Work First--the most recent incarnation of public assistance--took effect in North Carolina in mid 1996. While the success or failure of so-called welfare reform is hard to measure, Dean Duncan, clinical associate professor in the School of Social Work, and his colleagues are trying to do just that.

Using statistics from North Carolina's Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Social Services, the team is tracking everyone who has received public assistance in North Carolina since 1995. The researchers use data such as the number of families entering the program, how long they stay on assistance, and whether or not they return to assistance rolls after leaving.

The numbers do point to some positive trends. For instance, contrary to the popular image of "welfare moms," most families in North Carolina do not stay on public assistance for long periods of time. The average length of stay is six to eight months, Duncan said. And, the longer a family stays off the program, the more likely it is that the family will remain independent. "If you can stay off for more than three months, there's a very good chance that you're not going to come back onto the program at all," Duncan said.

Surprisingly, the number of people on assistance did not increase dramatically after the economy took its recent downturn. Duncan suggests that may be due in part to a component of Work First that provides lump-sum emergency payments to families without bringing them onto full-time monthly assistance. Currently, about 1,000 people each month receive such "diversion assistance."

"The average monthly assistance check is relatively low, around $260 or $280 a month for a family," Duncan said. But a car repair such as a timing belt or brake job can run $400 or more. Getting a lump payment of $600 to $1,000 can take care of such an urgent need and allow the head of a family to continue to work.

Duncan cites changes under Work First as possible reasons for these positive signs. Rather than only teaching clients how to search for jobs, some caseworkers send clients out on actual interviews. For example, the Food Lion grocery store and Hardees fast-food chains have agreed to hire a certain number of Work First recipients. Work First also provides subsidies for child care, which can be crucial in keeping a job.

Though Duncan likes to talk statistics, he also points out that they can't tell you everything--why people leave public assistance, what life is like for them after they leave, or what causes them to return. He and his team use what data they do have to form a partial picture. Preliminary data suggest there has not been a significant increase in reports of child abuse and neglect involving those families who have left Work First. And there are some data on how people who leave Work First make a living. In a given year, about 70 percent of those people will earn money from work sometime in the next year, Duncan said. But they may not work all four quarters of the year.

"In any given quarter, about 60 or 65 percent or so are going to have earnings in that particular quarter," Duncan said. "We don't know what happens to these people who don't have earnings. We suspect that a certain proportion are working in the underground economy--doing things like babysitting or repairing cars or running errands for somebody."

One jarring Work First milestone: 213 people were scheduled to have their monthly checks stop for good at the end of 2001. They were the first group to exhaust their benefits under a 60-month lifetime limit imposed under Work First. Duncan said that many of these people may be eligible for disability payments or supplemental security income, so they may get an extension of Work First benefits while they apply for those programs. But it's not clear how the other people will make ends meet. Duncan's team plans to track these families--whether or not they receive hardship extensions and how many continue to receive food stamps.

So, is Work First a success? "I believe it is still too early to tell," Duncan said. "We don't know what the outcomes will be for the families that have left the program, and I think that is the true test."