Welfare Reform
You are in the Welfare Reform section of the Casey Foundation Knowledge Center, which offers resources that are either published or funded by the Casey Foundation. Resources address policies that reflect an appreciation for the cost of working and supports for workers' efforts to build assets and financial security.
See also the Our Work: Economic Security, an overview of the Casey Foundation's investments in this issue.
See also all Economic Security resources in the Knowledge Center.

The Working Poor Families Project: Promoting Economic Self-Sufficiency as a State TANF Outcome
2007
As states reexamine their TANF programs under the new law, they have the opportunity to redirect program activities and outcomes toward economic self-sufficiency. This brief reviews how states can establish economic self-sufficiency as a goal for TANF leavers and measures success and related outcomes on a routine basis.
more >>

Marriage and the TANF Rules: A Discussion Paper
2005
In this monograph, the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) puts forth a “Marriage Plus” perspective in which two goals should be paramount in designing public benefits programs. First, the state should seek to develop rules that do not discourage marriage. Second, these rules should not disadvantage children who live in single-parent families.
more >>

Effects of Welfare and Employment Policies on Young Children: New Findings on Policy Experiments Conducted in the Early 1990s
2005
This report summarizes the results of research conducted as part of the Next Generation Project, which draws on data from welfare and employment experiments in the early 1990s. Findings from this research demonstrate the need for policymakers to better assess welfare policies, as well as advance our understanding of how parents’ economic circumstances influence child care arrangements and the development of low-income children.
more >>

Assessing the New Federalism: Eight Years Later
2005
This report synthesizes selected findings from more than 450 Assessing the New Federalism publications plus dozens of journal articles, book chapters, and research presentations. These findings illustrate dramatic changes in the experience of low-income families, those who have been on welfare and those who haven't, from the mid-1990s to the present.
more >>

Turning Welfare into a Work Support: Six-Year Impacts on Parents and Children from the Minnesota Family Investment Program
2005
This report updates the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP) story. It examines whether the program’s effects held up in the longer term, through six years after study entry. A primary question of interest is whether MFIP, after it effectively ended in its original form in 1998, provided families with a permanent advantage, increasing their employment or self-sufficiency in the long term, or whether its effects faded after the program ended.
more >>
view all Welfare Reform publications