Institute for Research on Poverty
Discussion Paper no. 1388-10

Have Welfare-to-Work Programs Improved Over Time In Putting Welfare Recipients To Work?

David H. Greenberg
University of Maryland-Baltimore County
E-mail: dhgreenberg@umbc.edu
Philip K. Robins
University of Miami
E-mail: probins@miami.edu

November 2010

The authors are grateful to Andreas Cebulla for contributing to the early stages of the research through discussions and helping to construct the database used in the study and to Gayle Hamilton for providing information about the Employment Retention and Advancement experiments. Helpful comments were also received by participants in a seminar at the University of Miami. Original funding to construct the database was provided by the British ESRC, the British Academy, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Later funding to refine the database was provided by the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services.
IRP Publications (discussion papers, special reports, Fast Focus, and the newsletter Focus) are available on the Internet. The IRP Web site can be accessed at the following address: http://www.irp.wisc.edu.

Abstract
Data from 76 experimental welfare-to-work programs conducted in the United States between
1983 and 1998 are used to investigate whether the impacts of such programs on employment had been improving over time and whether specific program features influencing such changes can be identified.
Over the period, an increasing percentage of control group members received services similar to those offered to program group members. As a result, differential participation in program service activities between program and control group members decreased steadily over time. This reduction in the net receipt of program services tended to reduce the impact of these programs on