A look at the effects of Promise Jobs upon parental well-being
Date
2000
Authors
Perry, Marla A.
Major Professor
Advisor
Garasky, Steven
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Abstract
When the federal government ended the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, the responsibility for welfare programs has shifted to the states. The intentions of many new welfare programs are to increase individual responsibility and to decrease the number of welfare recipients. Many states have implemented welfare to work programs, commonly referred to as workfare, in the hope that this will decrease the number of persons on the welfare rolls. Much of the research indicates that these programs have been successful in doing just that. There is, however little research on how the families themselves have been affected by mandatory workfare programs. This thesis includes a synopsis of the history of welfare and a critique of workfare policies. It focuses on the workfare program of Iowa, detailing the effects of this program on parental behavior and parental well being. The author has chosen the ecology of human development theoretical paradigm, first authored by Urie Bronfenbrenner, to analyze the effects of workfare participation.
Iowa's workfare program, Promise Jobs (PJ), is designed to help individuals who receive public assistance in the form of Family Investment Program (FIP) benefits to become economically self-sufficient. This paper will discuss how Promise Jobs was established, implemented, and the program's effect upon families. The method of discovery of the effects includes a survey completed by PJ participants and those who are not PJ participants, but who receive medical assistance and/or who participate in the Food Stamp program. Participants were located through the Department of Human Services, Mid-Iowa Community Action (MICA), Beyond Welfare and Promise jobs. Using an Independent t-Test, this study indicates that there are no significant differences between the means of those who participate in Promise jobs and those who receive Medicaid and/or Food stamp benefits. The Regression analysis indicates that Promise Jobs participation and hassles have no significant affect upon well being. For those who participate in Promise Jobs, results indicate that 78.1% of PJ participants in the sample said that Promise Jobs added for new demands and 34.2% of PJ participants said that the new demands were not difficult to handle. However, this study has many limitations that hinder full investigation of this issue of welfare reform.
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thesis