Report: Arkansas's welfare-to-work program should do better

[Thom Little]

Arkansas' welfare-to-work program isn't quite getting its own job done, an independent evaluator says.

The state's Transitional Employment Assistance program needs to improve its efforts to find welfare recipients work and increase their earnings, Shawn Smith, a researcher with Isthmus Research and Consulting in Madison, Wis., told a House and Senate panel on public health, welfare and labor Tuesday.

Smith said few clients in Arkansas' program are able to escape poverty even when they find jobs and not all program participants are receiving the services they need. Citing a June report prepared for the state, Smith said about 70 percent of welfare-to-work clients are not working or participating in work-related activities for at least 30 hours per week.

The average earnings for welfare-to-work clients who find work is less than $513 a month, the report found. Twelve percent of the clients who find work ultimately live above the poverty level, Smith said.


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