Karl Ashworth

Poverty dynamics : issues and examples

The forgotten dimension of time: Taking account of time - issues: definition and measurement of poverty the relief of poverty and prevention of dependency income maintenance, compensation and redistribution targeting and administration of benefits. Part 2 Taking account of time - examples: patterns of childhood poverty in the USA patterns of single homelessness the effects of closing a hostel benefit dynamics - the case of family credit family credit - aspects of a changing caseload time past and future.

Meta-Evaluation: Discovering What Works Best in Welfare Provision

Numerous programmes designed to encourage welfare recipients to move into work and off benefit have been evaluated in the United States. Many have randomly assigned potential participants into ‘experimental’ and ‘control’ groups to generate unbiased estimates of the effectiveness of the programmes. The results of the evaluations have been selectively influential in shaping policy developments on both sides of the Atlantic, but a thorough understanding of the diversity of experience has been lacking. Applying meta-analysis techniques to a specially constructed database of evaluations in over 50 US sites, this article reports on the first programme-level, systematic meta-evaluation of welfare-to-work programmes. The results confirm the superiority of approaches that prioritize immediate work over human-capital investment but reveal that caseload characteristics and local environment can be equally important as or even more important than programme design. The article concludes with a discussion of the potential and limitations of meta-evaluation.

When welfare-to-work programs seem to work well: Explaining why Riverside and Portland shine so brightly

Of welfare-to-work programs evaluated by random assignment, two stand out as having exceptionally large estimated effects: one in Riverside, California, and the other in Portland, Oregon. The authors use data from 24 evaluations and the tools of meta-analysis to examine why. The findings indicate that the apparently superior performance of these two programs in increasing the earnings of participants is only partly attributable to program design (for example, the type of services provided, the use of sanctions, and the quality of program administration). Differences in caseload characteristics and site characteristics are probably more important. However, Riverside and Portlands relatively large effects in reducing the percentage of participants on the AFDC rolls appear mainly attributable to the design of the programs run in these sites.