Welfare-to-work or activation policies refer to programmes aimed at promoting the employability, labour-market and social participation of benefit recipients of working age. Frontline workers delivering these policies are conceived of as policy implementers, as policy makers, and as actors mediating politics in an arena where conflicting interests are at stake. Frontline work plays a crucial role in determining what welfare-to-work practically means and how it affects the lives of the people it targets. Yet few books have deliberatively focused on comparing what happens when frontline workers, some of whom are professional social workers, meet clients. Pioneering the provision of scholarly reflections on both theoretical and policy relevance of studying frontline practices of delivering activation, internationally renowned researchers present the first comparative analysis of how activation policies are actually delivered by frontline staff in selected EU countries and in the United States. In trying to understand and interpret frontline practices in activation, each contribution provides insights into what ‘activation in practice’ looks like, what services are provided and how they are enacted. This involves examining processes of client selection, monitoring, sanctioning and motivating, as well as the role of external service providers. This book is an important acquisition for scholars and researchers of social policy, public administration, public management, social work and policy implementation.

Getting Welfare to Work traces the development of the Australia, UK and Dutch employment services systems. Each system has undergone radical policy change since 1998, with a trend toward outsourcing and service privatisation, as governments search for ways to get welfare systems working in effective, efficient and politically acceptable ways. Using interviews and survey data, this book tells the story of those bold reforms from the perspective of thefrontline staff who work directly with jobseekers, over a fifteen year period. It shows how new ways of thinking about public services have impacted on service delivery organisations and those who work with welfareclients.

In Welfare Reform, Jeffrey Grogger and Lynn Karoly assemble evidence from numerous studies to assess how welfare reform has affected behavior. To broaden our understanding of this wide-ranging policy reform, the authors evaluate the evidence in relation to an economic model of behavior.

From Welfare to Work appears at a critical moment, when all fifty states are wrestling with tough budgetary and program choices as they implement the new federal welfare reforms. This book is a definitive analysis of the landmark social research that has directly informed those choices: the rigorous evaluation of programs designed to help welfare recipients become employed and self-sufficient. It discusses forty-five past and current studies, focusing on the series of seminal evaluations conducted by the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation over the last fifteen years. Which of these welfare-to-work programs have worked? For whom and at what cost? In answering these key questions, the authors clearly delineate the trade-offs facing policymakers as they strive to achieve the multiple goals of alleviating poverty, helping the most disadvantaged, curtailing dependence, and effecting welfare savings. The authors present compelling evidence that the generally low-cost, primarily job search-oriented programs of the late 1980s achieved sustained earnings gains and welfare savings. However, getting people out of poverty and helping those who are most disadvantaged may require some intensive, higher-cost services such as education and training. The authors explore a range of studies now in progress that will address these and other urgent issues. They also point to encouraging results from programs that were operating in San Diego and Baltimore, which suggest the potential value of a mixed strategy: combining job search and other low-cost activities for a broad portion of the caseload with more specialized services for smaller groups. Offering both an authoritative synthesis of work already done and recommendations for future innovation, From Welfare to Work will be the standard resource and required reading for practitioners and students in the social policy, social welfare, and academic communities.

Getting Welfare to Work traces the radical reform of the Australian, UK, and Dutch public employment services systems. Starting with major changes from 1998, this book examines how each national system has moved from traditional public services towards more privately provided and market-based methods. Each of these three countries developed innovative forms of contracting-out and complex incentive regimes to motivate welfare clients and to control the agencies charged with helping them. The Australian system pioneered the use of large, national contracts for services to all unemployed jobseekers. By the end of our study period this system was entirely outsourced to private agencies. Meanwhile the UK elected a form of contestability under Blair and Cameron, culminating in a new public-private financing model known as the 'Work Programme'. The Dutch had evolved their far more complex system from a traditional public service approach to one using a variety of specific contracts for private agencies. These innovations have changed welfare delivery and created both opportunities and new constraints for policy makers. Getting Welfare to Work tells the story of these bold policy reforms from the perspective of street-level bureaucrats. Interviews and surveys in each country over a fifteen year period are used to critically appraise this central pillar of the welfare state. The original data analysed in Getting Welfare to Work provides a unique comparative perspective on three intriguing systems. It points to new ways of thinking about modes of governance, system design, regulation of public services, and so-called activation of welfare clients. It also sheds light on the predicament of third sector organisations that contract to governments through competitive tenders with precise performance monitoring, raising questions of 'mission drift'.

