The good news is Utah has been successful in implementing welfare reform.
The bad news is the most difficult work still lies ahead.That was the message of Mary Daly, a Federal Reserve economist, who spoke Thursday to the Central Region council on Work Force Services and has researched the effects of welfare on the nation's work force.
Daly said Utah's strong economy and low-unemployment rate helped officials get people who were once on welfare into the work force more easily. But the people who remain on welfare assistance and the ones with the most barriers, will be the most difficult to find jobs for.
Daly said women who are heads of households have been most effected by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act singed by President Clinton in August 1996.
Her research indicates women who head households have gone into the work force at a greater number than married women, teens or adult black males, all of whom she has also studied. Eighty percent of women who maintain households, meaning they are the main wage earner, have children under 18. Though numbers indicate more people are entering the work force, Daly said it is impossible to really know whether welfare reform is working and partly responsible for the change. some critics say the increased work force in more connected to a strong economy than to the welfare reform bill itself, Daly said.
Another cause could be the "announcement effect," which occurred when state providers began job coaching differently and focusing on getting people into the work force more quickly because of clinton's announcement and not because of the actual legislation.
Utah has reduced its welfare caseload more than 25 percent since 1995. And the state continues to be in a good situation with one of the fastest growing economies in the nation and unemployment hovering near 2 percent.
In contrast, California alone has 50 percent of the nation's welfard cases that need to be dissolved.
"You are so far ahead of the game, you can look at your neighbor California and feel good about what you've done so far, Daly said.