The effect of work and training programs on entry and exit from the welfare caseload

Abstract

To policymakers, the major attraction of work and training programs for welfare recipients is that they hold out the prospect that recipients can be moved off the rolls and into self-sufficiency in the private labor market, thereby decreasing welfare costs and caseloads. This paper considers the possibility that such programs may also affect the attractiveness of welfare in the first place, either by making welfare less desirable because the work- training program is viewed as a burden, or by making it more desirable because the program is viewed favorably by potential applicants. Such responses are termed "entry-rate effects." Some empirical estimates of these effects are presented which suggest that entry-rate responses, whether positive or negative, may affect the caseload more than the direct effect of the programs in moving recipients off the rolls.