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Head-of-household applicants for Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) who were required to participate in GAIN were randomly assigned to the intervention or comparison group at program orientation. Random assignment began in July 1989 and concluded by June 1990. This review focuses on impacts on heads of households in two-parent families in Alameda, CA. Other reviews on this site focus on heads of households in other California counties and on single parents in all counties.
Random assignment took place in January 1987 through June 1990. Data were collected up to five years after random assignment.
California State Department of Social Services
About 93 percent of single-parent sample members were female. Fewer than half (46 percent) had earned a high school diploma or GED, and 90 percent were unemployed at the time of randomization. Sample members were predominantly Hispanic (45 percent) and African American (31 percent); about one-fifth (20 percent) demonstrated limited English proficiency. The average sample member was between 33 and 34 years old and had two children.
California State Department of Social Services and county staff
The California legislature passed GAIN in 1985 as a replacement for the state's earlier Work Incentive Program.
Applicants for AFDC deemed eligible for GAIN and assigned to the intervention group received various services based on their educational attainment and assessed skills as of the time the program began. Supportive services, including assistance with child care and transportation, were immediately available to ensure that participants could take part in program activities. Participants first took a basic skills test and were assigned to a case manager. Individuals who lacked basic education (such as a high school diploma or general education diploma), who received low scores on the math or reading sections of the basic skills test, or who were not proficient in English entered basic education courses for three weeks before receiving job search assistance. GAIN clients who had initiated education or training (of a type deemed by the client’s case manager to be aligned with the client’s employment goals) before entering the program could pursue that activity if their case manager deemed it beneficial; those clients remained eligible for GAIN services for up to two years. All other participants first received job search assistance. Job search assistance included job clubs, supervised job searches, and connections to local employers with the assistance of a job developer. If, after completing the first series of activities, a GAIN program member did not find employment, program staff helped those clients assess career goals and develop an employment plan. GAIN clients would then undergo formal assessments and undertake further activities, including vocational or on-the-job training, unpaid work experience, supported work (paid work experience in a group), additional training, or additional education, in keeping with the employment plan.
Participants in the comparison group were AFDC applicants who were not eligible for GAIN services, including child care reimbursement. They could seek out comparable services elsewhere in the community.
Single parents with children older than 3 were required to participate or face sanctions.
Clients continued in GAIN until they found employment, left GAIN, or were exempted from the program for other reasons.
California State Department of Social Services
This report focuses on six California counties that implemented GAIN: Alameda, Butte, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, and Tulare. The program took place through each county's welfare income maintenance office.
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I am unable to edit the last two citations for this study. Please replace them with these correctly formatted citations:
Riccio, James, Daniel Friedlander, and Stephen Freedman (1994). GAIN: Benefits, costs, and three-year impacts of a welfare-to-work program, New York: MDRC.
Freedman, Stephen, Daniel Friedlander, Winston Lin, and Amanda Schweder (1996). The GAIN evaluation: Five-year impacts on employment, earnings, and AFDC receipt, New York: MDRC.