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This study examined the quality of life of single mothers making the mandatory transition from welfare to work. The Australian government purported that the benefits of making this transition would include higher incomes, better social participation, and improved wellbeing. It is currently unknown, however, how single mothers currently engaged in welfare to work programs evaluate their quality of life. Quality of life scores for 334 single mothers engaged in welfare to work in Australia were compared with normative data. Participants reported significantly lower quality of life scores than the general population for all quality of life domains, highlighting the need to carefully examine welfare to work policies to ensure they promote participants' quality of life. KEYWORDS quality of life, welfare, single mothers, Australia DOI 10.1080/03630240903423980

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 imposed new work expectations and time-limited benefits on welfare recipients and also gave states flexibility in administering these programs. [...]

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity and Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 (1) radically reshaped the landscape of welfare for women. (2) The changes transformed a program designed to meet [...]

We address how childcare subsidies help in the welfare-to-work transition relative to other factors. We examine how the policy operates, whether childcare problems differ by subsidy receipt, and the effect of subsidy on work. Data are from a random sample panel study of welfare recipients after 1996. Findings show that subsidy receipt reduces costs but not parenting stress of problems with care. It predicts earnings and work duration net of other factors. Increased use of subsidies by eligible families and greater funding for child care would help meet the demand for this important support for working-poor families.

This article examines 'policy transfers' in work-based welfare reform efforts in the United Kingdom and the United States during the 1990s, which is seen as an example of 'Third Way' policy-making. Issues include the so-called Americanization of British welfare policies under the Labour Government's New Deal program for handling youth unemployment, the dependence of programs on local institutional and economic conditions, and the increasingly decentralized modes of policy delivery.

Introduction The passage of Public Law 104-193, "The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act" (Congressional Record, July 30, 1996) provides incentive to employers to hire individuals from the welfare […]

The author proposes that social work practices result in part from the institutionalization of ideological beliefs from the environment. In addition, it is proposed that this process is mediated by intraorganizational factors, especially the strength of the organizational control system. These relationships were examined in the implementation in four counties of GAIN, California's mandatory welfare-to-work program. Four distinct ideological stances emerged in these programs, and these stances were predictive of the nature of case management activity. Of particular interest is the role of the organizational variables. Control systems within programs were predictive of the strength of the relationship between ideology and technology.

The US, the UK and Canada possess workfare programs that require welfare recipients to pursue some work-related activities in exchange for their benefits. The US programs provide models of limited utility to New Zealand (NZ) because they target mainly minors with dependent children. British and Canadian programs, which broadly target the unemployed, are more applicable to NZ's needs. NZ's unemployment benefits system apparently already requires an amount of work-related activity from its clients that is roughly equivalent to the other systems. More stringent requirements are being implemented.

An overview is presented on the role of coordination between agencies in preventing duplication among public programs. The article also discusses how state and federal agencies might also use coordination for this purpose.

The article uses time series analysis to examine the reasons behind the drop in welfare recipients and the impact of government reforms in the United States.

Wisconsin?s welfare system did not succeed in motivating recipients to establish economic independence until the mid-1980s. After that date, the work requirement was strengthened and bureaucracies were set up and funded with the goal of aiding welfare recipients to find work. This shows that welfare programs must be well-administered and well-funded in order to succeed at the goal of putting welfare recipients to work.

LIKE pious Muslims making the pilgrimage to Mecca, policy wonks have been flocking to Milwaukee to study its ambitious experiment in welfare reform. The reason why isn't hard to figure [...]

When Congress enacted welfare reform legislation that President Clinton finally signed in 1996, it abolished the federal welfare entitlement to cash benefits. Recognizing the incredibly destructive consequences that this entitlement [...]

After a decade on welfare, Donnie Dennis became a nurse--and one of many success stories at Great Plains Technology Center. The Oklahoma school is part of a state network that [...]

A Regulation Approach framework has been adopted to analyse the very rapid period of change in social security policy since the late 1980s. It is argued that the changes can be explained in terms of a number of regulatory dilemmas which emerged or were intensified under neo-liberal capital accumulation. Some of the regulatory dilemmas - high levels of economic inactivity, inflationary pressures consequent to higher employment and low levels of wages - it was thought could be managed through the social security system using what we call 'market workfare'; by which we mean in-work means-tested social security benefits which have some measure of compulsion to work attached, such that it counts as workfare. The aim of in-work benefits is to reduce wages further so that the market can respond by creating more low-wage employment. By this stratagem it is the market which responds to labour demand, rather than the government creating work opportunities. The parliamentary neo-liberal right's approach to 'market workfare' is discussed, and then it is suggested that the marked similarities between New Labour and the previous parliamentary neo-liberal right can be explained because both administrations were attempting to manage the same regulatory dilemmas.

SAYREVILLE, N.J. -- Borough officials are instituting a program to help people in need of temporary work assistance. Public assistance recipients are required to actively seek employment. Engaging in community [...]

An improved economy and lighter welfare caseloads give states a little welcome leeway in their efforts to change 'welfare as we know it.' States could hardly have picked a better [...]