Quinn Moore

Two Steps Forward One Step Back The Uneven Economic Progress of TANF Recipients

This study investigates the long‐term economic gains of current and former TANF recipients and explores the extent to which these recipients experience steady economic progress. Results suggest that recipients generally show economic progress but that there is considerable instability and heterogeneity of experience. Employment insecurity and poverty cycling are common even among the least disadvantaged TANF recipients and are particularly prevalent among those with low education levels, little work experience, and poor health.

Multiple Comparisons and Truncation Bias in Family Policy Research: Strategies from the Building Strong Families Evaluation

This chapter uses the recently conducted evaluation of Building Strong Families as an example to explore two challenges for family research: (1) managing multiple comparisons when evaluating a program that aims to influence a wide range of outcomes and (2) dealing with potential bias introduced by examining truncated measures (i.e. measures that are not defined for all sample members). The evaluation’s strategy for dealing with multiple comparisons was to limit the number of outcomes that provide the key test of program effectiveness, and then use methods such as outcome domain composite indices and statistical adjustments for multiple comparisons to assess the strength of the pattern of impact findings. The evaluation’s strategy for dealing with truncated variables was to assess the risk of truncation bias using existing standards for sample attrition in experimental evaluations, and then use that assessment to determine which analysis may be included in evaluating program effectiveness.