Finding Accurate Causal Affects Of A National Supported Work

People generally enjoy working and being productive members of society. The positive effects of the Welfare Reform Act is moving to eventually end poverty in America and promote economic growth. According to the 2005 report measuring welfare dependents “Poverty in 2003 remains much lower than in 1996, the year of passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. The official poverty rate for 2003 was 12.5 percent, compared to 13.7 percent in 1996.” ( Gil Crouse, Susan Hauan, Julia Isaacs, Kendall Swenson and Lisa Trivits, 2005 ) States that design welfare-to-work policies that emphasized getting recipients into jobs by shifting to “work-first” welfare systems can modify program rules to allow more earned income,

Work release programs teach a sense of responsibility that no school alone could teach. A person in Texas says,”...learning to manage schoolwork and a job was by far very difficult at first, but it prepared me for what was to come not only in college but in life.” Majority

Setting a time frame for recipients before they are drug tested has been shown in research by Perter Muenning to motivate recipients to find employment or receive treatment for any addiction to avoid risking having their benefits removed. Those who test positive would be required to receive treatment or have their benefits removed, which helps to reduce costs to the welfare system. The time restrictions on drug testing persuade recipients to actively seek employment or find addiction consoling before the welfare system drug tests them. Implanting this system would drastically reduce costs by motivating a majority of the recipient and only actually drug testing a few.

Following the welfare reforms that were introduced by the New Labour Government in 1997, the coalition Government has developed, extended and continued welfare-to-work programmes (Deacon and Patrick, 2012). The Government’s ‘rehabilitation revolution’ saw policies designed to reduce reoffending, and as a consequence resettlement initiatives emerged with welfare-to-work programmes (Ministry of Justice, 2010). Since the implementation of the ‘Work Programme’ in 2011, welfare provision has seen a high influx of ex-offenders and Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangement (MAPPA) participants referred to programmes (Gov.UK, 2016). The main provider in Wales has delivered learning and development provision to approximately 24,000 ex-offenders (Working Links, 2013). The ultimate aim of the provider is to ensure participants secure sustainable employment. Accordingly, front-line staff have undergone specialist training to deal with ‘risk’ and mentor clients with complex and multiple needs. However, there is a dearth of research focusing on this contemporary phenomena. Considering the pivotal role employment schemes play in rehabilitating offenders, it is of paramount importance to determine whether or not the Governments confidence in employability schemes is justified.

In my current role as a Regional Facilitator Supervisor with the SC JUMMP (Jobs Upfront Mean More Pay) Program, I have first-hand experience with individuals who have been negatively impacted by the current world economic downturn. The SC JUMMP Program tailors to individuals who applied for FI also known as welfare. The participants are referred to our program by DSS. We then provided orientation and assessments to each participant. We have them complete a series of questions to rate their skills in comparisons to the current workforce industries. We then have them attended 30 hours of job readiness workshop to assist them with gaining

In Nickled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, I am still a little puzzled as to what the author’s purpose was with her experiment to briefly “live like the working poor in America.” She states she was concerned about the Welfare to Work program enacted 3 years prior and her “objective” experiment will allow her to make a conclusion on the effectiveness of the program. It appeared to me that she went into the experiment with a bias that the program will not work and it is an unreasonable, unrealistic, and unfair program. This is shown by her immediate statement, “The humanitarian rationale for welfare reform-as opposed to the more punitive and stingy impulses that may have motivated it …”. She then continues by using just the statistics

Great discoveries always begin with great questions. Barbara Ehrenreich asked two great questions, “how does anyone live on the wages available to the unskilled” and “how were the roughly four million women about to be booted into the labor market by welfare reform, going to make it on $6 to $7 an hour” (2001, p. 12). To answer the questions, Ehrenreich embarked upon a journey to discover for herself, whether she could match income to expense as a low-wage worker. In effect, Ehrenreich tested the fundamental premise of The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, also known as welfare reform, in order to determine whether those individuals formerly on welfare and largely unskilled, could earn a living wage on the

