Federal Welfare Time-Limit Extensions and Exemptions: Why Does Utilization Vary across States and over Time?

Establishing public cash assistance as a time-limited benefit was a key and controversial feature of the 1996 welfare reform legislation. Many advocates and practitioners consider the formalization of program flexibility through time-limit exemptions and extensions to be critical in helping the most vulnerable families. Despite these options, including states' ability to exempt up to 20 percent of their caseloads due to hardships without penalty from the federal government, uptake varies considerably over time and across states. Using multiple data sources, including federal caseload data and the Urban Institute's Welfare Rules Database, we examine time-limit extensions and exemptions in the 50 US states from fiscal years 2002–16. Fixed-effects, negative binomial models test four theoretical models: state need and capacity, state politics, policy implementation strategies, and federal incentives. Findings indicate that states strategically respond to federal incentives and that implementation strategies matter, particularly for time-limit extensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]