Welfare to Work

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) does not know whether the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS) program is reducing welfare dependency because it does not gather enough information on critical program outcomes, such as the number of participants entering employment and leaving welfare each year. Also, states are held accountable for the number and type of participants enrolled in education and training but not for outcomes, such as the number of participants finding work. Although little progress has been made in monitoring JOBS outcomes at the federal level, the picture is better at the state level. The current national interest in making welfare more employment focused, as well as provisions in the Government Performance and Results Act requiring performance monitoring to become more outcome oriented governmentwide, indicate that HHS needs to move decisively to ensure that it meets its current schedule for developing outcome measures and goals for JOBS. A critical first step in developing performance goals will be to work the states and others to resolve differences over whether the main objective of JOBS is to help participants find work quickly or receive the education and training needed for better-paying jobs.

GAO found that: (1) HHS does not gather enough information on critical program outcomes to determine if JOBS is reducing participants' welfare dependency; (2) HHS only monitors and holds states accountable for program participation and not for program outcomes, which gives the states little incentive to move participants to employment and off welfare; (3) HHS states that a combination of technical and environmental factors have impeded its development of JOBS outcome indicators; (4) most states collect some information on participant outcomes to manage their programs, but the extent of this information varies widely among the states and the data are not standardized; (5) more than one-half of the states have established annual outcome goals; (6) states are concerned that national outcome goals will not take into account variations in local economic conditions and client characteristics and could unduly influence program design decisions; (7) about 21 percent of JOBS participants found employment in 1993; and (8) HHS needs to ensure that it meets its current schedule for developing JOBS outcome measures and goals by working with states and other concerned parties to resolve differences on the primary objectives of the JOBS program.