Survey of Closed Cases-Massachusetts

Tracking Recipients after They Leave Welfare

Survey of Closed Cases-Massachusetts

How Are They Doing? A Longitudinal Study of Households Leaving Welfare Under Massachusetts Reform

Date: April 1999

Investigator: Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance

Contact Person: Claire McIntire

Method - Massachusetts is using both administrative records and surveys to examine what has happened to families that left welfare. The first and fourth surveys of closed cases are discussed in this report. Department staff drew a random sample of 672 cases closed for more than 30 days between January and June of 1997. They attempted telephone, mail and face-to-face interviews, completing 341 surveys, mostly by telephone, a response rate of 50.7% (They did not attempt interviews in 25 cases that they identified as "known to have moved out of state." We have included these cases in the calculation of the response rate to make it more comparable to statistics from other states.) They paid $25 for completion of the first interview and $10 for each additional interview.

They attempted to re-interview these families after 3, 6, and 9 months. The report includes data from Round 4, 9 months after the first interview and about 12 months after the families initially left welfare. They surveyed 210 of the 341 families from the first round.

Findings in Brief

Employment status at time of interview
Employed at time of interview		57.5%
Working full time		36.7%
	Median earnings - weekly	$301
Working part-time		20.8%
	Median earnings - weekly	$177
Households where either former recipient and/or			66.6%
spouse/significant other was working
at time of interview
Median weekly earnings for households where			$296
recipient and/or spouse/significant other is working
Households where neither former recipient			20.5%
or spouse/significant have worked since
case was closed

Source for current job
Friend	22%
Newspaper	14%
Word of mouth	13%
JOBS/welfare worker/all government sources		12%
Door to door	12%
Families claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit			45.0%
(of those currently working)
Weekly Family income for cases that remained closed
(including earnings, pensions, social security and other cash income)
$150 or less			22.3%
$151 to $250			21.5%
$251 to $350			27.2%
$351 to $500			17.4%
over $500			11.7%

Income supports for cases that remained closed
Food stamps			17.9%
Child support			15.8%
Rent subsidy			14.3%
Friends/relatives (regular basis)			3.2%


Food security	On Welfare		After Welfare
Enough to eat of kinds of food needed	54%		51%
Enough to eat but not kinds needed	29%		28%
Sometimes did not have enough to eat	11%		17%
Often did not have enough to eat	3%		3%
Had at least one day without food	9.9%		9.9%
Medical assistance coverage for cases still closed (households)	94.6%
Type of child-care provider (by child)
Custodial parent's mother/father	17.9%
Baby sitter/family day care	11.0%
Custodial parent's grandparents	8.7%
School/after school program	8.1%
Neighbor/friend	7.8%
Child care center	7.5%
Custodial parent's brother/sister	6.3%
Other parent	5.2%

Returned to TANF (by first interview)		18.2%
Family Well-being (from survey)
	Family better off financially since leaving TANF		58.5%
	Family situation the same financially		15.6%
	Family worse off financially		25.8%
Employment status at time of interview
Employed at time of interview			53.0%
Working full time			34.4%
	Mean weekly earnings		$323
	(up 6% over Round 1)
Working part-time			18.6%
	Mean weekly earnings		$172
	(up 16% over Round 1)
Weekly Family income for cases that remained closed
(including earnings, pensions, social security and other cash income)
$150 or less			14.2%
$151 to $250			22.5%
$251 to $500			45.5%
over $500			17.8%
Food security - Had at least one day without food			1.8%

For more information please contact Jack Tweedie at NCSL, 303-830-2200.

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