Citation
Mills, G., Gubits, D., Orr, L., Long, D., Feins, J., Kaul, B., & Wood, M. (2006). Effects of housing vouchers on welfare families: Final report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Highlights
- The study’s objective was to examine the impact of the Welfare-to-Work housing voucher on employment, earnings, and public benefit receipt.
- The authors allocated the available vouchers by lottery to eligible families who were willing to participate in the study. Using Unemployment Insurance (UI), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), housing assistance administrative data, and baseline and follow-up surveys, the authors compared the outcomes of those randomly assigned to receive a voucher with outcomes of those who were not, adjusting for chance preintervention differences between the groups.
- The study found that the Welfare-to-Work vouchers increased the likelihood of receiving TANF benefits in the third half-year (months 12–18) after random assignment by 2.1 percentage points and the likelihood of receiving Food Stamps in the same period by 2.5 percentage points.
- The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is high because it was based on a well-implemented randomized controlled trial. This means we are confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the Welfare-to-Work voucher and not to other factors.
Intervention Examined
The Welfare-to-Work Voucher Program
Features of the Intervention
The Welfare-to-Work voucher program provided low-income families in six study sites with housing assistance to help them successfully transition from welfare to work. Participants received rental assistance vouchers that they could use to rent any unit in the private rental market as long as it met U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development standards and was priced similarly to unassisted units in the same market. Housing agencies could terminate rental assistance if clients did not participate in required work or training activities.
Features of the Study
The authors allocated the available vouchers by lottery to eligible families who were willing to participate in the study. Using UI, TANF, housing assistance administrative data, and baseline and follow-up surveys, the authors compared the outcomes of those randomly assigned to receive a voucher with the outcomes of those who were not, adjusting for chance preintervention differences between the groups.
The authors randomly assigned 8,731 families into treatment or control groups across six sites. The evaluation had access to administrative data on TANF receipt and benefit amount outcomes for five of the six sites (Los Angeles was excluded) and on Food Stamps for four of the six sites (Los Angeles and Fresno were excluded). The evaluation assessed other outcomes based on unemployment insurance administrative data and a survey of a randomly selected subsample of families in the study. Families were eligible for the survey if they enrolled in one of the five non-Los Angeles sites, completed a baseline survey, and had a dependent, minor child in their household at baseline.
Study Sites
- Atlanta, Georgia
- Augusta, Georgia
- Fresno, California
- Houston, Texas
- Los Angeles, California
- Spokane, Washington
Findings
- The study found that the Welfare-to-Work vouchers increased the likelihood of receiving TANF in the third half-year (months 12–18) after random assignment by 2.1 percentage points.
- Vouchers increased the likelihood of receiving Food Stamps in the third half-year after random assignment by 2.5 percentage points.
Considerations for Interpreting the Findings
The authors estimated multiple related impacts on outcomes related to public benefit receipt. Performing multiple statistical tests on related outcomes makes it more likely that some impacts will be found statistically significant purely by chance and not because they reflect program effectiveness. The authors did not perform statistical adjustments to account for the multiple tests, so the number of statistically significant findings in these domains is likely to be overstated.
Causal Evidence Rating
The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is high because it was based on a well-implemented randomized controlled trial. This means we are confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the Welfare-to-Work voucher, and not to other factors.