“If you work, you should not be poor” (Duncan 1). This quote is essentially the theme of the book, Higher Ground: New Hope for the Working Poor and Their Children, as well as the motivation of the founders of the New Hope Antipoverty Program. This experimental program was implemented in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1994. The goal of the program was to help low skilled and low-wage working individuals whom did not receive all the benefits they deserved because of their low incomes. One thousand three hundred and fifty-seven low-income adults, living in the two poorest neighborhoods of that city, volunteered to take part in the study to see how effective this experimental program would be. The participants were all randomly assigned, and half of them would receive the New Hope benefits while the other half served as a control group that would not receive the benefits. These benefits included earning supplements, subsidized childcare, and subsidized health care to anyone who would work weekly, full time (thirty hours per week). If you could not find a job, the program offered community service jobs for up to six months, paying minimum wage (Duncan 3-4, 12). The study lasted for three years and the results were tremendously encouraging. The MDRC concluded in their evaluation that, “Overall, New Hope increased employment and earnings, leading in turn to increased income...and enabling more low-income workers to earn their way out of poverty…New Hope

Since the early War on Drugs and the welfare reform of the 1990s, those who receive public benefits have been under the microscope of drug warriors and policy makers. Those who are proponents of drug testing say that substance abuse and addiction can interfere with the ability to obtain or maintain jobs. Drug testing can help welfare recipients prepare for the job market by getting them clean and ready for the job application process (Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), 2011). Drug use and abuse can also contribute to child abuse and neglect (Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), 2013). Testing welfare recipients can also be cost effective, as it would prevent the misuse of public funds for the purchase

Not all dislocated workers qualify for a Pell grant. Another option is, The Workforce Investment Act that was first implemented in August 1998. The WIA program is intended to help dislocated workers find work. While in the program, services such as resume writing, skills testing, and access to employers seeking workers. They also provide a free year of community college to retrain the participant in a new career. Several cuts have been made to the program and more funding is needed for the WIA program. According to Randall Eberts and George Erickcek, “Most states and workforce boards see the benefit of such training, states have had to reduce funding for programs and relatively few federal funds are available to replace the lost state dollars”. State funding is a key to these unemployment services to work successfully. Many skeptics believe that the only way to fund any assistance programs is to raise taxes. Getting tax increases to pass through the State and Federal Government is very difficult and lengthy

An additional way the welfare system is not working is by people continuously losing their jobs while on the welfare system so they can keep receiving the welfare payments. One way to fix this problem is to make the people struggling to keep a job is to create a job training programs where social workers will train people who are receiving the benefits. These examples are various ways that the welfare system could possibly be more efficient. Having drug tests and house visits will discourage the recipients from trying to take advantage of

Instead of addressing welfare fraud, the welfare system as a whole must be evaluated. The reformed welfare system would make it advantageous for welfare recipients to work low-income jobs in order to make more money. Similar to the current system, welfare recipients would be given a fixed amount of money that is determined by a number of environmental variables and a case manager. The money that is provided to the welfare recipient would be used to cover the costs of living such as, housing, groceries, and doctors appointments. In order to qualify for welfare, a recipient must prove to their case manager that they are employed or actively seeking employment and that the needs of their dependencies and themselves are met. The low-income job would then work in conjunction with the welfare programs. The low-income job would add to the welfare recipient’s income thereby making it beneficial to work a low-income job. While working the low-income job, they must continue to prove that they are working well, working to earn raises, or working to find a better paying job. In cases where these requirements are not met the individual would be disqualified to receive any welfare services. If a welfare recipient is promoted or gets a new job and makes a better wage their

In the past, the counselor would only validate if the client had spent sufficient time looking for work. If the client did not meet the requirement, they would be fined. In many cases, up to 30 percent of their benefits. The 1996 welfare reform, emphasized work as a measurable way to escape poverty. If a client acquired employment, the program was considered successful.

Jung, Haeil. "Do Prison Work-Release Programs Improve Subsequent Labor Market Outcomes? Evidence from the Adult Transition Centers in Illinois." Journal of Offender Rehabilitation 53.5 (2014): 384-402.

A literature review illustrates how vital job placement services have been found to be in the job employment assistance endeavors. The review of previous studies reveals the “receipt of placement services” to be the “strongest predictor of employment outcomes” (Fleming et al., 2014, p. 7). A 2006 study characterized job placement as “the driving force behind the vocational rehabilitation program” (Fleming et al., 2014, p. 7). According to the researchers, the public Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) services have attained the status of “the most important vocational programs for persons with disabilities” (Fleming et al., 2014, p. 7). The authors cite the number of “new applicants [registered] nationally” as 564,908, in the 2011 Fiscal Year alone, as proof of the organization’s heavy caseload of new clients (Fleming et al., 2014, p. 7). These numbers indicate that rehabilitation services have been in high demand. Considering the importance of the vocational programs in assisting the disabled clients who are in need of employment, the authors determined that it was appropriate to examine the different ways these services can be rendered.