducted surveys of former Iowa TANF recipients for that state's evaluation of the Iowa Family Investment Program (FIP). All surveys had response rates around 75 percent. Another survey that involved interviewing over 400 Iowa families that left TANF voluntarily focused on respondents' perspectives on their experiences with and reasons for leaving FIP, as well as their post-FIP financial circumstances and well-being. The survey achieved a 76 percent response rate.  

Another survey in Iowa focused on 248 parents who gained employment while on TANF. They were interviewed a few months later to see how employment affected their self-esteem, their family relationships, and family functioning. This survey achieved an 80 percent response rate.

In Virginia, we conducted two rounds of surveys to assess the effects of time limits on TANF families' well-being. One was conducted with about 250 families, and the other was conducted with roughly 500 families. Both achieved response rates of near 80 percent.

Back to Top