Department of Workforce Development

We've got NEWS

Friday, January 15, 1999 Governor Tommy G. Thompson Secretary Linda Stewart

News Media Contact DWD News Office 608/267-4400 e-mail: news@dwd.state.wi.us fax: 608/266-1784

Media Advisory:
Leavers Study Update

A headline in the Jan. 14 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that "W-2 families say they’re just getting by" and "Poll finds people working but having harder time making ends meet."  A Madison Capital Times’ Jan. 14 headline also said: "Most W-2 clients working, but scraping by."

Those headlines were inaccurate and may confuse those who read either the accompanying stories or the study by this Department, both of which made different points than the headline writers.

The headlines and the study are in conflict because:

1. No one in the W-2 program at the time of the interviews was included in this study.
    
2. Only some of those studied had been in W-2 at any time in the past.  Others of those interviewed had left Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and were never in W-2.  The study made no attempt to distinguish between the two groups.
    
3. That section of the study which asked people how they were doing since leaving AFDC and/or W-2 measured only perceptions.  It did not attempt to independently verify the accuracy of responses.

To elaborate:

Among other findings of the study, 69 per cent of those who left AFDC or W-2 between January and March 1998 responded positively to our question asking if they agreed or disagreed that they were "barely making it from day to day." What "making it" meant was left to the judgment of the person answering the question.

That’s a very subjective question. People with higher incomes, for example, also might answer the same question the same way.

For that same reason, we also aren’t placing too undue an emphasis on responses from:

• the 60 per cent who told us they are "pretty sure (they) will not need to be on welfare again,"
   
• the 47 per cent who said they "have more money now than when on welfare",
   
• the 24 per cent who told us they "hardly worry about money anymore," and
   
• the 69 per cent who said they disagreed that "life was better when getting welfare."

"Some critics of AFDC and W-2 predicted before the end of AFDC and start of W-2 that most people having to leave these programs would not make it at all," said Jean Rogers, Economic Support Division Administrator.

"Instead, what we are finding is that many people previously on welfare or in W-2 now believe they are at least making it, for perhaps the first time in their lives.

"And this is just the start of the post-welfare era in Wisconsin."

(end)

For a copy of the news release announcing the results of the study and links to the study and study methodology, please go to <http://www.dwd.state.wi.us/notespub/DWDWebMa/32fa_536.htm>.