From Work Support to Work Motivator: Child Care Subsidies and Caseworker Discretion in the Post-Welfare Reform Era

Linda Houser; Sanford F. Schram; Joe Soss; Richard C. Fording

doi:10.1080/1554477X.2014.890834

From Work Support to Work Motivator: Child Care Subsidies and Caseworker Discretion in the Post-Welfare Reform Era

Linda Houser, Sanford F. Schram, Joe Soss, Richard C. Fording

Social Policy & Policy Analysis

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

The 1996 legislative reform of welfare shifted provision away from cash assistance and toward a litany of work-support services, central among which are child care subsidies (Allard 2009). As part of a larger study of welfare reform in Florida, we conducted semistructured field interviews with more than 50 welfare transition caseworkers in four purposively selected regions. Consistent with Lipsky's emphasis on worker decisions as concrete manifestations of policy intentions, we find that caseworkers' interpretations of the priorities of TANF have substantial influence over decision making regarding the use and withdrawal of child care subsidies.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	174-193
Number of pages	20
Journal	Journal of Women, Politics and Policy
Volume	35
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/1554477X.2014.890834
State	Published - Apr 2014

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research is supported in part by NLM Contract R01 LM06593-01 and the Columbia NYSSTF CAT and a gift from Microsoft. Blaine Bell was supported by an IBM Research Graduate Fellowship.

Keywords

TANF casework
child care subsidies
welfare reform
work requirement

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10.1080/1554477X.2014.890834

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From Work Support to Work Motivator: Child Care Subsidies and Caseworker Discretion in the Post-Welfare Reform Era

Abstract

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