Welfare Deadline Did Not Push Recipients Into Jobs, Study Finds

WASHINGTON — In the nation’s first evaluation of time limits for people on welfare, researchers found that a looming deadline did little to encourage recipients to move off the rolls more quickly on their own.

The study of a program in Pensacola, Fla., also found that by the time they were kicked off welfare, only about half of the recipients had found a job.

For most of the nation’s history, cash assistance was available as long as needed to anyone poor enough to qualify. But in 1996, Pensacola became the first place to remove people from the rolls when they hit a time limit.

Today, welfare recipients across the country face a five-year time limit imposed by the 1996 federal welfare overhaul law. Many states impose shorter limits. Florida’s is two years for most recipients.

The Florida report, released Monday by Manpower Demonstration Research Corp., offered a look into the future but did not measure conclusively how people forced from the rolls are faring.

Florida officials and other supporters of time limits noted that the study found no horror stories. But the limits also did not produce the positive effect of getting people to move off the rolls voluntarily.

The program began in 1994 in Pensacola, near the Alabama border. The first participants reached their time limit in 1996.