Chronic health problems impact those who exhaust W-2
Photo by Peter Jakubowski
Eugenie Hildebrandt’s research on women who had exhausted W-2 eligibility involved several lengthy in-person interviews with each woman.*
Photo by Peter Jakubowski
Chronic health conditions are a key factor impacting women who exhaust W-2 eligibility. Either the women themselves, or their children have health conditions that make finding and keeping even an entry-level job difficult.*
Work-based welfare isn’t working for many who need it the most because their lives are often complicated by chronic health conditions.
That’s the preliminary conclusion of a two-year University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee study of women who used up their five-year, lifetime limit for participation in the Wisconsin Works (W-2) program. W-2’s goal is to replace welfare by helping participants get a toehold on self-sufficiency through employment training and entry-level jobs.
Eugenie Hildebrandt, associate professor of nursing and a center scientist at the UWM College of Nursing’s Self Management Science Center, is the leader of the project team that conducted the research, which was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).
Photo by Peter Jakubowski
Caring for chronically ill children poses a barrier to employment for many women. *
W-2 is a social policy that has public health ramifications for women and their children, says Hildebrandt, because children growing up in deep poverty are at higher risk of mental, physical and social problems.
Her study is one of the few nationally that has looked at women who exhaust their welfare eligibility. The study looks at the links between family health problems and continuing poverty. “Little is known about what happens to them and their families,” she says. “There’s nothing in the [original] legislation that requires any follow-up on those who use up their cash benefits. We don’t know what happens to them. They just disappear.”
The system fails many
W-2 works, says Hildebrandt, “for those who are relatively healthy with relatively healthy children, pretty good job skills and a pretty stable life.”
However, the women her team interviewed faced formidable challenges to full-time employment, she says. A majority – 93 percent – reported they had a chronic illness; 83 percent had one or more children with a chronic illness; 46 percent had experienced domestic violence.
“A lot of people in poverty have complex socioeconomic issues,” says Hildebrandt. “Poverty is complicated; W-2 is complicated; these women’s lives are complicated. Their problems didn’t go away in five years.”
The study showed that after five years on W-2:
- 71 percent of the women interviewed were still unemployed.
- Of those who were employed, average earnings were $7.68 per hour and annual household income was $8,250.
- 97 percent of the women were at or below poverty level. In fact, 65 percent were in “deep poverty,” with household incomes of 50 percent or less of the federally defined poverty level, meaning they would have to double their income just to reach the poverty level.
Sharon Keigher (left) and Patricia StevensIt is a problem of increasing significance, she says, especially with economic problems and the growing population of impoverished women with children and no safety net – who make up most of the W-2 participants.
More than 85,000 participants went through the W-2 program in Wisconsin from its start in 1998 to 2007, she notes. Of these, more than 9,000 have gone through all five years of eligibility and have been terminated. “That’s a lot of people the system is failing,” says Hildebrandt.
Jobs found…and lost
Student researchers gain valuable experience and skills working on W-2 project
Sandra Ford and Rhonda Powell, registered nurses who are doctoral students in the UWM College of Nursing, are part of the W-2 study team. Both helped conduct the interviews with W-2 participants, and compile and code the information from those interviews.
“I think [such a research experience] should be required,” says Ford. Earlier in her studies, she’d been concerned about taking on the extra time commitment of such a research project because she also works as a hospice nurse. Now, she says, she’s glad she took advantage of the opportunity. “It translates everything you learn in class about the research into real life. You see all the work behind the research process.”
Ford also learned that it is challenging, but vital, to put personal views aside when conducting such “qualitative research,” allowing the women to speak for themselves and reporting the findings accurately.
“For me, it was a chance to apply all the knowledge and theories,” adds Powell. “It really put a human face on the issues and what we had learned.” She joined the project just as she was finishing her master’s degree and moving into the nursing doctoral program. Working with women in the community meshed with her interests in community healthcare. “What I’m doing on the research project helps me acquire the skills I’ll need as a researcher and educator at the college level.”
“Many of the grants we faculty receive have research opportunities for graduate students, which greatly enriches their academic experience,” notes Hildebrandt, adding that undergraduates also can be involved. Senior nursing student Katie Donkor is also part of the project team, assisting with the data entry and compilation.
Hildebrandt and her co-investigators, Professor Patricia Stevens of the College of Nursing and Professor Sharon Keigher of the Helen Bader School of Social Welfare, working with two nursing graduate students (see sidebar), gathered information through a series of four two-hour interviews with 41 women who had spent the full five years allowed on W-2.
Many of the women interviewed in the study had gotten jobs, only to lose them when they had to deal with personal issues. Entry-level jobs, in particular, offer little flexibility to working single mothers. “I have a daughter with seizures,” one woman told the researchers. “I need to take time off work to take care of her. By the time I’m ready to come back to work, someone else has the job.”
Lack of education, housing, transportation, child care and other resources, as well as the stresses of single parenthood, also complicated job searches and retention. One disturbing finding was the role racial barriers appeared to play in unemployment, says Hildebrant. While 65 percent of those initially signing up for W-2 were African-American, more than 80 percent of those nearing the end of eligibility were African-American.
Based on these and other research findings, Hildebrandt concludes that W-2 doesn’t need to be scrapped, but it does need some serious improvements. When she saw a news story this spring about Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle’s plans to reform W-2, she contacted his office to share the study’s early findings and conclusions. She is continuing to analyze the data and do additional research, and has also received funding to expand on the study.
Women talked about what works and what doesn’t
Hildebrandt also advises policymakers to continue to seek input from current and past W-2 participants who can offer candid insights on the program.
“We went out and we listened to the women,” says Hildebrandt. “Not many people listen to them. They were quite delighted to have somebody ask them about what works well and what doesn’t.”
Another key recommendation is that W-2 shift its focus from enforcing rules to working in partnership with participants to help them prepare for self-sustaining jobs.
“A W-2 program goal is to move people off welfare, and W-2 staffers become the vehicle to enforce the rules to make this happen,” Hildebrandt writes in her report summary. “This is quite a different perspective than focusing on finding solutions to client problems.”
The time and money devoted to rule-making and enforcement could be better spent, says Hildebrandt. “There’s this whole superstructure to keep track of all that [rules and infractions], and it costs money. That money could be going to services and support. It could be a better program even without increasing the money spent on it.”
Photo by Peter Jakubowski
Eugenie Hildebrant discusses preliminary findings with doctoral students Rhonda Powell (right) and Sandra Ford, who are part of the research team.
* To preserve research confidentiality, volunteer models posed for these photos.
