TANF Work First and Time Limits

In 1996, the welfare system to support poor families in the U.S. was changed to focus above all on moving welfare recipients off the welfare rolls into paid employment. In North Carolina, the new program is called Work First. Each county has its own Work First plan and program. With support from the Institute for Nonprofits and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, a team of faculty members, graduate students, and nonprofit professionals has studied the implementation of Work First in North Carolina.

The main focus for this research is variation from county to county in the way Work First functions, especially in how nonprofit organizations take part. We invite you to examine the following products of this ongoing research:

“Serving Poor Families: Differences in Work First Service Delivery among North Carolina Counties” by Barbara Risman, Julia Noveske, Tiffany Taylor, and Jeffrey Leiter, a report prepared for the Institute for Nonprofits, October 2006.
"Inter-Organizational Arrangements and the Role of Nonprofits in Delivering TANF Work First Services in North Carolina" by Tiffany Taylor, Jeffrey Leiter, Barbara J. Risman, Julie Noveske, and Elizabeth Seale, a paper presented by Tiffany Taylor to the annual meeting of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA), November 2006.
"Poverty and Work First Case Figures for North Carolina Counties” by Lizzy Seale and Jeff Leiter, February 2007.

TANF Work First research team discusses project goals.

Current work is centered in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology.

Contacts are:
Tiffany Taylor, NCSU Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology
tltaylo2@sa.ncsu.edu

Jeff Leiter, NCSU Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology & Institute for Nonprofits
jeff_leiter@ncsu.edu

Other team members include: Alison Buck, Elizabeth Seale, Joy Piontak, Hope Homesley, Christine Armstrong, and Gretchen McHenry.

Other participants have included:
Barbara Risman, NCSU Dept. of Sociology
Andrew Behnke, NCSU Dept. of Family and Consumer Sciences
Antowanna Blount, Triangle Family Services
Karen DeBord, NCSU Dept. of Family and Consumer Sciences
Dean Duncan, UNC Dept. of Social Work
Tina Morris-Anderson, NCSU Dept. of Public Admin. & Dept. of Labor
Lois Slade, N.C. Smart Start
Jocelyn Taliaferro, NCSU Dept. of Social Work