EMBARGOED UNTIL: 12:01 A.M. EST, FEBRUARY 26, 1999 (FRIDAY)
Public Information Office CB99-36
301-457-3030/301-457-3670 (fax)
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e-mail: pio@census.gov
Stephanie Shipp
301-457-3246
Census Bureau Releases Experimental Data File
From Survey Evaluating Welfare Reform
The Commerce Department's Census Bureau today released an experimental
data file from the new Survey of Program Dynamics (SPD), a survey
mandated by federal law to allow the nation to assess the impact of
the 1996 welfare reform law.
"These estimates give analysts a preliminary view of the data, although
it's too early to use them to assess the impact of welfare reform," said
Daniel Weinberg, chief of the Census Bureau's Housing and Household
Economic Statistics Division. "At least another year of survey results is
needed to provide a clearer picture of the effects of welfare reform."
The survey is designed to provide 10 years of data (from 1992-2001)
on participation in programs such as Food Stamps, free or reduced-price
school lunches, Supplemental Security Income and Social Security. The SPD
interviewed about 35,000 households in 1997 and will interview 18,000 of
these households in subsequent years. These statistics will permit an
assessment of the impact of welfare reform by examining changes in the
economic circumstances of the same set of people who were first
interviewed in the 1992 and 1993 panels of the Survey of Income and
Program Participation (SIPP). Thus, information about these households
will be available for years before, during and after the implementation of
the welfare reform law.
The welfare reform law, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996, replaced Aid to Families with
Dependent Children (AFDC), the main welfare program for families, with the
Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program. TANF provides
welfare support in the form of block grants to states, enabling them to
offer limited cash assistance, job training and placement help and other
assistance to recipients. Other affected programs include Food Stamps,
Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income.
The Census Bureau is releasing tabulations from the 1996 SPD data file
and comparable tabulations from SIPP for 1993 and 1994. The SPD data in
these tabulations are not derived from a nationally representative survey
of the population and may not be comparable to other data sources.
A report evaluating how 1996 SPD results compare with other welfare data
is planned for the spring. In addition, a fully edited SPD longitudinal
file with data for 1992 to 1997 is scheduled to be released at the end of
1999.
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The U.S. Census Bureau, pre-eminent collector and disseminator of timely,
relevant and quality data about the people and the economy of the United
States, conducts a population and housing census every 10 years, an
economic census every five years and more than 100 demographic and
economic surveys every year, all of them evolving from the first census in
1790.
