The Role of Non-Financial Factors in Exit and Entry in the TANF Program

The dramatic decline in the AFDC-TANF caseload in the 1990s has refocused attention on the process of exit from and entry into welfare, a long-standing topic of interest in the

research literature on the U.S. welfare system. This paper focuses on the role of non-financial factors in exit and entry in the post-1996 TANF program. The non-financial factors are work and other requirements, sanctions, and diversion. Using data from a study of welfare and nonwelfare

families in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio in the period 1999-2001, both descriptive evidence and evidence from an econometric model suggest that these factors played a large role in exit and entry over the period.

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