Gloomy Prospects for Chicago’s Welfare Reform

Fall 2002, Volume 24, Number 1

Lewis at briefing

“The story of welfare reform in Illinois now, if not before, is what is going on in Chicago,” Dan Lewis told city administrators in the second in a series of briefings by IPR faculty organized through the Mayor’s office. Lewis, who heads up the Illinois Families Study (IFS), a six-year panel study of welfare reform effects on families, painted a gloomy picture of what former recipients may be facing as the economy continues to weaken.

Based on a sample of 555 welfare recipient families in Chicago, Lewis reported that poverty is now dispersed throughout the city, rather than concentrated in public housing areas. He pointed to a “disjuncture between programs and needs of the population,” especially those of the 30,000 families still on TANF. Though early results of the IFS study (1999-2001) showed family well-being improving slightly, more recent trends in 2001 and 2002 point to a large increase in the group neither working nor receiving welfare, Lewis said.

Results after the study’s second wave for example, showed an increase in housing problems among those unable to pay their mortgage, while evictions tripled. Health status and health insurance for adults also remained a big problem, though children’s health showed improvement.

Among the positive outcomes, hardships did not show much of an increase, he said, and relatively few people had reached the 60-month time limits. However, since the number of “no work/no welfare” families is rising, he named this as “the number one problem the city will have to face.”

Results from the third wave of the study will be available in February.

P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, professor of human development and social policy, cited some disturbing results from the Three Cities Study, which is monitoring changes in the welfare system for children and families in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio. Though the numbers of children in poverty are flattening out, she reported that 28% of these adolescents showed behavior problems, 43% of which were serious, and 36% of preschoolers had serious behavior problems.

Those in sanctioned families are most problematic, she said, noting that more than half (56%) of preschoolers in sanctioned families showed serious behavioral and emotional problems. “Though sanctions are not causing these problems, sanctioned families need help now.” she said.

Chase-Lansdale recommended to the group that they consider ways to assist families to bring them into compliance before sanctioning occurs and follow this by closer monitoring of sanctioned families once they rejoin the welfare rolls. “This is an incredible opportunity for the mayor’s office,” she said, citing a variety of psychological services and academic enrichment activities, afterschool programs, and assistance with mental health issues it could support.