The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 and related legislation in Pennsylvania represent a major shift in welfare policy away from cash relief, even for mothers of young children. The legislation also removes alcoholism and substance dependence from the list of disabilities for which SSI is extended. In Philadelphia, some 50,000 individuals not currently in the work force must, as beneficiaries of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), obtain jobs by 1999 or lose benefits. The 50,000 persons include an unknown number with current or previous substance abuse problems, estimated by the City to be as many as 25,000. A large body of research has shown that individuals who misuse substances, as well as individuals on welfare, frequently have poor histories of finding and maintaining employment. The proposed research is a panel study of 800 TANF recipients who enroll in Department of Public Welfare funded and mandated 8 week Rapid Attachment model Job Readiness and Job Club training programs to help them obtain employment and become independent of welfare. Subjects will be interviewed with a battery of psychosocial and psychological tests, including the Addiction Severity Index, following enrollment at two providers (Resources for Human Development and Impact Services Corporation) of Rapid Attachment training for clients in high poverty areas of Philadelphia. Subjects will be interviewed again at 3, 6, 12, 18, and 24 months after training. A structural equation model will evaluate relationships among base-line substance use, psychological/psychiatric symptoms, and welfare/work history; process measures of Job Readiness Training and loss of welfare benefits; and outcome measures of employment status, substance use, psychological/psychiatric status, and overall living status at follow-up. Specific hypotheses about the role of substance abuse in determining outcomes will also be evaluated. The results of this study should prove useful to policy makers in allocating scarce welfare and job training resources and in addressing needs of welfare recipients with problems of drug and/or alcohol abuse.
