Welfare Reform at Three Years: The Case of Washington State's Family Independence Program

Abstract

This paper reports the findings of an evaluation of the Family Independence Program (FIP), a welfare reform demonstration operated in Washington State between 1988 and 1993. Despite being designed to increase employment and reduce welfare recipiency, the analysis shows that FIP had the opposite effect: employment was lower and welfare participation higher than under the AFDC program. Since FIP shared many features of the federal Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training (JOBS) program, which was implemented two years later, these findings raise concerns about the potential impacts of that program, as well as the impacts of future state and federal reform efforts.