Losing the Safety Net: How a Time-Limited Welfare Policy Affects Families at Risk of Reaching Time Limits

The authors examined the effects of Florida's Family Transition Program (FTP), one of the first welfare reform initiatives to include a time limit on the receipt of federal cash assistance with other welfare requirements, on single-mother welfare-receiving families. Using a regression-based subgroup approach, they identified a group of families who were at risk of reaching the welfare time limit and subsequently assessed the experimental effects of the time-limited welfare policy on this group as compared to an otherwise comparable group of single-mother welfare-recipient families. For the families who were at risk of reaching the welfare time limit, FTP had few effects. FTP decreased mothers' depressive symptoms, and mothers in the FTP group reported higher levels of children's school achievement. There were no effects on parenting behavior or mothers' reports of children's social-emotional outcomes.