This book explores the incentives and effects of modern welfare policy, contrasted with outcomes of global basic income pilots in the past seventy years. The author contends that paternalistic and counterproductive eligibility rules in the modern American welfare state violate the human dignity of the poor and make it nearly impossible to escape the “poverty trap.” Furthermore, these types of restrictions are absent from expenditures aimed at middle and upper-income households such as mortgage interest deductions and tax-sheltered retirement accounts. Case examples from the author's years as a front-line social worker and interviews with basic income pilot recipients in Ontario, Canada, are woven throughout the book to better illustrate the effects of the current system and the hidden potential of more radical alternatives such as a universal basic income.

Millions of Americans are just one paycheck away from becoming unemployment statistics. If it happens to you, you need to know what to do next. This book spells out where to get help after you lose your job, your home, or both. It specifically shows where to apply for government aid programs that offer food, heating bills assistance, subsidized phone service, subsidized housing, subsidized child care, welfare, unemployment insurance and other benefits. This book shows where to apply for food stamps (SNAP) and other food programs that put food on the table, where to apply for heating bills assistance (LIHEAP) and keep the heat turned on during the winter, where to apply for subsidized telephone service (Lifeline) and keep your phone turned on, where to apply for subsidized housing (Section 8) and keep a roof over your head, where to apply for unemployment insurance and keep some money coming in, and where to apply for welfare (TANF) and other benefit programs. Both the unemployed and the underemployed working poor are eligible to apply. Includes information about benefit programs, the income and assets guidelines used to determine eligibility for benefits and hundreds of agency contact phone numbers (many toll-free) and web sites. Use this book to find out what sorts of government aid programs are available, where to apply and how to keep going during the recession.

Welfare-to-Work is the employment and training part of California Work Opportunity and Responsibility for Kids, CalWORKs (California version of TANF program). It helps participants receiving public assistance to leave welfare and to achieve self-sufficiency through gainful employment. The program attempts to make recipients more employable by offering them education, training, and work to help them transfer from temporary subsidized to permanent unsubsidized employment. However, the ability of TANF recipients to exit and to find a permanent job is often limited by the work barriers they face (Lee, J & Vinokur, A., 2007). There is a strong connection between the barriers and employment outcomes. The likelihood of sustaining a job declines as the number of barriers increases. Securing unsubsidized employment in a competitive labor market is challenging for Welfare-to-Work participants with work barriers such as limited education and work experience, language barriers, transportation, and others. Loprest and Zedlewski stated that welfare participants are not able to attain jobs with wages above the official U.S. poverty level (Loprest & Zedlewski, 2011). Moreover, participants with inadequate human capital, such as a low level of education and work experience, suffer from low self - esteem and self -efficacy (Kunz., J & Kalil., A., 1999). Welfare- to- Work participants suffering from low self-esteem may find it harder to be more optimistic about improving their education and employment, and overall, to believe that their efforts will have positive results. Insufficient and inadequate job readiness training does not prepare participants properly for future employment assignments. It hurts their self-esteem and self-efficacy at the workplace; therefore, it could be considered a barrier to employment (Kunz & Kalil., 1999). Employment for Welfare-to-Work participants is a stable income source that could support their families, improve their quality of life, and reduce poverty. Additionally, it will help them avoid long-term dependence on public assistance, reducing the government's burden by decreasing the number of caseloads. Unemployment, on the other side, can have negative health consequences on participants. "It could be a source of depression, low self-esteem, and other stress-related issues" (Kunz, J., & Kalil, A. 1999). According to Kunz, there is a direct link between unemployment and the participants' health condition. The longer they stay on welfare rolls, the higher the chances of having low self-esteem and self-efficacy, and depression, making it harder to focus on getting employed (Kunz, J., & Kalil, A. 1999). The research aims to identify the participant's employment barriers and their impact on their employment outcomes. The research results could help Welfare-to-Work program administrators to adjust some program parts with recipients' needs and employers' requirements. They should give welfare recipients facing employment barriers a real chance for success, instead of placing them in work assignments without assessing their skills and weaknesses, which will inevitably fail. Assessment of participants' weaknesses can identify potential barriers they face, so specialized supportive services can be implemented quickly (Loprest & Zedlewski, 2011).