Welfare Restructuring Project Analysis, Vermont, 1994-2001

Vermont's Welfare Restructuring Project (WRP) was one of the earliest statewide welfare reform programs initiated under waivers of federal welfare rules granted before the passage of the 1996 federal welfare reform law. This program, which operated from 1994 to 2001, was designed to increase work and reduce reliance on welfare. WRP required that welfare recipients work in a wage-paying job after they had received cash assistance for a specified number of months (30 months for single-parent families and 15 months for two-parent families). Recipients received help finding jobs and were offered minimum-wage community service jobs if they could not find unsubsidized employment. If a recipient did not comply with the work requirement, the state took control of their grant, used the money to pay their bills, and required them to attend frequent meetings at the welfare office. The WRP program also included a set of financial incentives that were intended to encourage and reward work. WRP served as a model for Vermont's current welfare program, which took effect in mid-2001. This study provides users with most of the data that were used for the final report. Parents who were applying for or receiving cash assistance in Vermont between July 1994 and December 1996 were assigned, at random, to one of three groups: (1) the WRP group, whose members received the financial work incentives and were subject to the work requirement; (2) the WRP Incentives Only group, whose members received the incentives but were not subject to the work requirement; or (3) the Aid to Needy Families with Children (ANFC) group, whose members remained subject to the pre-WRP welfare rules, which included neither the incentives nor the work requirement. Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC) followed all three groups for six years, using computerized records and a survey. Data sources for this study were the Vermont and New Hampshire unemployment insurance earning records, Vermont ANFC (Aid to Needy Children) records, food stamp records, and other administrative records, as well as a survey questionnaire based on the quality of their jobs, wages, education, welfare use, education, job training, children's education, and childcare.